Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks in Same Building as ARB in October [corrected]

Correction: Gregory Hicks was interviewed by the ARB as he stated in his testimony at the congressional hearing on May 8th.

    Gregory Hicks is one of the so-called whistleblowers due to testify at congressional hearings on the Benghazi attacks on Wednesday.  He is prepared to give some of the most explosive testimony at the hearings, reportedly telling congressional investigators that "if the U.S. had quickly sent a military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives."  Despite having been on the phone with Ambassador Chris Stevens as the Benghazi attacks were beginning, Hicks was not interviewed by the Accountability Review Board (ARB) convened by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and was not even mentioned in the report that the ARB produced.
    The ARB was convened on October 4, 2012.  Three weeks later, on October 25, 2012, Hicks was listed on a State Department schedule as meeting with Rick Barton, the Assistant Secretary for Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the State Department.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR CONFLICT AND STABILIZATION OPERATIONS RICK BARTON
9:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Barton meets with Deputy Chief of Mission for Embassy Tripoli Greg Hicks, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

    According to State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, the ARB's meeting place was in the State Department building in Washington, D.C., the same place Hicks met with Barton.
    There is no public record of what transpired at the meeting between Hicks and Barton, and it is not clear why Hicks would not have been interviewed by the ARB given his presence in the same building as the investigators.  Perhaps Hicks's testimony this week will shed some light on this and other questions about why the American public has had to wait eight months to hear Hicks's version of the events surrounding the Benghazi fiasco.

Hillary Clinton: ARB Said I Was Not Responsible for Benghazi Failures

    Under withering questioning from Senator Rand Paul, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cited the Benghazi Accountability Review Board's findings to deflect the criticism of her lack of action before and after Benghazi:

“The ARB made very clear that the level of responsibility for the failures that they outlined was set at the Assistant Secretary level and below..."

President Obama, Libya, and the Situation Room

    The release of two photos of President Obama in the Situation Room of the White House during Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath generated renewed speculation about what took place in the Situation Room during the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.  Today, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard speculated, or at least raised questions, about what was known that night, what was communicated to the president and by whom, and what was the president's response:

[Secretary of State Leon] Panetta's statement [that "you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on"] only makes sense if there were those in the military or elsewhere who considered or urged deploying forces into harm's way, and that those individuals were overruled because of the lack of real-time information...
What did President Obama do that evening (apart from spending an hour on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu)? What did he know, and what did he decide, and what was the basis for his decisions?

    In an eerie coincidence, as the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi was still raging, Vanity Fair posted the following article summary promoting a profile of the president that would appear in the upcoming October issue of the magazine.  The summary focused on a parallel situation from more than a year before: President Obama in the White House Situation Room making a life and death decision about an escalating crisis in Libya.

Obama ‘Went Off Road Map’ in Libya   Michael Lewis’s new profile of Barack Obama in the October  issue of Vanity Fair provides a rare insider look at how the president makes his decisions. The main focus of the profile are the days leading up to his secure of a U.N. resolution to take “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, and then “use American airpower to destroy Qadaffi’s army.” A source who was in the Situation Room when the decision was being made tells Lewis that Obama “went off the road map,” summarily shooting the two options given to him by the Pentagon: Establish a no-fly zone, which advisers admitted would not end the massacre, or do nothing at all. On why he balked at the idea of not intervening: “That’s not who we are.”
Read it at Vanity Fair    September 11, 2012 10:45 PM

Photo: Mustafa El-Shridi/Reuters

    If Michael Lewis's telling of the March 2011 Situation Room incident is accurate, the president overrode his military advisors and went off the map to send US armed forces into Libya to rescue innocent Libyan civilians.  Once the facts come out about that fateful evening of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, how ironic it will be if it turns out the president once again overrode his advisors, but this time choosing not to send assistance to our own ambassador and those trying to protect him.  What would that say about "who we are"?

State Department on 9/12: Protests in Benghazi? You Mean Cairo?

    Over the past five weeks, there has been growing controversy and speculation over what Obama administration officials knew about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and when they knew it.  A particularly sore point of contention is the role or lack thereof that Cairo-style protests or demonstrations might have played in the attacks.  The answers have ranged from Susan Rice's assertion on Meet the Press (and other Sunday shows) that the attacks were a direct response to the anti-Muslim Youtube movie trailer...

“This is a response to a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world.”

...to flat denials that there even were any protests, as Eli Lake of the Daily Beast reported on October 12:

[F]our diplomatic-security officers who were at the Benghazi compound and who initially responded to the attack... told State Department investigators in formal briefings that there was no spontaneous protest the night of the attack.

    Conflicting reports continue to filter out.  Just last Friday, the L.A Times reported:

 "There isn't any intelligence that the attackers pre-planned their assault days or weeks in advance." Most of the evidence so far suggests that "the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" earlier that day, the official said.

    With a multitude of parties involved bearing varying degrees of responsibility or even possible culpability and many agendas to boot, the truth will be slow to come out and likely will be denied by some even if and when it does.  But at the risk of sounding like I have discovered something that all the professional journalists and amateur bloggers have overlooked or forgotten, I believe I have discovered something that the professional journalists and amateur bloggers have overlooked or forgotten.  On September 12, 2012, the day after the attacks, the State Department conducted a telephone conference call with reporters to try to provide information based on what was known at the time.  Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy was one of the reporters on the call, and he wrote a story that day based on the information given by the unnamed officials.  During the conference call, Rogin asked a question about possible protests, and reported the response as follows:

The briefing left several questions about the Tuesday attack unanswered. The officials wouldn't speculate about the identity of the attackers or whether the Benghazi attack was connected to an earlier protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo during which protesters breached the compound walls.
"It was clearly a complex attack," the official said. "It's too early to speak to who they were and if they might have been otherwise affiliated outside of Libya."

 * * * 

The officials could not say whether the attackers were part of the protests outside the embassy walls.
"We frankly don't have a full picture of what may have been going on outside of the compound walls before the firing began," the official said.

    However, the way the unnamed official responds to the question about the protests (see transcript of the conference call) is quite revealing [emphasis mine]:

QUESTION: Thank you very much. First, just one point of clarification. Can you tell us what time in the timeline that [the body of] Ambassador Stevens was delivered to you at the airport? But the larger question is, you didn’t talk at all about the protests. You started your timeline with that the firing began. Can you talk about the timeline of when the protests started, how that fit in with it, and your sense of whether or not the protestors and the assailants were the same?

 * * *

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: ...With regard to the protests – I assume you’re not talking about protests in Cairo, are you? You’re talking about protests in Benghazi?... We frankly don’t have a full picture of what may have been going on outside of the compound walls before the firing began. So I really just don’t have any specifics on that at the moment. I apologize.

    It is clear from the official's response that the Cairo protests were the only protests of which the State Department was aware.  Even though Rogin's question was clearly in the context of Benghazi, the official felt the need to clarify that Rogin was not referring to the Cairo protests.  Indeed, the overall content and tone of the call was such that another reporter, Justin Fishel with Fox News, asked the following later in the call:

QUESTION: ...Do you believe that this attack was in any way related to the incident in Cairo? You suggested this attack in Benghazi was more complex; so is it safe to rule out that this was a reaction to the inflammatory internet video?

 * * *

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: ...With regard to whether there is any connection between this internet activity and this extremist attack in Benghazi, frankly, we just don’t know. We’re not going to know until we have a chance to investigate. And I’m sorry that it is frustrating for you that so many of our answers are “We don’t know,” but they are truthful in that.

    Keep in mind this question was asked before all the controversy erupted about the attacks being pre-planned versus a spontaneous reaction to the video, so likely it was asked sincerely based on the preceding information in the call and not with a gotcha agenda.

    As I wrote last week, it seems to stretch credulity that, given the violence of the protests in Cairo, the State Department would not have been in touch with other installations in the region to monitor possible copycat situations.  And based on this conference calls, the early information suggested that no such copycat protest had happened in Benghazi.  Only in the days and weeks that following came the increasing drumbeat from the administration about spontaneous protests in Benghazi, a drumbeat that increasingly seems to have been political in nature with little basis in reality.

Benghazi and the Phantom Demonstration

US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, pre-9/11/12

    Ever since the attack on the US Consulate and Benghazi which resulted in the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others, questions have swirled around what the State Department and our intelligence agencies knew and when they knew it.   These questions extend back to what was known about the conditions in Libya beforehand and what was done to strengthen (or not) security in Libya.  Even more contentious have been the questions about what role, if any, the "Innocence of Muslims" movie trailer played in the Benghazi incident.

    The consensus on that latter question is settling around "none."  A background briefing given to reporters last week by two unnamed Senior State Department Officials (transcript here) revealed that no evidence of a demonstration or protest before the Benghazi attack is visible on the security camera video recently recovered from the shattered compound.  Nor have any of the surviving personnel from the attack reported any such demonstration or even unusual activity outside the consulate that evening before an explosion and gunfire split the silence.  From all appearances now, the attack seems to have been planned and unrelated to the film.

    But the question remains: why would the diplomats and staff in Benghazi have been so unprepared that night, given the anniversary date and given what was taking place at that very time right next door in Egypt?  The State Department's OSAC division put out the following warning on 9/11 before the "spontaneous" Cairo protests had even begun:

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens: Cairo (Egypt), Demonstrations
Riots/Civil Unrest
Near East > Egypt > Cairo
9/11/2012
Several different groups are calling for demonstrations in both downtown and Garden City this afternoon to protest a range of issues. These groups may gather in front of the U.S. Embassy, or Egyptian government buildings such as the People’s Assembly and Ministry of Interior, beginning in the early afternoon and continuing into the evening.  It is unclear if large numbers will take to the streets, but clashes may occur should two opposing groups come into contact with one another. Large gatherings and non-essential travel in and around Downtown and Garden City should be avoided this afternoon.
 U.S. citizens should avoid areas where large gatherings may occur.  Even demonstrations or events intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence.  U.S. citizens in Egypt are urged to monitor local news reports and to plan their activities accordingly.

    The State Department in Washington was well aware of the situation in Cairo as the transcript of the Daily Press Briefing for 9/11/12 shows.  This is a rather lengthy excerpt, but I believe it helps illustrate the State Department's mindset at the time [emphasis mine.]

QUESTION: I’d like to talk about Cairo. Apparently, there’s a developing issue at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. There are about a thousand protestors outside the walls trying to attack the Embassy, U.S. guards at the Embassy firing into the air, and there are some photos on Twitter with the al-Qaida flag being possibly waved at the U.S. Embassy. I don’t know what that’s about, but can you tell us about the situation there right now?
MS. NULAND: We did have reports just before I came down here that we had a protest outside our Embassy in Cairo. We had some people breach the wall, take the flag down, replace it – what I heard was that it was replaced with a --
QUESTION: With an al-Qaida flag, I believe.
MS. NULAND: With a black flag, a plain black flag, but I may not be correct in that. We are obviously working with Egyptian security to try to restore order at the Embassy and to work with them to try to get the situation under control.
QUESTION: I mean – but just in general, I mean, is the situation of what’s happening with the public there – obviously, you’ve been trying to work with the Muslim Brotherhood regardless of what religion or anything like that, but – and it does seem as if there is a growing anti-American sentiment in Cairo, and as evident as our – on our trip with Secretary Clinton. And I’m just wondering how concerning these continued protests are.
MS. NULAND: Well, there have been, as you say, these – there were some protests when the Secretary was there. They’ve had these protests. But I would hasten – I would urge you not to draw too many conclusions because we’ve also had some very positive developments in our relationship with Egypt.
As you know, Deputy Secretary Nides was there earlier this week, over the weekend, with some hundred businesspeople from the United States, working with Egyptian counterparts in big business, medium, small to try to support the renewal of the Egyptian economy, to cut new deals. And that was a very, very successful conference that was very much appreciated by the Egyptian business community. We’re also working with Egyptian civil society and with the government on a broader package of support going forward.
So obviously, one of the things about the new Egypt is that protest is possible. Obviously we all want to see peaceful protest, which is not what happened outside the U.S. mission, so we’re trying to restore calm now. But I think the bigger picture is one of the United States supporting Egypt’s democratic transition and the Egyptian Government very much welcoming and working with us on the support that we have to offer.
QUESTION: Well, why do you think, though, that that message isn’t getting out? I mean, do you think that you – that the Embassy and this Department need to do more efforts at public diplomacy? I mean, certainly it’s true that you have kind of outreached the Muslim Brotherhood; you are doing a lot with the business community, with the debt, helping them with other financial institutions. So why do you think that that message isn’t getting through?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think we can always do more. The Egyptians can always do more. But I think the message is getting through, as more and more partners across Egypt want to work with us. It’s rarely the case that you please all of the people all the time in any country, and we certainly respect the right of peaceful protest, as long as it’s peaceful.
Please.
QUESTION: Do you think that Egypt’s becoming increasingly hostile towards the United States?
MS. NULAND: I haven’t seen the polling data in the recent period, Said, but I don’t have any reason to think that this is a dangerous trend, if that’s what you’re asking.
QUESTION: This breaching of the wall is a serious thing.
MS. NULAND: No, of course.
QUESTION: I mean, remember when, let’s say, they did that to the Israeli Embassy. It was an initiative from this building, I believe, that called the Egyptians and urged them to defuse the situation, and they did. So what do you do in this case?
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, in this case, we’re working with the Egyptian security forces to restore order. It sounds like – and I don’t have full details – that this came up pretty quickly, relatively modest group of people, but caught probably us and the Egyptian security outside the Embassy by some surprise.
QUESTION: This was a thousand people. I don’t really think that’s necessarily modest, do you?
MS. NULAND: Well, as compared to some of the things that we’ve seen.
QUESTION: Were there any injuries, do you know?
MS. NULAND: Not that I know of, but we’ll have to see how it develops.

    Obvious Ms. Nuland, while sharing known details of the Cairo situation, was at pains to look at the bright side and downplay the seriousness: "some people"/"modest group of people" was apparently a mob of 1,000 or so; "I don’t have any reason to think that this is a dangerous trend", when what began as a protest led to the breach of a wall at the embassy, the US flag being burned and replaced with a black (al-Qaeda?) flag, and warning gunshots fired into the air; and reporters were urged not to "draw too many conclusions" and look at the "bigger picture" of the Egyptian government "welcoming and working" with the United States.

    Does this explain why the State Department (apparently) did not contact the Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, and the Consulate in Benghazi to find out if any protests were developing there?  If 1,000 people rioting in Cairo modest "as compared to some of the things that we’ve seen," shouldn't State have been in touch with every diplomatic post in the Middle East to find out if the unrest was spreading, especially in Egypt's immediate neighbors?  And if such a copycat protest was beginning to bubble up in Benghazi, wouldn't the security staff there have been emailing/calling Tripoli and Washington to alert someone?  I have not seen any reports suggesting any of these things happened.

    Despite UN Ambassador Susan Rice's assertion on Meet the Press on September 16th that...

What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, prompted by the video[.]

...in fact the two incidents at the time as well as in retrospect appear quite dissimilar.  A recent story by Reuters may shed some light on why the administration was at pains to conflate the two events:

 In the months before the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies warned the White House and State Department repeatedly that the region was becoming an increasingly dangerous vortex for jihadist groups loosely linked or sympathetic to al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.
Despite those warnings, and bold public displays by Islamist militants around Benghazi, embassies in the region were advised to project a sense of calm and normalcy in the run-up to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

    Tragically, four U.S. citizens paid the ultimate price for what may have been political considerations. Congress must now cut through the fog and get to the truth.

New Benghazi Photos of US Consulate

    The House Oversight Committee has released some new photos of the US Consulate in Benghazi.  I have reproduced the first five here.  The remaining three are at the link but are more graphic and disturbing in nature, so I chose not to include them.  The first appears to be pre-attack, showing the pristine grounds of the compound looking towards the front gate.  The others are obviously post-attack.

The State Department and the Other 9/11

    The State Department has taken some heat in the aftermath of the attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi for not being better prepared for the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaida.  I have written extensively on this subject, including the lack of travel warnings regarding the 2012 anniversary (unlike the global alert in 2011) and even the downplaying the potential threats as media hype.  However, the State Department was not totally complacent in regards to the potential for September 11th violence.  The following Emergency Message appeared at the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council website on 9/10/12:

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens: Santiago (Chile), Potential September 11th Violence
Riots/Civil Unrest
Western Hemisphere > Chile > Santiago
9/10/2012
Security Message for U.S. Citizens: Potential September 11th Violence
U.S. Embassy Santiago, Chile
September 10, 2012 

September 11th marks the anniversary of Chile’s 1973 coup against the government of Salvador Allende, establishing military rule from 1973 - 1990 (led by General Augusto Pinochet, who died in 2006).  Each year the anniversary is marked by demonstrations, marches, and protests, usually in downtown Santiago near government buildings and some outlying communities of the Metropolitan Region.
Demonstrations could begin as early as noon on the 11th and are expected to continue into the evening.  As these demonstrations can turn violent, U.S. citizens should monitor the media for the latest information on the locations of the demonstrations and to avoid those areas.  The demonstrations will affect transportation services in some areas.
We wish to remind U.S. citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence.  U.S. citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations.

    Somehow the 39th anniversary of the coup in Chile prompted an emergency warning (undoubtedly justified) to U.S. citizens about the potential for violence in Santiago, whereas the 11th anniversary of the worst single attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor was dismissed with "often times, these concerns [over anniversaries] are the result of increased media attention to the issue."  If Congress ends up calling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to testify in the Benghazi investigation, a question or two about priorities would certainly be in order.

The Politicization of Benghazi

    Congressional hearings were held this week to attempt to get to the bottom of the terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.  One of the challenges was determining the level of alertness and preparedness at the State Department and other agencies charged with the security of our national interests and citizens at home and abroad.  The answer to that question might provide clues also about the curious response of many in the Obama administration who after the attack clung to the spontaneous protest of a terrible anti-Muslim movie that turned violent explanation in the face of clear and mounting evidence to the contrary.

    I have already written extensively about one report that the State Department issued on 9/6/12 via the Overseas Security Advisory Council.  While the OSAC's function is limited within the State Department, the reports they issue, to be credible and reliable, must be based on the best intelligence available to the State Department as a whole, and consequently must reflect the attitudes and priorities of the Department and its leadership.  The summary of the report which initially appeared in a publicly available menu of reports but subsequently on 9/14/12 was placed behind the subscriber wall reads as follows [emphasis mine]:

Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012
OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However, constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot.

    This position of the State Department, that often concerns are the result of media attention to anniversary dates, stands in stark contrast to their position in 2011 as the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached.  This warning was issued last year on 9/2/11 [emphasis mine]:

Travel Alert
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
9-11 Anniversary
September 02, 2011
As we mark the 10th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Department of State informs U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad of the continued threat posed by al-Qa’ida and its affiliates.  While we have not identified any specific threats from al-Qa’ida affiliates and allies to attack the United States or our interests on the 9/11 anniversary, U.S. citizens should be aware that al-Qa’ida affiliates and allies have demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks against the United States and our interests around the world.  In the past, terrorist organizations have on occasion planned their attacks to coincide with significant dates on the calendar.  This Worldwide Travel Alert supplements the July 26, 2011, Worldwide Caution, and expires on January 2, 2012.

    In contrast, no travel warnings were issued by the State Department in advance of the 9/11 anniversary that related the warning to the anniversary.  In fact, at a press conference on August 29, 2012, a State Department spokesperson went to some lengths to dispel the notion that a recently issued Pakistan travel warning was in any way related to the upcoming anniversary of 9/11:

MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, Goyal, you are correct that we recently updated our Travel Warning for Pakistan. We do this on a routine basis as events happen on the ground. The latest update, which I think was yesterday or the day before, includes information about some of the attacks that we’ve seen, including the April explosion in Lahore and the suicide attack in Karachi. So it’s just appropriate that we would keep that up-to-date based on events...
QUESTION: And as far as this Travel Warning is concerned, Madam, is this in connection with the, one, 9/11 coming up? ...
MS. NULAND: It doesn’t have anything to do with September 11th. It just has to do with regular updating based on information on the ground, as I stated.

    The bottom line is that the State Department had little to no concern about the 9/11 anniversary.  A search  for "9/11 threat" and "9/11 warning" on the State Department website in the month run-up to September 11th this year yields very few results, and most of those have nothing to do with the anniversary.  The sole exception was the transcript of the press conference I excerpted above, and that was actually to disavow a 9/11 anniversary warning.  Coincidentally, one of the other documents these searches found was not a warning, but rather an IRC Alert Newsletter from the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan that highlighted an article in the Mediterranean Quarterly, Spring 2012 issue entitled "AL QAEDA’S POST–9/11 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND STRATEGY: The Role of Islamist Regional Affiliates".  The article is summarized in part as follows:

"The political transformations under way in the Arab world and the killing of Osama bin Laden raise serious questions about al Qaeda‘s long-term viability. The secular-liberal Arab Spring protest movement appears to be winning the war of ideas over al Qaeda‘s violent religious fundamentalism. Civil disobedience campaigns in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded in forcing regime change in ways that a decade of al Qaeda terror attacks failed to accomplish. While it is too soon to write al Qaeda‘s obituary, its erosion came well before the death of its historic leader...”

    Given the pre-9/11/12 optimism at the State Department and the ambivalence towards the upcoming 9/11 anniversary, the administration's response to the events of that day had to be prepared quickly.  Eli Lake at the Daily Beast and Jake Tapper of ABC News among others have reported on various internal documents, assessments, and talking points that were prepared and used by various government agencies in the days and weeks following the attacks.  Whatever those documents actually said, much of the talk during that time from government officials, up to and including the president, was about the movie, the anti-Muslim trailer on YouTube that apparently provoked the protest at the US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, on the same day as the Benghazi attack.  But what information did the State Department have in the hours following the attacks that would have led to this initial conclusion?  One of the first responses came from the OSAC who had issued the report on 9/6 that I referenced at the beginning of this post.  It is dated 9/11/12, the same day as the incident and begins as follows:

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens: Tripoli (Libya) Attack on Consulate in Benghazi
Riots/Civil Unrest
Near East > Libya > Tripoli
9/11/2012
Please be advised that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked this evening.  We strongly encourage all American citizens to take appropriate precautions as the security situation in Libya is volatile.  Review your personal safety plans, remain aware of your surroundings, including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates.  Maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security.
The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli will be closed Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

    Almost the entire report (a repeat of the warning on the website of the Libyan embassy in Tripoli) sounds like a standard report that would be issued in many emergency situations including phone numbers and websites to get additional information, as well as warnings to be extremely careful.  But the first line says that "the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked this evening."  There is no mention of a protest, a demonstration, and certainly nothing about a movie.

    The second report was issued the next day by the OSAC.  The entire report is available here.  There is analysis and further information following the paragraphs I have reproduced below, but what follows are the facts as they were being reported at the time.  Note that the official symbol of the State Department/OSAC heads the page (pictured here on left.)  Also note the disclaimer at the bottom of the page says: "The contents of this (U) presentation in no way represent the policies, views, or attitudes of the United States Department of State, or the United States Government, except as otherwise noted (e.g., travel advisories, public statements). The presentation was compiled from various open sources and (U) embassy reporting."  While it may be true that the following "in no way represent the policies, views, or attitudes of the United States Department of State," it nonetheless does represent what the State Department knew, or at least what it was willing to make public, about the events in Benghazi on 9/11/12.

September 12, 2012

On September 11, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked by armed militants, some wielding rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and assault rifles, at approximately 3:50 p.m. The assault breached the consulate and resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three U.S. officials. Several more personnel were reportedly wounded in the attack that left the consulate burned and ransacked.

 Background According to preliminary open source reporting, approximately 20 armed militants gathered outside the U.S. Consulate on September 11, possibly in protest to the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims.”. Following a series of warning shots from security guards attempting to disperse the crowds, American and Libyan security forces were overpowered. The armed mob was able to penetrate the consulate, resulting in the death of Ambassador Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and two security personnel. Libyan doctors who treated Ambassador Stevens reported the cause of death was severe asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. Witness reports describe the use of RPGs, homemade bombs and grenades being thrown inside the consulate, sparking several fires.
Hours before the attack on the Benghazi consulate, demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to protest the controversial anti-Islam film the “Innocence of Muslims.” Demonstrators scaled the walls of the Embassy, tore down and burnt an American flag, and attempted to raise an Islamic banner with the words, “There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger."

    Note that there is no actual evidence of a protest or demonstration in Benghazi as there was in Cairo.  While the movie is mentioned, it is pure speculation.  There were no banners in the Benghazi report, and as far as I have read, no widespread reports of "armed militants" in Cairo at the Embassy.  Also, unlike the huge gathering in Cairo, the "crowd" at Benghazi consisted of "approximately 20 armed militants" who were apparently greeted fairly quickly with warning shots from inside the compound, indicating that those inside immediately sensed extreme danger.  During the Cairo protests, the staff sent out the now infamous tweet and press release condemning those who would "hurt the religious feelings of Muslims," a reference to the anti-Muslim movie.  But in Benghazi, the staff was quickly preparing for a fight for their lives, which for four of them turned into a fight to the death.

     So why did the administration react as it did?  In September 2011, Osama bin Laden's death was only months old and tensions were still high.  But as the year passed and the election drew closer, the White House built its foreign policy credentials on the end the war in Iraq and "winding down the war in Afghanistan", Osama bin Laden's death, al-Qaida's decline, and the successful ouster of Gaddafi in Libya.  Both the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan were already showing signs of deterioration, and now in a single day, 9/11/12, the remaining three legs of the foreign policy stool were shaken.  Around the Arab world, protesters were reportedly shouting “Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!” and the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was brutally attacked with overwhelming force, presumably with al-Qaida's involvement.  The foreign policy of the Obama administration was crashing down around it in a single day.

    Then, three days after the attacks, on 9/14/12, the OSAC withdrew the 9/6/12 report behind its subscriber wall and Jay Carney mentioned the "video" twelve times at a press conference, saying at least three times,"unrest around the region has been in response to this video."  Carney went on to say, "We do not, at this moment, have information to suggest or to tell you that would indicate that any of this unrest was preplanned."  UN Ambassador Susan Rice repeatedly cited in the video in later interviews and the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought it up more than once when discussing the Benghazi attacks.  Recently revelations have proved that there was no demonstration or protest at the US Consulate in Benghazi, only an outright and determined attack.  A more realistic look at the evidence would have made this the natural conclusion to draw in the aftermath rather than defaulting to "the video."

    The US Weather Service may have to visit the scene of a weather disaster to officially designate a "tornado," but those who have lived through them can look at flattened buildings and cars in trees and be quite certain what happened.  The Obama administration refused to acknowledge the evidence before its eyes in a political attempt to salvage a foreign policy, and possibly and election, that was quickly slipping away.

It's Come to This: "Benghazi-gate"

    Fox Nation has picked up (via Gateway Pundit) on my reporting of the disappearance of the pre-9/11 anniversary State Department report from the website of its OSAC division.  This morning, Gateway Pundit noted that Rush Limbaugh mentioned the story on his show yesterday.  From the transcript at Rush's website:

 And, by the way, this was a truth that revealed reckless incompetence in planning for the security and safety the people that work for him. The State Department -- you know this -- five days before put a notice up on one of their websites that there was no credible information of any threat. Yeah, 9/11's coming up, but they don't have any credible information.
That has now been scrubbed. The Gateway Pundit is reporting that that warning... Well, it was not a warning. That little memo from the State Department to employees that work there has been scrubbed from their site. You can't go find the posting on the State Department website that told everybody over there that there was no problem. They've taken it down. The most transparent regime in history, they promised? So this campaign of deceit was deployed, was put out there because Obama has a reelection campaign.

    As I have noted (in an attempt to be cautious and give the benefit of the doubt, if any remains) the exact fate of the report is still in question, but at the very least it has been removed from the publicly accessible portion of the website where it was visible from its posing on 9/6 through 9/14 when it disappeared.

    The only quibble I have with Rush's characterization is when he refers to the "memo from the State Department to employees that work there."  The report was actually issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.  Technically it was not a report to "employees that work" at the State Department, but rather to "American private sector interests worldwide".  But given that Christopher Stevens, according to President Obama's speech to the United Nations this week, had "travelled to Benghazi to review plans to establish a new cultural center and modernize a hospital," this OSAC report seems particularly relevant.