by Aaron Klein
Here are twelve significant problems with the Benghazi section of Clinton’s book.
1) CLINTON CLAIMS NO RESPONSIBLE FOR BENGHAZI SECURITY.
Denying a personal role in the decision-making process regarding security of the compound, Clinton writes that she did not see the cables requesting additional security.
She claims cables related to the security at the compound were only addressed to her as a “procedural quirk” and didn’t actually land on her desk.
Clinton writes: “That’s not how it works. It shouldn’t. And it didn’t.”1
However, as documented in chapter 7 of this book, the Senate’s January 2014 report on the Benghazi attack reveals lawmakers found that the Benghazi facility required special waivers to be legally occupied, since it did not meet the minimum official security standards set by the State Department. Some of the waivers could only have been signed by Clinton herself.
Clinton would have a lot of explaining to do if she signed waivers allowing the facility to be legally occupied without reviewing the U.S. special mission’s security posture.
Further, as noted in this book, the Senate found it was Clinton’s top deputies, including officials known to be close to the Clintons, who were responsible for some major denials of security at the compound.
For some lawmakers, it defies logic that Clinton was not informed, especially since she was known to have taken a particular interest in the Benghazi facility. She reportedly called for the compound to be converted into a permanent mission before a scheduled trip to Libya in December 2012 that eventually was canceled.
2) CLINTON MISREPRESENTS STEVENS’ REASON FOR VISITING BENGHAZI.
Clinton suggests that Ambassador Christopher Stevens traveled to Benghazi before the attacks and implies he took meetings at the U.S. special mission that ill-fated night on his own initiative.
Clinton writes: “U.S. Ambassadors are not required to consult or seek approval from Washington when traveling within their countries, and rarely do. Like all Chiefs of Mission, Chris made decisions about his movements based on the security assessments of his team on the ground, as well as his own judgment. After all, no one had more knowledge or experience in Libya than he did.”2
She writes that Stevens “understood Benghazi’s strategic importance in Libya and decided that the value of a visit outweighed the risks.” She does not provide the actual reason for Stevens’ visit to the Benghazi compound.3
Clinton failed to mention Stevens may have gone to Benghazi for a project that she specifically requested.
Recall in chapter 7 I cited congressional testimony by Gregory Hicks, the former State Department deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires who was in Libya at the time of the attack, Stevens went to the compound that day in part because Clinton wanted to convert the shanty complex into a permanent mission in a symbol of the new Libya.
Hicks said Clinton wanted to announce the establishment of a permanent U.S. State Department facility during her planned visit there in December 2012. Apparently Stevens was up against a very specific funding deadline to complete an extensive survey of the mission so the compound could be converted.
He further testified that in May 2012, during a meeting with Clinton, Stevens promised he would give priority to making sure the U.S. facility at Benghazi was transformed into a permanent constituent post. Hicks said Stevens himself wanted to make a symbolic gesture to the people of Benghazi that the United States “stood behind their dream of establishing a new democracy.”
3) CLINTON WHITEWASHES HER OWN BENGHAZI STATEMENT.
At about 10 p.m. Eastern on September 11, 2012, Clinton was one of the first Obama administration officials to make a public statement about the Benghazi attacks.
In her book, Clinton writes: “As the cameras snapped away, I laid out the facts as we knew them – ‘heavily armed militants’ had assaulted our compound and killed our people – and assured Americans that we were doing everything possible to keep safe our personnel and citizens around the world. I also offered prayers for the families of the victims and praise for the diplomats who serve our country and our values all over the world.”4
Clinton fails to mention that in her initial statement she also first linked the Benghazi attacks to the infamous anti-Islam film.
Her brief official statement included this: “Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”5
4) CLINTON LIED ABOUT THE LOCATION OF NEAREST SPECIAL FORCES.
Clinton wrongly writes that the closest U.S. special forces that could have responded to the attacks were “standing by in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but they would take several hours to muster and were more than five thousand miles away.”6
She continued: “Critics have questioned why the world’s greatest military force could not get to Benghazi in time to defend our people. Part of the answer is that, despite having established United States Africa Command in 2008, there just wasn’t much U.S. military infrastructure in place in Africa.”7
It has been confirmed, as I extensively documented in chapter 3, that Special Forces known as C-110, or the EUCOM CIF, were on a training mission in Croatia the night of the attacks. The distance between Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, and Benghazi is about 925 miles. The C-110 is a rapid-response team that exists for emergencies like terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies abroad.
Instead of being deployed to Libya, the C-110 was told the night of the attacks to return to its normal operating base in Germany.
5) CLINTON CLAIMED BEST INTELLIGENCE SUGGESTED A VIDEO SPARKED THE ATTACK.
Clinton defended the actions of then United Nations ambassador Susan Rice, who on Sunday, September 16, 2012, infamously appeared on five morning television programs to offer the official Obama administration response to the Benghazi attack. In nearly identical statements, Rice asserted that the attack was a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”
Writes Clinton: “Susan stated what the intelligence community believed, rightly or wrongly, at the time. That was the best she or anyone could do. Every step of the way, whenever something new was learned, it was quickly shared with Congress and the American people. There is a difference between getting something wrong, and committing wrong. A big difference that some have blurred to the point of casting those who made a mistake as intentionally deceitful.”8
Clinton’s claim that the intelligence community believed the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video” is called into question by numerous revelations.
Stevens’ deputy Hicks testified he knew immediately it was a terrorist attack, not a protest turned violent. According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”9
The CIA’s station chief in Libya reportedly e-mailed his superiors on the day of the attack that it was “not an escalation of anti-American protest.”10
The claim of a popular protest also defies logic, as I noted repeatedly in this book. Spontaneous protesters do not show up with weapons, erect armed checkpoints surrounding a compound, and demonstrate insider knowledge of a facility while deploying military-style tactics to storm a U.S. mission. Nor do spontaneous protesters know the exact location of a secretive CIA annex, including the specific coordinates of a building likely utilized to launch precision mortar strikes. Spontaneous protesters are not thought to be capable of mounting a fierce, hours-long gun battle with U.S. forces stationed inside the annex.
Interestingly, Clinton’s own description of the attacks does not contain any account of popular protests. She writes the attack began when, “without warning, dozens of armed men appeared at the gates of the compound, overwhelmed the local Libyan guard
s, and streamed inside. They set fires as they went.”11
6) CLINTON DENIES ORDERING LOCAL CIA AGENTS TO DELAY STORMING THE COMPOUND.
Clinton does not mention any delay in the response by the CIA officers stationed about one mile from the Benghazi mission at a nearby secretive CIA annex.
She relates: “From the moment the CIA station learned their fellow Americans were under attack, a response team prepared to launch a rescue. They could hear explosions in the distance and quickly assembled their weapons and prepared to deploy. Two vehicles of armed officers left the CIA post for the diplomatic compound about twenty minutes after the attack had begun…. When the CIA team arrived, they split up to secure the compound and joined the DS agents in the search of the burning building.”12
Clinton leaves out the fact that CIA agents who were on the ground in Benghazi testified to lawmakers they were loaded into vehicles and ready to aid the besieged U.S. special mission on September 11, 2012, but were told by superiors to “wait,” according to reports.
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), head of the House intelligence subcommittee that interviewed the CIA employees, explained that while there was no “stand-down order,” there was a disagreement at the nearby CIA annex about how quickly to respond. Westmoreland revealed that some CIA agents wanted to storm the Benghazi compound immediately, but they were told to wait while the agency collected intelligence on the ongoing attack.13
7) CLINTON CONTINUES TO PROMOTE A QUESTIONABLE “LULL IN THE FIGHTING” NARRATIVE.
In recounting the attacks, Clinton promotes the Obama administration narrative of a lull in the fighting.
She writes: “The drone was redirected to Benghazi and arrived on station roughly ninety minutes after the attack began, providing U.S. security and intelligence officials another way to monitor what was happening on the ground. Around that time the Operations Center reported that gunfire at the compound had subsided and our security forces were attempting to locate missing personnel. That was a chilling phrase. Much of the mob had withdrawn, but for how long?”14
However, witnesses on the ground, including CIA contractors who were inside the annex, said there was no lull in the fighting at all, as first reported by the Daily Beast.15
The lull claim was central to the Obama administration’s explanation for why no air support or special forces were deployed to Benghazi, with the White House and State officials saying they believed the attack had finished and were taken by surprise when it continued.
8) CLINTON CLAIMS SHE DID NOT IGNORE SECURITY REQUESTS.
Regarding security at the Benghazi mission, Clinton writes:
Though security upgrades had been made to the Benghazi compound – including extending the height of the outer wall with masonry concrete and barbed wire; installing external lighting, concrete vehicle barriers, guard booths, and sandbag emplacements; hardening wooden doors with steel and reinforced locks; and adding equipment to detect explosives – the review board determined that these precautions were simply inadequate in an increasingly dangerous city.16
Clinton failed to mention her deputies were responsible for some of the most shocking security decisions made regarding the Benghazi compound.
As documented in chapter 7 of this book, it was State Department undersecretary Patrick Kennedy who canceled the use in Tripoli of a DC-3 aircraft that could have aided in the evacuation of the Benghazi victims. Kennedy also nonsensically denied guard towers to the Benghazi mission and approved the withdrawal of Security Support Teams, or SST, special U.S. forces specifically maintained for counterattacks on U.S. embassies or threats against diplomatic personnel. The Senate’s January 2014 Benghazi report found Kennedy’s withdrawal of the SST was made “despite compelling requests from personnel in Libya that the team be allowed to stay.”17
9) CLINTON BLAMES TALKING POINTS ON THE CIA.
Clinton placed the blame for the controversial talking points squarely with the CIA without mentioning the State Department contributed to the manufacturing of the points.
“The extensive public record now makes clear that Susan (Rice) was using information that originated with and was approved by the CIA,” she writes. “That assessment didn’t come from political operatives in the White House; it came from career professionals in the intelligence community.”18
The Senate’s January 2014 report reveals that State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland played an active role in crafting the talking point,s as did Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan.19
10) CLINTON FALSELY CLAIMS SHE IMPLEMENTED ALL ACCOUNTABILITY REVIEW BOARD (ARB) RECOMMENDATIONS.
In her book, Clinton writes matter-of-factly: “The review board made twenty-nine specific recommendations (twenty-four unclassified) to address the deficiencies it found in areas such as training, fire safety, staffing, and threat analysis.”20
She relates: “I agreed with all twenty-nine and immediately accepted them. I pledged that I would not leave office until every recommendation was on its way to implementation. By the time I left, we had met that goal.”21
The ARB, known for minimizing Clinton’s complicity in the attacks, singled out four unnamed State officials guilty of “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” that contributed to the “grossly inadequate” security situation in Benghazi.22
Unabashed House Republicans, writing in a House Majority report, had no problem naming the four officials, all of whom served directly under Clinton.
The four officials were revealed to be Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Diplomatic Security Scott Bultrowicz, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Diplomatic Security for International Programs Charlene Lamb and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Maghreb Affairs Raymond Maxwell.23
Despite State proclamations that those responsible would be disciplined or removed, three of the officials were reassigned to new posts. Maxwell voluntarily retired, which he had planned to do in 2012 before being delayed by the turmoil of the so-called Arab Spring. Maxwell was later found to not have contributed to security decisions in Benghazi, while the other three officials were reportedly involved in the ultimately disastrous decisions.
The House singled out Charlene Lamb, who worked closely with Clinton, for her “unwillingness to provide additional security personnel” to the Benghazi facility.
11) CLINTON BLAMES THE CAIRO PROTESTS.
Clinton seeks to connect the Benghazi jihadist assaults to popular civilian protests that took place the same day outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo. She claimed the Cairo protests were about the anti-Islam film, which led to the belief the Benghazi assaults were also about the film.
“Half a world away in Cairo, young men began gathering in the street outside the U.S. Embassy as part of a protest organized by hard-line Islamist leaders against the insulting video,” she writes.24
However, as documented in several chapters in this book, the Cairo protests were announced days in advance as part of a movement to free the so-called blind sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the United States for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Rahman’s son, Abdallah Abdel Rahman, even went so far as to threaten to storm the U.S. embassy in Cairo and detain the employees inside.
In fact, on the day of the September 11, 2012, protests in Cairo, CNN’s Nic Robertson interviewed Rahman’s son, who described the protest as being about freeing his father. No Muhammad film was mentioned. A big banner calling for Rahman’s release can be seen as Robertson walked to the embassy protests. No such banners were seen in protest of the Muhammad film.
12) CLINTON RELIED ON A QUESTIONABLE NEW YORK TIMES PIECE.
Clinton writes that the New York Times later proved in an investigation that the Muhammad video was “indeed a factor” in what happened in Benghazi.
“There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives,” she writes. “It is inaccurate to sta
te that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well.”25
Clinton was referring to a December 28, 2013, New York Times piece by David D. Kirkpatrick titled “A Deadly Mix in Benghazi.”
See chapter 9 of this book, where I extensively question the veracity of Kirkpatrick’s piece, showing that various details in his article were negated by the U.S. government, Benghazi victims, and numerous previous news reports. Kirkpatrick’s piece is even contradicted by his own previous reporting, as I found.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Amie Parnes, “Obama: Extremists used film ‘as an excuse’ to harm US interests,” The Hill, September 20, 2012, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/250813-obama-extremists-used-film-as-an-excuse-to-harm-us-interests.
2. “Transcript: Whistle-blower’s account of Sept. 11 Libya terror attack,” Fox News, May 8, 2013, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/08/transcript-whistle-blower-account-sept-11-libya-terror-attack/.
3. Catherine Herridge, “Report sheds light on ex-CIA deputy director’s role in Benghazi talking points,” Fox News, February 4, 2014, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/04/report-sheds-light-on-ex-cia-director-role-in-benghazi-talking-points/.
4. US Department of State, “Unclassified” ARB Report, 22–27, accessed February 26, 2014, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf.
5. Eli Lake, “CIA Contractor Testimony Could Undermine Obama on Benghazi,” The Daily Beast November 6, 2013 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/06/cia-contractor-testimony-could-undermine-obama-on-benghazi.html.
