State Dept Reverses Denial of Hiring British Security Firm in Benghazi

Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland admitted that she provided false information Friday about the State Department's hiring of private security firms for the American mission in Benghazi attacked on September 11th:

QUESTION: You also said there was no contract with a private security firm in Libya, and yet apparently some British security guards were hired. Is that your way of saying you didn’t contract with a firm but you did hire individual security guards?

MS. NULAND: Thank you for that, because there was an error in what I said. The external security, external armed security, as we have been saying, outside of the perimeter, was fully handled by the Libyan side. There was no contract – contracting out of that. There was a group called Blue Mountain Group, which is a private security company with permits to operate in Libya. They were hired to provide local Libyan guards who operated inside the gate doing things like operating the security access equipment, screening the cars, that kind of thing.

QUESTION: Just to clarify, they were contracted by the U.S. State Department or another agency – Blue Mountain?

MS. NULAND: I’m going to let them self-identify on that front. But the people who were hired were Libyans.

The US has recognized the current Libyan government as legit, as messed up as that is. Thus, the Libyans approve who can be contractors there, much the way the Iraqi’s and Afghani’s do in their respective countries. Folks don’t realize that the Iraqi’s could tell the US to remove every security contractor currently working in that cesspool and there’s nothing the US can do about it. Much like countries expelling diplomats. Only the security contractors don’t have any type of diplomatic immunity.

The only way around that, is for the US Govt. to give the contractors OFFICIAL credentials, IE Diplomatic Passports. The State Dept gave thousands of those things out in the early part of the WOT. But has been engaged in a serious effort to get them back. If the individual has the official cred’s than the State Dept can be held accountable for his actions. They learned that in Iraq, hence why no one has ‘Dip’ passports anymore.

If the Libyan’s didn’t want any American’s there doing security, the State Dept did what they thought was the next best thing.

Was it the right thing and do I agree with it? F*CK NO!!! This administration couldn’t tell the truth if you asked them the day of the week.

But, if the Blue Mountain Group had/has the contract, they probably put a very small group of Brits on the ground and had them hire local thugs. But, they were still billing the State Dept as if they had a whole battalion of SAS/SBS guys over there. And they were probably paying the locals about $50/day. That’s how it has/was done in Iraq and Afghanistan. Charge the most you can charge and pay the least you can pay.

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