The Intrigue Surrounding The Secret CIA Operation In Benghazi Is Not Going Away
By Michael Kelley and
Geoffrey Ingersoll | Business Insider –
Sat, Aug 3, 2013 9:19 AM
EDT
The CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya
In eight months since an
attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead, a Republican-led
investigation has focused on potential missteps by the White House —
and come away with nothing
significant.
There has been little attention given, however, to covert actions by the
Central Intelligence Agency that were partially uncovered during the September
11, 2012 attack.That may be changing.
CNN's Jake Tapper argued this week that we should give more scrutiny to the CIA's presence in the Libyan port city.
Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said the same, according to CNN: "There are questions that must be asked of the CIA and this must be done in a public way."
Among the questions are whether CIA missteps contributed to the security failure in Benghazi and, more importantly, whether the Agency's Benghazi operation had anything to do with reported heavy weapons shipments from the local port to Syrian rebels.
In short, the CIA operation is the most intriguing thing about Benghazi.
Here's what we know:
The attack At about 9:40 p.m. local time on Sept. 11, a mob of Libyans attacked a building housing U.S. State Department personnel. At 10:20 p.m. Americans arrived from a CIA annex located 1.2 miles away, to help the besieged Americans. At 11:15 p.m. they fled with survivors back to the secret outpost.
Armed Libyans followed them and attacked the annex with rockets and small arms from around midnight to 1:00 a.m., when there was a lull in the fighting.
Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL and CIA security contractor, was with a team of Joint Special Operations Command military operators and CIA agents in Tripoli at the time of the attack. When they received word of the assault on the mission, Doherty and six others bribed the pilots of small jet with $30,000 cash for a ride to Benghazi.
At about 5:15 a.m., right after Doherty's group arrived, the attackers began shooting mortars at the annex, leading to the death of Doherty and fellow former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Tyrone Woods.
At 6 a.m. Libyan forces from the military intelligence service arrived and subsequently took more than 30 Americans — only seven of whom were from the State Department — to the Benghazi airport.
So the CIA's response to go to the annex (after being held back for 20 minutes) saved American lives, but it also ended up exposing the annex.
And according to Paula Broadwell, the mistress of David Petraeus when he was CIA director, the CIA may have provided an impetus for the attack by holding prisoners: "Now I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back."
'At its heart a CIA operation' In November The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. mission in Benghazi "was at its heart a CIA operation."
In January, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress that the CIA was leading a "concerted effort to try to track down and find and recover ... MANPADS [man-portable air defense systems]" looted from the stockpiles of toppled Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
The State Department "consulate" served as diplomatic cover for the previously-hidden annex.
The top-secret presence and location of the CIA outpost was first acknowledged by Charlene Lamb, a top official in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, during Congressional testimony in October.
Representatives Jason Chaffetz and Darrell Issa immediately called a point of order when Lamb exposed the location of the annex, and asked for the revelation to be stricken from the record.
“I totally object to the use of that photo,” Chaffetz. said. “I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.”
The location of the U.S. "consulate" and CIA annex in Benghazi,
Libya
Weapons from Benghazi to Syria
Also in October we reported the
connection between Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who died in the
attack, and a reported
September shipment of SA-7
surface-to-air anti-craft missiles (i.e. MANPADS) and rocket-propelled grenades
from Benghazi to Syria through southern Turkey.That 400-ton shipment — "the largest consignment of weapons" yet for Syrian rebels — was organized by Abdelhakim Belhadj, who was the newly-appointed head of the Tripoli Military Council.
In March 2011 Stevens, the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan rebels, worked directly with Belhadj while he headed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
Stevens' last meeting on Sept. 11 was with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi "to negotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists."
Syrian rebels subsequently began shooting down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets with SA-7s akin to those in Qaddafi's looted stock. (The interim Libyan government also sent money and fighters to Syria.)
What did the CIA know? Collectively these details raise the question of what the CIA knew, given that Agency operatives in Libya were rounding up SA-7s, ostensibly to destroy them, while operatives in southern Turkey were funneling weapons to the rebels.
Ambassador Stevens certainly would have known if the new Libyan government was sending 400 tons of heavy weapons to Turkey from Benghazi's port.
Just like the CIA would know if those the weapons arrived in Turkey and began showing up in Syria.
Journalist Damien Spleeters created this sourced map, drawing info shared on social media such as YouTube, that gives an idea of the MANPADS presence in Syria.
We've added red tag noting the Turkish port, Iskenderun, where the massive SA-7 shipment docked.
And this map of nearby Turkish highways shows that the heavy weapons could have been transported from the port to the Syrian city of Aleppo in three hours.
Other intriguing details This week Nancy Youssef of McClatchy reported that Ambassador Stevens twice turned down offers for additional security, despite specifically asking for more men in cables to the State Department.
Right after the attack American Matthew VanDyke, who fought with Libyan rebels during their revolution, told us he suspected that extremist groups in the nearby mountains — who felt marginalized by the new Libyan government — " saw their opportunity to pounce."
Earlier this month Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kent.) told CNN: “I’ve actually always suspected that, although I have no evidence, that maybe we were facilitating arms leaving Libya going through Turkey into Syria. ... Were they trying to obscure that there was an arms operation going on at the CIA annex? I’m not sure exactly what was going on, but I think questions ought to be asked and answered."
So now that the White House has released more
than 100 pages of Benghazi emails, and the State Department's role during and
after the attack have been probed ad nauseam, it's time for someone to explain
what the exposed CIA operation in Benghazi was all about.
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New Benghazi Details Revealed in Bombshell CNN Report: ‘Unprecedented’ Effort Underway to Keep Secrets From Leaking
The CIA is polygraphing its operatives on a regular basis in an “unprecedented” effort to prevent Benghazi secrets from leaking out, CNN’s Drew Griffin is reporting, citing unnamed inside sources.
“Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings,” the bombshell report reveals. “The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.”
A Libyan man stands next to a wall apparently stained with blood at the main entrance of the US consulate in Benghazi on September 13, 2012. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
More from CNN:
It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”Another says, “You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation.”
The CIA responded to CNN’s report in a statement, claiming it “enabled all officers involved in Benghazi the opportunity to meet with Congress,” according to Jake Tapper.
It has also been revealed that as many 35 Americans were in Benghazi on the night of the deadly terror attack, CNN reports, citing anonymous inside sources. As many as seven were wounded and 21 Americans were reportedly working in the building known as the CIA annex.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) told CNN that the revelations represent “a form of a cover-up.”
“We should have the people who were on the scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn’t any national security issue involved with regards to that,” the lawmaker said.
There have been reports and rumors about the U.S. government possibly being involved in the transfer of weapons out of Libya, through Turkey and into the hands of the Syrian rebels. The theory has been analyzed thoroughly on TheBlaze and TheBlaze TV, but many questions remain.
According to the CNN report, the CIA and the State Department were the two U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi. The State Department has denied being involved in any transfer of weapons to other countries, though it clearly stated they “can’t speak for any other agencies.”
The CIA, on the other hand, would not say if they were involved in any transfer of weapons to other nations.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has fallen on the proverbial sword long
distance, declaring the buck stops with her on the Benghazi security debacle.
That’s all well and good, but where does the buck stop on all the lying and covering up that followed? Yes, I used the unvarnished “L-word” because that’s what it was. How else to characterize UN Ambassador Susan Rice running around telling everyone in earshot that the Benghazi events were caused by an idiotic and unwatched YouTube trailer when Occam’s Razor — not to mention rocket-propelled grenades, an ambassador dragged through the streets, and a safe house mysteriously under fire — pointed to a terror attack commemorating September 11?
And then the president, acting like an errant husband unwilling to confess
his adultery (who do you believe – me or your lying eyes?), repeated the same
swill on The View nearly a week later. Unconscionable.
Why did this happen? Why this bizarre need to obfuscate or push away such an obvious truth?
It’s a lot more significant than the usual election season blather. On the deepest level, Barack Obama did not want to be found out. He had something even bigger than Benghazi to cover up – his worldview.
Our president really believes — or more precisely really wants to believe — that the Islamist threat is relatively small and can be met with what John Kerry (his debate coach) used to call “police actions.” In Obama’s case, that means drone attacks or, more famously, the assassination of bin Laden, which he ordered and his associates give him so much credit for when any U.S. president would have done the same thing. (Can you imagine the outcry if it had ever been discovered that one hadn’t?)
That’s all well and good, but where does the buck stop on all the lying and covering up that followed? Yes, I used the unvarnished “L-word” because that’s what it was. How else to characterize UN Ambassador Susan Rice running around telling everyone in earshot that the Benghazi events were caused by an idiotic and unwatched YouTube trailer when Occam’s Razor — not to mention rocket-propelled grenades, an ambassador dragged through the streets, and a safe house mysteriously under fire — pointed to a terror attack commemorating September 11?
Why did this happen? Why this bizarre need to obfuscate or push away such an obvious truth?
It’s a lot more significant than the usual election season blather. On the deepest level, Barack Obama did not want to be found out. He had something even bigger than Benghazi to cover up – his worldview.
Our president really believes — or more precisely really wants to believe — that the Islamist threat is relatively small and can be met with what John Kerry (his debate coach) used to call “police actions.” In Obama’s case, that means drone attacks or, more famously, the assassination of bin Laden, which he ordered and his associates give him so much credit for when any U.S. president would have done the same thing. (Can you imagine the outcry if it had ever been discovered that one hadn’t?)
Report: More Benghazi Whistleblowers to Reveal ‘Devastating’ Details About Attack, Including WHY Chris Stevens Was in Libya
Amb. Chris Stevens (Photo Credit: AP)
New Benghazi whistleblowers are prepared to reveal shocking details about the Sept. 11 terror attack, including why U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Libya to begin with, two former U.S. diplomats reportedly told PJ Media on Monday.
The unidentified whistleblowers are reportedly colleagues of former diplomats and are seeking legal counsel because they “work in areas not fully protected by whistleblower law,” the report adds.
More from PJ Media’s exclusive:
According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.”
One of the most important unanswered questions about the Benghazi attack has been why Stevens was in Benghazi on the anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. If the whistleblowers’ information turns out to be credible, it could be a huge break in the investigation into what really happened.
According to PJ Media’s report, Clinton’s plan to reaquire the stinger missiles left Stevens with the responsibility to handle the aftermath of the alleged gun-running operation after it was clear that the “insurgents” in Libya were really radical Islamists aligned with al-Qaeda.
The former diplomat who reportedly talked exclusively with PJ Media, likened the Obama administration’s plan in Libya to the amateurish covert war depicted in the Mike Nochols film, “Charlie Wilson’s War.” The movie tells the story of an arrogant Texas congressman, Charlie Wilson, who supplies Stinger missiles to the Afghan guerillas to help them fight the Soviets.
“It’s as if Hillary and the others just watched that movie and said ‘Hey, let’s do that!’” the diplomat reportedly said.
Here’s the trailer for Charlie Wilson’s War” for context:
“He added that he and his colleagues think the leaking of General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was timed to silence the former CIA chief on these matters,” PJ Media reports.
It is unclear at this point if the unidentified “whisteblowers” are credible, however, TheBlaze will continue monitoring this developing story.
“PJ Media recognizes this is largely hearsay, but the two diplomats sounded quite credible. One of them was in a position of responsibility in a dangerous area of Iraq in 2004,” PJM’s report concludes.
Read on TheBlaze blog: Report: More Benghazi whistleblowers to come forward?
Carousel image via AFP/Getty
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Benghazi: The Story That Won’t Go Away…And Shouldn’t.
Despite the best hopes of the Obama Administration, the
Benghazi story will not go away. And it shouldn’t; not before we know who made
the final decision to dupe the American People, and why. Last week’s revelation
that the Administration’s original “talking points on Benghazi were revised a
dozen times adds another reason not to trust the official story line,” says
The Wall Street Journal. It also gives Congress new cause to keep
digging. Now mainstream reporters, not just Fox News, have disclosed that the
talking points evolved over time to exclude references to terrorists who might
have participated in the attacks that killed four Americans last September,
including out Ambassador, Chris Stevens. The first iteration on Friday,
September 14, prepared by the CIA, said that, “we do know (emphasis
added) that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaeda participated in
the attack.” Notwithstanding that the attack occurred on September 11, a day
loaded with unbelievable significance, the Administration originally trotted out
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to pitch the line that the attacks resulted from
reaction to a YouTube video that had gone viral and which apparently offended
the Islamic world.
The White House is
still sticking with its original story claiming now that everyone knows that
talking points always get routine interagency scrutiny and editing. A former
journalist, Mr. Carney may have been in politics so long he has forgotten when
public officials begin to sound ridiculous.
Last week three State
Department witnesses contradicted the original line put out by the
Administration. Riveting testimony by Gregory Hicks, Deputy to the Ambassador in
Tripoli, and two colleagues reignited questions about Benghazi, previously
solely a preoccupation of the right. Former Secretary Clinton’s spokeswoman
Victoria Nuland, citing “issues” of the State Department leadership insisted on
amendments so the talking points, made no mention of al‑Qaeda or CIA warnings
about inadequate security at the Benghazi consulate. Hicks, his voice cracking
with emotion, recounted how he was told not to talk to a Republican congressman
who was visiting Tripoli to investigate the attack. After he did so, without a
State Department lawyer who had been sent to sit in on such meetings, he
received a call from Secretary Clinton’s chief of staff, who was “upset” and
demanded a report on the visit. Footage of Clinton asking indignantly in January
“what difference does it make whether Americans were killed because of a protest
or some other reason” is certain to appear in 2016 attack advertisements.
For their part,
Democrats are invoking the “vast right‑wing conspiracy” theory that Hillary
Clinton trotted out in 1998 during the Lewinsky scandal. In any event, it
appears that last week’s hearing before the House Committee was a turning point,
and Republicans were no longer pulling their punches about the Benghazi affair.
Truth is always the first casualty, particularly inconvenient truths, and as
Peggy Noonan wrote, “The Benghazi story until now has been a jumble of factoids
that didn’t quite cohere, didn’t produce a story that people could absorb and
hold in their minds.” The testimony this past week seems to have changed all
that. “You could tell that the three parties testifying; Gregory Hicks Mark
Thompson and Eric Nordstrom, were authoritative, well respected and credible.
You knew you were hearing the truth as they saw and experienced it. Not one of
them seemed political. You had no sense of how they vote in elections. They were
professionals. They put the lie to the idea that all questioning of Obama
administration actions in Benghazi are partisan and low.”
Because the White House
could not tolerate the idea of Benghazi as a planned and deliberate terrorist
assault, it had to be made into something else. So they sent Susan Rice out to
the Sunday talk shows to claim it was a spontaneous street demonstration over an
anti‑Mohammad YouTube video made by some nutty California con man. But, if what
happened in Benghazi was not a planned and prolonged terrorists assault, if it
was merely a street demonstration gone bad, the Administration had an excuse not
take military action to protect Americans there. You take military action in
response to a planned and coordinated attack by armed combatants. You don’t if
it is an essentially meaningless street demonstration that came and went.
President Obama had
supported overthrowing Kaddafi and put U.S. force behind the Libyan rebels. It
was one of the President’s better hours. It was about time that the Libyan
strong man was overthrown. But what went wrong? Now Libyans were killing our
diplomats. More importantly, the Administration’s efforts against al Qaeda would
suddenly come under scrutiny and questioning. After the killing of bin Laden,
the President apparently thought that the al Qaeda threat was vastly diminished.
“ GM is alive and Ben Laden is Dead” became a 2012 election mantra”. But if an
al Qaeda offshoot in Libya was killing our diplomats, the age of al Qaeda
sponsored terrorism was certainly not over.
Apparently now, House
Republicans plan to take another step in the widening Benghazi investigation by
asking leaders of an independent review board to agree to be questioned about
their investigation of last year’s attacks in Libya. The Accountability Review
Board reported in December that the State Department had failed to provide for
the security of the Benghazi post despite growing militancy in the area.
Republicans have assailed the Board for not probing more deeply and not formally
questioning Mrs. Clinton. Some charge the panel was under the control of Mrs.
Clinton and the White House. “We believe it was insufficient,” said Rep. Darrell
Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in an
interview on Meet the Press. Now, as a result of the recent testimony before the
Congress, Republican lawmakers believe that additional whistleblowers are likely
to emerge. They also are pushing for the appointment of a special select
committee to probe the attacks; bringing together investigations now underway at
five separate GOP‑controlled panels.
Sen. John McCain of
Arizona has called the Administration’s response to Benghazi‑‑including
inaccurate “talking points” used as the basis for early public statements‑‑a
“coverup” and endorsed the idea of a select committee, as did Sen. James Inhofe
of Oklahoma. Mr. Inhofe predicted last week that the Benghazi investigation
would even lead to an impeachment debate.
As you might expect,
Democrats see it differently. They think that the investigation is aimed
squarely at the political future of Mrs. Clinton, who is frequently mentioned as
a potential 2016 presidential candidate. Truth is always the first casualty and
in the midst of a reelection campaign, Obama aides wanted to promote a mythology
that the President who sent the Navy SEALS to kill Osama bin Laden was
vanquishing terror so they deemed it problematic to mention any possible al
Qaeda involvement in the Benghazi attack. Looking ahead to 2016, Hillary
supporters needed to shore up the mythology that Clinton was a stellar Secretary
of State.
In any event, while the
Administration stubbornly clings to the old saw, That’s my story and I am
sticking to it, the media and the public are no longer buying it.
- May 19, 2013 at 2:47 pm
- An impeachment debate?
Havn’t you guys had enough of that destructive mischief making by now.
I don’t remember democrats calling for Bush’s removal despite sending Colin Powell to lie about WMD’s and plunging the country into a disastrous and costly war.
The “Ben Ghazi affair”has been blown way out of proportion by the same ilk that embarassed a President and a nation with the Monica Lewinsky witch hunt…The Right will have to come up with better than that if they want to challenge the democratic nominee in 2016…Maybe some fresh ideas?
Republicans seem to love the “I word”.
May 19, 2013 at 6:07 pm
As long as only
Republicans ask who knew what and when did they know it about Bengahzi, the IRS
scandal and the search of AP telephone records this will become yet another
witch hunt like Fast and Furious. It will take a person of substance to connect
the dots so the American public can comprehend that nothing in Washington
happens in a vacuum and the inconvenient truth is that the President is not in
charge of the day to day operation of the Executive Branch. That is left to
David Axelrod, Valerie Jarett who craft policy around protecting the President
and promoting his political agenda. Thus Obama is able to play Sgt. Schultz and
“know nothing” until the music his spin meisters are playing comes to a sudden
halt. Then the old song is played with a slightly different melody and the beat
goes on. If the MSM ever asks questions and demands answers we will learn who is
responsible for the mess that has been created at the Departments of State,
Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury. Perhaps it’s George w. Bush who seems
to be the cause of everything that goes wrong but that would mean he’s serving a
fourth term and we all know that is unconstitutional.
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