Witnesses in Benghazi, Libya, provide a chronology for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate here that differs in significant ways from timelines released by U.S. officials in Washington, raising more questions about how the assault unfolded and the speed with which Americans at a nearby CIA annex responded to calls for help from the consulate.
The versions of the attack told here indicate that the last visitor who met with Ambassador Chris Stevens departed at least 45 minutes earlier than U.S. officials in Washington have said. Witnesses here also suggest that the attack, which took the lives of Stevens and three other Americans, may have begun as many as 15 minutes earlier than officials in Washington have said.
In addition, witnesses said there was no indication that anyone in the U.S. diplomatic compound was aware before the assault that protests had broken out in neighboring Egypt over an inflammatory film about the Prophet Muhammad that was produced in the United States.
The differences in the timelines could mean that CIA officers stationed in a compound just 1.2 miles away may have waited as long as 40 minutes before setting out to assist the besieged consulate and might not have arrived there until more than an hour after the attack began. A timeline released by the CIA says help was dispatched after just 25 minutes and that it took the rescue squad 25 minutes to arrive.
At a minimum, the witness accounts suggest that after two months, the U.S. government still may not know the basic sequence of events and when key moments in the assault occurred.
What took place in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11 and the early morning of Sept. 12 is the subject of at least three congressional hearings this week, beginning with a closed session of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee today and ending with separate sessions of the Senate and House intelligence committees Thursday.
On the evening of Sept. 11, Stevens met with the Turkish consul here, Ali Sait Akin, in what everyone agrees was his last official act. While State Department officials said Stevens escorted the Turkish consul out of the compound at 8:30 p.m., a guard at the compound and an official familiar with the meeting said Akin left at 7:45 p.m.
A 31-year-old security guard employed by a British contracting company said he distinctly remembered the time of the meeting because about a half-hour before Akin was scheduled to meet with Stevens, the ambassador had approached the guard, introduced himself and asked what security measures were needed to allow the Turkish consul to enter. Stevens addressed the guard in Arabic and told him Akin would arrive at 6:30 p.m. for an hourlong meeting.
As the guard and Stevens spoke, the protests in Cairo had been going on for nearly two hours. Stevens didn’t mention the film, the guard said, and no one from the compound warned about possible protests throughout the night.
Akin arrived on time and the men met for an hour, the guard said. While they discussed security broadly, they didn’t talk about the film, the protests or the Sept. 11 anniversary, said an official familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of the anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. After the meeting, Stevens and Akin chatted for about 15 minutes as they strolled around the compound, and Akin left at 7:45 p.m.
The guard said he made a note of the time of Akin’s arrival and departure in a book in which the guards tracked all movements.
As of four days ago, no U.S. or Libyan official had questioned Akin about his meeting with Stevens, according to the official familiar with the meeting.
State Department officials have said the attack started at 9:40 p.m., a time that the CIA timeline also sets as the approximate beginning. A Pentagon account of its response said the assault started at 9:42 p.m.
But two guards at the compound said the attack began earlier; one set the time as 9:25 p.m. and the other, 9:35.
One guard, who was at the main gate and placed the assault’s beginning at 9:25 p.m., said a colleague stationed at a side gate about 25 yards away had alerted him by radio that attackers were approaching. The guard said he stuck his head out a window and saw the attackers on one side of the road, near where his colleague was stationed, and Libyan police on the other side of the road fleeing. He said he hit the alarm button to alert the compound that it was under attack.
Behind the compound, at a nearby restaurant, a Western diplomat who was having dinner heard a mortar round go off around 9:30 p.m., presumably after the attackers had arrived at the compound. When he was told that U.S. officials put the start of the attack at 9:40 p.m. he said he was dubious. “It was no later than 9:40 p.m., maximum,” he said. The diplomat asked that neither he nor the country he represents be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
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