In a dispatch sent the day he was killed, Ambassador Christopher Stevens described how the militias keeping the peace in Benghazi threatened to quit over a political feud. Eli Lake reports.
Just two days before the 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, two leaders of the Libyan militias responsible for keeping order in the city threatened to withdraw their men.
The brinksmanship is detailed in a cable approved by Ambassador Chris Stevens and sent on the day he died in the attack, the worst assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission since the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran. The dispatch, which was marked “sensitive” but not “classified,” contained a number of other updates on the chaotic situation on the ground in post-Gaddafi Libya.
The cable, reviewed by The Daily Beast, recounts how the two militia leaders, Wissam bin Ahmed and Muhammad al-Gharabi, accused the United States of supporting Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the Libyan transitional government, to be the country’s first elected prime minister. Jibril’s centrist National Forces Alliance won the popular vote in Libyan elections in July, but he lost the prime minister vote in the country’s Parliament on Sept. 12 by 94 to 92. Had he won, bin Ahmed and al-Gharabi warned they “would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” the cable reads. The man who beat Jibril, Mustafa Abushagur, lost a vote of no-confidence Sunday, throwing Libyan politics back into further uncertainty.
The threat from the militias underscores the dangers of relying on local Libyan forces for security in the run-up to the 9/11 military-style assault. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi employed a militia called the “February 17 Martyrs Brigade” for security of the four-building compound. In addition, there were five Americans serving as diplomatic security and a group of former special operations forces that acted as a quick reaction force on the day of the 9/11 attack. Members of the militias led by bin-Ahmed and al-Gharabi overlapped with the February 17 militia, the cable says.
Jason Chaffetz, the Republican lawmaker who has led the House Oversight and Government Reform committee’s investigation into the 9/11 attack, says the State Department actually decreased U.S. diplomatic security personnel in the months leading up to the attack.
The cable, titled “Benghazi Weekly Report – September 11, 2012,” notes the dangerous environment in eastern Libya. It does not, however, make a specific plea to Washington for more personnel or more security upgrades, and concludes that much of the violence in the country consists of Libyans attacking other Libyans, as opposed to specific plots directed at the West. Indeed, it says that in a meeting with Stevens, members of the Benghazi Local Council said security in their city was improving.
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At the same time, the cable makes no mention of the anti-Muslim YouTube video or planned protests at the consulate, two key pillars of the Obama administration’s initial narrative on the 9/11 attacks.
Chaffetz, who visited Tripoli on Saturday, told The Daily Beast he has obtained documents and conducted interviews with whistle blowers that show the U.S. mission Libya did request more security from Washington in the run-up to the attack, but was denied. “Regional security officers were denied requests for more personnel and security upgrades to the four buildings and the perimeter security of the U.S. mission in Benghazi,” he told The Daily Beast on Sunday. More details on that negotiation will likely come out on Wednesday, when Chaffetz will hold his committee’s first hearing on the Benghazi attack.
The cable in some ways is bittersweet. It provides a snapshot of U.S. activities in Libya’s second-largest city before the assault that killed Stevens and three other Americans. It acknowledged the rise of Islamist forces in the militias and in the nearby city of Dernaa, a hotbed of al Qaeda recruiting in the last decade. In that city, an outfit called the “Abu-Salim Brigade” was beginning to enforce a harsh version of Islamic law that prohibited any co-mingling of men and women at the local university. One correspondent with the late ambassador urged him to send someone to Dernaa to “see the truth for yourselves.”
But the cable also details how the U.S. mission in Libya was optimistic about Libya’s future. The cable described plans for something called “the American space” in Benghazi. The new facility would contain “a small library, computer lab, and open space for programming.” It said the new facility has already been used for a dialogue on foreign policy with young Libyans.
Eli Lake is the senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek and the Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for theWashington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
All Hillary Clinton has done for the last 3.5 years is run around the world drinking beer and dancing around like some kind of idiot. She is beyond incompetent and should either step down or be fired.
Instead of providing Secret Service protection to an undeserving Valerie Jarrett, why don't we just hire the February 17 Martyrs Brigade to do that for her?
Hillary should be tendering her resignation last week.
"The former head of a Special Forces "Site Security Team" in Libya tells CBS News that in spite of multiple pleas from himself and other U.S. security officials on the ground for "more, not less" security personnel, the State Department removed as many as 34 people from the country in the six months before a terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. Lt. Col. Andy Wood will appear this week at a House Oversight Committee hearing that will examine security decisions leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. Speaking to CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, Wood said when he found out that his own 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite force were being pulled from Tripoli in August - about a month before the assault in Benghazi - he felt, "like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. There was concern amongst the entire embassy staff."
We certainly now know why Obama and Rice were willfully lying and covering up this epic failure that got 4 Americans killed..
@HillBilly@resistwemuch Bush's problem in Iraq was that he listened to Henry Kissinger. In Kissinger's book, he admits giving Bush bad advice when he KNEW it was bad, but Kissinger's rep was such that Bush believed him. Kissinger said he wanted to get back into the circle of power and was willing to do anything to get there. The blood is on his hands.
The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of Idiots such as those who made him their president.
This is an absolutely spot-on, astute statement. Take heart candid, there are a lot of the thinking population out here. its just that we are not activists, we don't pick fights, we are live and let live. We are thinkers, not reacters to emotions. We simply must get involved in politics, even if it just voting regularly, making a contribution, and contacting our representatives. No longer can it be "they don't bother me in DC, and I don't bother them". Because they do bother us.
Does the confederacy of fools also include all of the special ops, "private contractor" and state department personnel who follow orders and go along with the Prince or are they exempt from "owning it"?
@HillBilly Actually, they have some ownership too in a way. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but that ambassador could have postponed or cancelled any trip to Benghazi. Given what he knew at the time, I don't understand why he didn't. Why was Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi in the first place? I would really like to know.
@candidviews1 Fake, fake, fake. Posting that is a cop-out. obama was not elected by anyone -- the election was FRAUD pure and simple. Don't you remember ACORN? And the 200 + felony convictions for election fraud in Minnesota? Instead of posting this passage which has been like a bad chain email posted over and over again, try adding something ORIGINAL to the conversation.
@HillBilly @candidviews1 There WERE WMDs in Iraq; they were moved to Syria right before we invaded. There was an article a couple of weeks ago about how Syria was trying to move them back out again before the ### hit the fan there.
Why do you think Hussein had bunkers full of hazmat suits, and mass graves with hundreds of thousands of his own people buried in them?
@Eliot Eliot. You have been listening to way too much Hannity and Rush. Even dubya Bush has conceded that there were no WMD in Iraq. The WMD that we went to war with Iraq over are a figment of neo-con wet dreams. It would actually be nice if they did find some in Syria stamped Made in Iraq but there are none. So, for time into eternity the myth will continue to be that Iraq's WMD were moved to Syria.
I say send Hil/Barry over there tonight and put them in the consulate with the same amount of care and concern as our 4 dead Americans. Now talk about a 3am wakeup call!
@7thFleetVet Cocoa Wonder Boy is an offensive term. Maybe you are a secret Obama supporter trolling to make the other side look like idiots who rely on slurs to make a point. If you are a true vet, you need to apologize to restore the dignity your status as a veteran otherwise deserves.
"Leading from Behind" Is "Smart Power"--or something
All Obama seems to manage to do is "lead from behind." I'mpretty confident that Paul Ryan will manage to let Biden do someleading from behind himself later this week.
In the first 2012 Presidential debate, Obama was utterly unable to'disarm' Romney in person, or 'discredit' his statements.
So the very next day and each day since Obama has proceeded to try todo it behind Romney's back, where no one will call him out on hismendacity or misstatements.
I guess this is yet another example of Obama's signature strategy of"leading from behind."
I mean, heck, that's the way it's been so far. Where Romney goes,Obama follows. Obama calls this "Leading from Behind."
Romney goes to Israel. Obama, who hasn't gone to Israel this entireterm (even though he has traveled extensively in surrounding Arabstates), immediately and in a bit of a snit (just as we all saw lastnight also), says 'if I'm elected for another term, I'll go toIsrael, so it's no biggie that Mitt went first. But I'll toss them alittle money just in case. Everyone loves that free taxpayer money!'
Then Romney went to tour the hurricane damage in Louisiana, and dowhat he could to help and comfort people there. Obama, ourpresident, hadn't bothered to go, he was too busy campaigning. Butsoon as he finds out Mitt went, he canceled a few fundraisers, andafter going to a few more campaign events first anyhow, goes toLouisiana.
The one place Obama didn't follow, was when Romney said London didn'tseem fully prepared for the Olympics – at the same time it wasbeing widely reported that London officials were saying the samething. This, according to the mainstream media was a foreign policydisaster – on Romney's part. For saying exactly what LondonOlympic, police, and other officials were already publicly reporting.
Next Romney comes out with a quite reasonable and mature statement onthe embassy attacks, four hours after Reuters reported the firstmurder there. Romney said that it was wrong for our embassy underthe Obama Administration to come out against free speech and fail tocondemn violence against our Ambassador and staff on our soil (yes,embassies and consulates by treaty are considered to be part of thecountry they represent, not part of the country they are in).... andyet again, leading from behind after the fact, hour12 hours laterObama finally mentions the attacks, saying basically the same thingwith a bit of waffling thrown in for good measure.
Obama proceeds to lie to all of us about it for the next three weeks.Is that some aspect of "leading from behind" too, that Ijust don't happen to understand?
And the Obama loving sycophantic media piles on Romney for supposedlymisspeaking. Brilliant.
This was gross dereliction on the part of Obama and the State Department.
Obama provided our military air support, arms, and some troops on the ground to overthrow the Libyan government and install this one. This Libyan government is courtesy of Obama. It's also clearly very new, and very unstable, and it's well known that terrorists are thick in the Benghazi region, yet he utterly failed to ensure that our Embassy and consulate there had sufficient security, even after 4 attacks since June on this Ambassador and our facilities there, and 13 security-related incidents in Benghazi, several of which were previously unreported, during the six months before the attack, with the 9/11 anniversary coming up, AND receiving actionable intelligence and advanced warning 3 days in advance of the attacks!! Just how much more of an example of a completely empty chair do you need?
In the past year and a half, Obama only attended 38% of his daily presidential security/intelligence briefings (before that it was less than 50%), and ZERO in the week prior to the 9/11 anniversary for gawd's sake!
Then after the attack and murder of our Ambassador and staff, Obama stays silent for almost a full day. Then he lies to us for the next three weeks. It takes over two weeks for us to discover that multiple requests for increased security were refused by the State Department. Then 3 week after the fact we discover that State Department withdrew 16-member special forces team from Benghazi one month before 9/11/12 terrorist attack. It also took 3 full weeks before they got the FBI in to even examine the crime scene - but CNN was able to walk right in 4 days after the attack to the unsecured facility, and pick up the Ambassadors notebook off the floor and walk off with it. Reports are that sensitive intelligence documents were left behind also.
Just how many more examples of a completely empty chair and an empty suit do people need? (because there are a number of such eye openers that I can provide on issues other than Libya)
@Rational Db8 Stevens, our military, our Libyan thugs, our "private contractors" were all full fledged, card-carrying, plank-owning participant in this entire keystone cops fiasco. You can't have a mess like this without the full co-operation and undivided effort of everyone involved. It was stupid idea to begin with where all participating parties thought they get away with overthrowing a Libyan government and installing a new one all on the cheap with no adverse side effects or consequences to themselves. Not even close to being just Obama's fault.
@hatch123@HillBilly@Rational Db8 Of course Obama was responsible- along with EVERYBODY else who was involved. Leaving The Ambassador Stevens show aside for a second- the problem with guys like you is that you never admit that the stuff that happened on Bush's watch was his fault. You weren't paying attention until Obama (a black guy) suddenly appeared in the white house and you woke up from whatever American Dream you had been dreaming. You have no recollection of anything pre-Obama. You blame all of Bush's F Ups on Obama. As a country we will never get anywhere with one group of idiots always pointing the finger at another group of idiots and no one ever taking responsibility for anything! You don't love this country. You just hate Obama. That is all you have to offer- hatred for Obama. Romney said today that Hope is not a foreign policy. Well, neither is hatred for Obama.
@HillBilly@hatch123@Rational Db8 I love how you have a crystal ball to somehow magically know whether I or others here did or didn't take issue with various Bush actions. Talk about a gross logical fallacy and strawman.
Little hint for you - Bush isn't in office, and it's Obama's actions that are now the issue. What we're offering isn't hate of Obama personally (although I'm sure starting to get there), it's hate of his absurd policies and the gross damage they're doing to our nation - to ALL of us.
So you go on, bury your head in the sand and declare that anyone who disagrees with or dislikes Obama's policies, and the staggering number of Obama's blatant lies as merely being Obama haters (or racists, as some proclaim).
Facts are facts however, and your fake strawmen simply don't cut it - and neither do Obama's actions, lies, and policies.
HillBilly, I remember all the way back to Truman and I've don't remember a president who willfully wanted to knock the US down a peg or two, as Obama does.
The American voter has a long tradition of forgiving most everything (and anything) of our past presidents, but this guy is a backstabber and that we won't abide.
I don't hate Obama - he's a punk and not worth the energy, but I'm really getting to dislike the kind of people who defend him and his treachery.
@HillBilly@Rational Db8 The thing is, they all follow the orders of Obama. He is the president after all. So I'm afraid that yes, this is Obama's fault, not the fault of those who were following his orders. Besides, Stevens and the various diplomatic staff in Libya made repeated requests for increased security. The State Department denied those requests, and actually decreased security instead. Regardless of the fact that there have been 13 attacks or serious threats against our staff and facilities there in the past 6 months, and 4 physical attacks against Stevens or the Benghazi consulate in the 3 months before the attack. Obama has only attended 38% of his Daily Presidential Briefings for the past year and a half, and NONE in the week prior to the 9/11 anniversary. That's gross negligence, and Obama owns it.
@Rational Db8@HillBilly Sorry that old "I was just following order" doesn't cut it. One is either part of the problem or part of the solution- can't shirk off responsibility for your actions that easily.
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