The Benghazi Scandal Grows (Long article)

CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers could use to discuss the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But this new version—produced with input from senior Obama administration policymakers—was a shadow of the original.

The original CIA talking points had been blunt: The assault on U.S. facilities in Benghazi was a terrorist attack conducted by a large group of Islamic extremists, including some with ties to al Qaeda.

These were strong claims. The CIA usually qualifies its assessments, providing policymakers a sense of whether the conclusions of its analysis are offered with “high confidence,” “moderate confidence,” or “low confidence.” That first draft signaled confidence, even certainty: “We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.”

There was good reason for this conviction. Within 24 hours of the attack, the U.S. government had intercepted communications between two al Qaeda-linked terrorists discussing the attacks in Benghazi. One of the jihadists, a member of Ansar al Sharia, reported to the other that he had participated in the assault on the U.S. diplomatic post. Solid evidence. And there was more. Later that same day, the CIA station chief in Libya had sent a memo back to Washington, reporting that eyewitnesses to the attack said the participants were known jihadists, with ties to al Qaeda.

Before circulating the talking points to administration policymakers in the early evening of Friday, September 14, CIA officials changed “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda” to simply “Islamic extremists.” But elsewhere, they added new contextual references to radical Islamists. They noted that initial press reports pointed to Ansar al Sharia involvement and added a bullet point highlighting the fact that the agency had warned about another potential attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in the region. “On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the [Cairo] Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.” All told, the draft of the CIA talking points that was sent to top Obama administration officials that Friday evening included more than a half-dozen references to the enemy—al Qaeda, Ansar al Sharia, jihadists, Islamic extremists, and so on.

The version Petraeus received in his inbox Saturday, however, had none. The only remaining allusion to the bad guys noted that “extremists” might have participated in “violent demonstrations.”

In an email at 2:44 p.m. to Chip Walter, head of the CIA’s legislative affairs office, Petraeus expressed frustration at the new, scrubbed talking points, noting that they had been stripped of much of the content his agency had provided. Petraeus noted with evident disappointment that the policymakers had even taken out the line about the CIA’s warning on Cairo. The CIA director, long regarded as a team player, declined to pick a fight with the White House and seemed resigned to the propagation of the administration’s preferred narrative. The final decisions about what to tell the American people rest with the national security staff, he reminded Walter, and not with the CIA.

This candid, real-time assessment from then-CIA director Petraeus offers a glimpse of what many intelligence officials were saying privately as top Obama officials set aside the truth about Benghazi and spun a fanciful tale about a movie that never mattered and a demonstration that never happened.

“The YouTube video was a nonevent in Libya,” said Gregory Hicks, a 22-year veteran diplomat and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli at the time of the attacks, in testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on May 8. “The only report that our mission made through every channel was that there had been an attack on a consulate . . . no protest.”

So how did Jay Carney, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and others come to sell the country a spurious narrative about a movie and a protest?

There are still more questions than answers. But one previously opaque aspect of the Obama administration’s efforts is becoming somewhat clearer. An email sent to Susan Rice following a key White House meeting where officials coordinated their public story lays out what happened in that meeting and offers more clues about who might have rewritten the talking points.

The CIA’s talking points, the ones that went out that Friday evening, were distributed via email to a group of top Obama administration officials. Forty-five minutes after receiving them, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed concerns about their contents, particularly the likelihood that members of Congress would criticize the State Department for “not paying attention to Agency warnings.” CIA officials responded with a new draft, stripped of all references to Ansar al Sharia.

In an email a short time later, Nuland wrote that the changes did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.” She did not specify whom she meant by State Department “building leadership.” Ben Rhodes, a top Obama foreign policy and national security adviser, responded to the group, explaining that Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee the following morning. The Deputies Committee consists of high-ranking officials at the agencies with responsibility for national security—including State, Defense, and the CIA—as well as senior White House national security staffers.

ISSA: The gentlelady’s time is expired, but if anyone wants to respond, they may.

Hearing none, we’ll go to the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz.

CHAFFETZ: Thank you, Chairman.

And thank you all three for you being here. And thank (inaudible) the families of loved ones who’s (ph) passed away.

Mr. Hicks, I want to go back to that first plane from Tripoli. It went from Tripoli as — as the — noted in the ARB report. Included seven rescue team members, including two U.S. military personnel. That plane then returns to Tripoli. And the first rescue team that is there is now really engaged in the attack. You have no idea, it’s my understanding, as to when the attack is going to end, so the second rescue team is preparing to go.

And I want — you mentioned it in your opening statement, but if you could please go back to what this second team — now, the second team included four U.S. military. These are highly trained special forces personnel, one of which is a medic. And yet these military personnel do not operate under your authority and your permission is not enough for them to go. Explain to me again exactly what happened.

HICKS: Again, we determined that we needed to send a second team from Tripoli to secure the airport for the withdrawal of our personnel from Benghazi after the mortar attack.

CHAFFETZ: But were any of these U.S. military personnel not permitted to travel on a rescue mission or relief mission to Benghazi?

HICKS: They were not authorized to travel.

CHAFFETZ: What happened with those personnel?

HICKS: They remained in Tripoli with us. The medic went with the nurse to the hospital to lend his skills to the treatment of our — and care of our wounded.

CHAFFETZ: How did the personnel react to being told to stand down?

HICKS: They were furious. I can only say — well, I will quote Lieutenant Colonel Gibson. He said, “This is the first time in — in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.”

CHAFFETZ: So the military’s told to stand down, not engage in the fight. These are the kind of people willing to engage. What did — where’d that message come down? Where did the standdown order come from?

HICKS: I believe it came from either AFRICOM or SOC Africa.

CHAFFETZ: Now, my understanding is that General Ham was actually not in Stuttgart or AFRICOM’s headquarter but he was in Washington, D.C., is that correct?

HICKS: I don’t know the whereabouts of General Ham on that night.

CHAFFETZ: Mr. Chairman, this is something that we’re gonna have to continue to explore.
~~~~~~~
[THOMPSON testimony begins]

I need to move quickly now to Mr. Thompson, if I could. You were leader there at the — what’s called the FEST within the State Department. According to the State Department website, the FEST is the Foreign Emergency Support Team, the U.S. government’s only interagency on-call short notice team poised to respond to terrorist attacks worldwide.

I want to read to you an excerpt of an e-mail sent by you to Kathleen Austin-Ferguson on Tuesday, September 11th, 2012 at 9:58 p.m. Could you help me understand, who is Kathleen Austin-Ferguson?

THOMPSON: She is Undersecretary Kennedy’s deputy.

CHAFFETZ: You wrote, quote, “I am told that Pat Kennedy participated in a very senior conference call with the White House and discouraged the FEST option. To remind, FEST has dedicated aircraft able to respond in four (ph) hours, is Department of State-led and provides the below skills. When FBI was contacted they responded that this situation would be better addressed via a FEST response, thus there are others who are thinking the same way. Ready to discuss further as needed.”

Mark, two questions.

(CROSSTALK)

*** [The transcript bracketed by asterisks is an interruption in the questioning of THOMPSON]
**********************************************************

ISSA: Can the gentleman suspend for a moment?

Earlier there was one document that had not been placed in the record because it hadn’t been provided through official channels. And I’d ask that we get that. I think it came from Mr. Gowdy.

And then Mr. Chaffetz, if you could make your document available so we could make copies.

ISSA: And then for any other members on either side of the dais, if you plan to use a document that is not currently committee record — and I realize, since we’ve gotten very little, there’s very little committee records — please do us the favor of having copies so they can be distributed at or prior to the beginning of the questioning.

I’m sorry to interrupt...

(CROSSTALK)

(UNKNOWN): Mr. Chairman, one — one thing.

Mr. Chairman, as you recall yesterday I said — I reminded you that we had never, with regard to Mr. Thompson, this is for some — we’ve gotten a syllable from him.

ISSA: All right and we have no transcript...

(UNKNOWN): Right.

ISSA: ... either.

(UNKNOWN): But let me go on.

One of the things I said in our conversation is that they — if there were any documents that were going to be used, we would have liked to have had them yesterday. But — but with the regard to this document, it sounds like it’s a crucial document and in fairness to everybody, to all of us, and to Mr. Nordstrom who said he wanted a complete hearing, we’d like have the document, if we suspend — so he — before — we’d like to see the document that he’s talking about.

ISSA: OK, I’m — in the case of this particular document, Mr. Chaffetz is — my understanding is you do have the document. So I’ll let staff work on that and provide additional time, if — if need, if that turns out to not to be true.

For our witnesses, if you have any documents you’re going to refer to that we don’t have, if you’d have counsels allow copies to be made. Again, I want to make sure everyone has it as soon as possible. Obviously, if the State Department had made the documents they show as so-called in-camera, if they’d allowed us to have copies we’d all have more documents but...

(UNKNOWN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

ISSA: ... that’s a different — different argument. Mr. Chaffetz, I’m sorry, we’ll give you back a couple of seconds. And the gentleman may continue.
***********************************************************

CHAFFETZ: Mr. Thompson, do you recall that e-mail?

THOMPSON: I do.

CHAFFETZ: Two questions.

Were you ever given a detailed explanation as to why the fest (ph) was not considered for deployment?

And number two, did you attend or attempt to attend any senior meetings to plead your case for a fest (ph) deployment? And if so, what happened?

THOMPSON: The reason I was given was that this was not the time for the fest (ph). It might be too unsafe for the fest (ph) and I got that through Miss Austin Ferguson. I — I readdressed that with her, I readdressed it with her staff two days later.

CHAFFETZ: Did you attempt to attend any meetings?

THOMPSON: The next morning there were VTCS. I presumed I would be part of that. I was told not to attend those, although C.B. was represented there, the fest (ph) portion and the response portion of the Counterterrorism Bureau was not represented there.

CHAFFETZ: So, why were you not called into action? This is what you trained for. It’s what tabletops are for. It’s what you’re prepared to do. Why was fest (ph) not called into action?

THOMPSON: I do not know.

CHAFFETZ: Mr. Chairman, it’s one of great mysteries. Here we have this expertise, we’ve invested heavily in it, they tabletop it, they understand it, this is exactly what they train for and they were never asked to go into action. We had no idea how long or when this was going to end.

Yield back.

ISSA: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman is correct.

The Turner/Hicks testimony (post 71) in context

TURNER: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

Gentlemen, I want to thank you for being here today. Without your statements there is a tremendous amount of information that we just wouldn’t know. And certainly it’s important that you’re giving us this information, as we all have deep condolences for the families.

As we look at the information that we’ve gotten today, we basically have two standdown decisions that we’ve been able to discuss. One, the Foreign Emergency Support Team that Mr. Thompson has told us about. And Mr. Hicks, you told us of Colonel Gibson.

Mr. Hicks, I’m a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and I’m very fascinated with the standdown order to Colonel Gibson. As we pursue that we want to know who gave Colonel Gibson the order and why. And so we — I would like to review that standdown order with you and what you experienced that night since you were with him as he was receiving that standdown order.

You told us that there was a C-130 Libyan transport that had been provided and that you had indicated to Colonel Gibson that he should go to reinforce Benghazi and help to withdraw personnel. Colonel Gibson was told to stand down, and that plane left without him, landing about 7:30 in Benghazi without Colonel Gibson’s team.

Let’s start first with the review of what is Colonel Gibson’s team. What were those personnel, Colonel Gibson’s team, what were they doing in Libya?

HICKS: They are the — the remaining members of the special security teams group of special — 16 or — 14 special forces personnel assigned to protect Embassy Tripoli after the return and re- establishment of the embassy in September of 2011. And on the 1st of August the secretary of defense signed an order changing their status from being a security team to a training team, and transferring the authority — their authority from the chief of mission, the ambassador to General Ham.

And in — on August 6th, two members of that team were in a carjacking incident as they were driving early in the morning outside — outside the compound, and they had to use their weapons in order to escape that armed attack on their vehicle.

In light of that incident, General Ham decided to draw down the team from 14 personnel to four personnel. And Lieutenant Colonel Wood and nine others — Lieutenant Colonel Wood testified before this committee last October — left Tripoli in the middle of the month. So the Lieutenant Colonel Gibson and the other three members of that team are the remainder of that group.

TURNER: So their chain of command had been changed and they — and they had been reduced. But as you were just describing, these are highly trained individuals with specialized skills that would have been useful in the situation in Benghazi?

HICKS: Yes, absolutely, and particularly given the fact, again, that the personnel in Benghazi were — were exhausted from a night of fighting against very capable opponents.

TURNER: Now, do you know why they were told to stand down? Colonel Gibson give you any information or understanding of...

HICKS: I actually don’t know why.

TURNER: Is there any reason to believe that the situation in Benghazi was over? I mean, there were a number of — series of attacks you described to us. Any reason to believe that — that there was no longer any danger in Benghazi?

HICKS: No, there — it was every reason to continue to believe that our personnel were in danger.

TURNER: Mr. Hicks, Mr. Chaffetz has given me an article that appeared in USA Today just this week. And just as — as early as last Monday, Major Robert Furman (ph), a Pentagon spokesman, said that “the military’s account that was first issued weeks after the attack hasn’t changed. There was never any kind of standdown order to anybody.” And that’s a pretty broad statement, “anybody.” What’s your reaction to the quote by Mr. Furman (ph)?

HICKS: I could only, again, repeat that Lieutenant Colonel Gibson said he was not to proceed to board the airplane.

TURNER: So your firsthand experience being on the site, standing next to Colonel Gibson who was on his way on that C-130 transport and being told not to go contradicts what Mr. Furman (ph) is saying on behalf of the Pentagon?

HICKS: Yes, sir.

TURNER: Mr. Hicks, did the embassy have a defense attache on staff whose role it was to interface with the Defense Department? And did you ask him that evening, was the — were there any resources coming from the U.S. military? And what was your — your reaction to his responses as the evening unfolded?

HICKS: My reaction was that, OK, we’re on our own. We’re going to have to try to pull this off with the resources that we have available.

TURNER: Were the Libyans surprised?

HICKS: I don’t know, but I think they were.

TURNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

ISSA: Thank you.

Before we go to Mr. Connolly, just because most people in the audience, including on the dais, don’t understand chief of mission authority, would you as chief of mission run us through who was under your chief of mission authority and who wasn’t? In other words, who did you have command-and-control of? And we’re talking about military assets. Because I think a lot of folks up here are hearing two chains of command, and it’d be helpful for you to explain it as a career State Department person — quickly.

HICKS: All — all civilian personnel in civilian (inaudible) personnel in Libya were under chief of mission authority, which was...

(CROSSTALK)

ISSA: ... which was yours.

HICKS: ... until he was — we knew that he was dead and then that passed to me.

The four members of the special forces team were under General Ham’s authority. We had two other military special forces personnel in country, and I was at that time unclear as to whether they were under my authority or not.

ISSA: So anyone you had under your authority you gave orders to, they responded, they went down range if you asked them to. The others were not allowed to?

HICKS: Yes, sir.

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