John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Introduction and Day 1 of the 12 day series]
John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Day 2 and Day 3 of the 12 day series]
John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Day 4 of the 12 day series]
John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Day 5 of the 12 day series]
John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Days 6, 7 and 8 of the 12 day series]
John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Days 9 Parts 1 - 4 of the 12 day series] (includes one min video tributes honoring each of the 4 Americans killed in Benghazi)
John “TIG” Tiegen @TigTiegen: 12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI [Day 10 of the 12 day series]
John “TIG” Tiegen
@TigTiegen
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11h
12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 11 PART 1
By the morning of September 11, the warning signs had been piling up for months. Then Benghazi gave us more.
Around 9 or 10 that morning, I drove our CIA Chief of Base, “Bob,” and another case officer to meet with local Libyan intelligence. It was the first time they had met at this location, directly across the street from the U.S. Special Mission compound.
Normally I wouldn’t have gone inside. This time I did because something about the place didn’t feel right.
The office itself felt wrong too.
From the second floor, you could clearly see into the main compound where Ambassador Stevens’ villa was located. After years of doing this kind of work overseas, it didn’t look like any intelligence office I was used to. Hardly any furniture. Small desks. A few office chairs. Almost empty.
I didn’t sit in on the meeting. But when Bob and the other case officer came out, we went straight to the U.S. compound. The Libyans had warned them that intelligence indicated a local government facility in Benghazi would be attacked that day.
We took that warning directly to Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Morning of September 11, local intelligence was warning that an attack was expected in Benghazi that day.
There was another red flag. A Libyan police officer assigned around the U.S. mission was reported photographing the compound from an elevated position across the street. Sean Smith knew about it and later wrote online: “Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”
Then look at what was happening elsewhere.
Hours before Benghazi was attacked, protesters in Cairo breached the perimeter of the U.S. Embassy, entered the compound, tore down the American flag and replaced it with a black flag.
So by then, an American diplomatic facility had already been overrun on September 11.
Washington knew unrest was spreading across the region. It knew Benghazi was a high-threat post. It knew about the previous attacks. It knew about the security shortfalls. And that morning, we had personally carried another threat warning directly to Ambassador Stevens.
Yet no American military force had been positioned close enough to Benghazi to respond quickly if something happened.
That is what amazes me to this day. Cairo had already been breached!
Benghazi had been warning Washington for months.
We had another threat warning that morning.
And still, nothing was being moved toward that region in anticipation of trouble.
Then that night the attack started.
And even after Washington knew Americans were under attack, the later House investigation found that almost six hours after the first attack began, no military asset ordered by the Secretary of Defense was moving toward Benghazi or Tripoli, aside from personnel already in Tripoli who arranged their own movement.
Think about that.
The warnings were there.
The security failures were known.
Another U.S. Embassy had already been breached that day.
And still, when Benghazi erupted, the military response was starting from behind.
That is why Day 11 is not about retelling the 13 Hours.
If you want the fight, read the book or watch the movie.
This is about what happened before the first shot was fired and how many chances there were to be ready.
#12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen
September 11, 2026
John “TIG” Tiegen
@TigTiegen
12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 11 PART 2
THE STAND-DOWN
When the U.S. consulate came under attack, we were at the CIA Annex about a mile away.
We were geared up, ready to go, and prepared to move.
Then Bob looked directly at me and said “stand down you need to wait”
Let me make something crystal clear: that stand-down did not come from Washington, the Pentagon, or somebody else talking in his ear.
It came from Bob.
Weeks before September 11, the commander of the 17 Feb had already told Bob that if anything happened, they were not going to help us.
Then, on the night of the attack, while we were getting ready to go, Bob got that same commander on the phone.
And again, the answer was the same: they were not going to help.
But understand this part too:
WE DID NOT KNOW THAT.
We had no idea what 17 Feb was telling Bob that night or what they had told him weeks earlier.
If we had known they had already told him they were not coming, we would have punched out immediately.
We were standing there ready to move, believing Bob was still trying to coordinate some kind of local response and a joint link-up.
Meanwhile, he already knew 17 Feb was not coming.
And he was still telling us to stand down.
I was standing there. Bob looked directly at me and said it. Americans were under attack. We were about a mile away. We were ready to move, and Bob was telling us not to leave.
We did not wait for him to change his mind.
The final straw was Alec Henderson, the senior Diplomatic Security agent at the compound, coming over the radio:
“If you guys don’t get here now, we’re all gonna fucking die.”
That was it.
Americans were calling for help.
Hell, we started leaving before our team leader was even with us.
We left without Bob’s permission.
That is the stand-down I have been talking about all these years.
And that stand-down order is the reason Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith are not with us today.
If we had left when we were ready, the attackers wouldn’t have had free rein to set the buildings on fire.
That is a fact!
Bob gave the order.
Bob knew 17 Feb was not coming.
We did not know.
And we went anyway. We were the only hope they had of getting out alive.
#12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen
September 11, 2026
John “TIG” Tiegen
@TigTiegen
12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 11 PART 3 of 3
THE AIR SUPPORT THAT NEVER CAME
By the time Benghazi was attacked, this was not happening in a vacuum. Cairo had already been breached that day. Benghazi had been deteriorating for months. Western targets had already been attacked. Security requests had been denied, reduced, or ignored. And that morning, we personally carried another threat warning directly to Ambassador Stevens.
That is why my question is bigger than just Benghazi and who told the military to stand down crap.
WHY WASN’T THE WHOLE REGION SPINNING UP?
After Cairo was breached, why weren’t U.S. and allied assets across the region being put on alert, repositioned, fueled, crewed, or prepared in case something else happened?
Especially Benghazi!
The warning signs had been there for months. The argument always becomes, “Could a fighter jet or some other aircraft have made it there after the attack started?”
That is not the question I am asking. My question is: WHY WAS NOTHING ALREADY MOVING?
The official timelines show F-16s at Aviano were never launched. FAST platoons were held. The Commander’s In-Extremis Force was sent to Sigonella instead of Benghazi. A four-man SOCAFRICA team in Tripoli was told not to board a plane to Benghazi and remain in place.
The bigger failure was posture.
I had flown through Crete on my first trip into Benghazi. I knew U.S. and allied military assets operated in that region. Souda Bay was only a few hundred miles away. Sigonella was in Sicily. Aviano had F-16s.
And I keep hearing the argument that the jets were not armed or could not have dropped bombs in the city.
That misses the point. We did not need bombs first, we needed aircraft overhead.
A fighter making low passes over that fight changes the enemy’s calculation immediately. Get something there. Send the armed package behind it if you need to.
Years later, I was shown cable traffic from that night referencing the medical bird Charleston wanting to come to Benghazi from Germany. After the first attack on our compound, our team leader told the Charleston we didn’t need them, we were good.
That was not intentional. He was responding to the situation as he understood it.
Nobody outside Benghazi understood we were still under attack. We were still knee deep in the fight.
Once that message went out that we were “good,” people farther up the chain were making decisions based on a picture that was already wrong.
If you don’t understand why the response broke down, you can’t fix it.
A medical bird was moving. Libyan authorities were cooperating with aircraft movement.
So where was the combat support? Where were our allies?
We came to the aid of the British Ambassador when his convoy was attacked in Benghazi.
That is what Americans do. We help our allies. We move. We respond.
So when Americans needed that same help, where was everybody?
The official record can argue over “stand down,” “hold,” “remain in place,” or “do not board.”
Fine. The result was the same. The region was not postured to respond when Americans needed it.
Sarah Adams and Boon have made the same broader point: we were not asking somebody to rescue us so we could run away.
We needed reinforcement. We were still in the fight. And nobody came.
After months of warnings, previous attacks, denied security requests, Cairo being breached, and another threat warning that morning…
WHY WASN’T THE WHOLE REGION ALREADY SPINNING UP?
The only answer I can come up with is incompetence!
#12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen
September 11, 2026
