It’s 9:42pm on the night of Sept. 11, 2012. The Libyan Police just abandoned their post at the front gate, and Libyan militants are storming the Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi, Libya. A Diplomatic Security agent at the compound sounds for the emergency action plan: shelter in place, contact the support elements, and wait for their arrival. But that night, the emergency plan at the compound directly failed Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty.
As a member of the Select Committee on Benghazi, I was tasked to find out what exactly happened on the ground during the attack. I took a look at the competence of the facility, the host security we relied so heavily upon, and the contracted security group.
Undoubtedly, one of the most concerning parts of the security situation in Libya was the reliance upon one of the many militia competing in an unstable nation to protect our men and women at the Benghazi Mission Compound. The State Department decided to contract with one of the local militia, as recommended by the Libyan Government, as the compound’s quick reaction force. They were by no means a comprehensive security force that could adequately protect Americans on the ground -- and the State Department knew it. There was no one to liaise with, police presence outside the compound was sporadic, and information sharing was nonexistent. There were also previous experiences where the February 17th Martyrs Brigade turned down requests to add personnel out of concern with associating with Americans.
Additionally, since the compound was not an official United States facility, it was not equipped with adequate defensive capabilities and lacked sophisticated surveillance capabilities and emergency notification systems. For example, in the tactical operations center, there was no way for the facility to have direct communications in the event of an emergency with the commander of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade. Diplomatic Security (DS) agents stationed at the facility raised concerns over security and requested more cameras, sandbags, tighter entrance gate security, and additional lights outside the compound. Agents also requested a belt-fed, crew-served machine gun to protect themselves, but it never arrived. Again, the State Department placed politics over safety -- a price paid for by American lives.
The State Department also made a questionable security call when they contracted a private security company out of the United Kingdom named Blue Mountain Group (BMG) that had merged with a Libyan security company. The purpose of the BMG Libya was to provide gate security, by checking credentials and providing a first warning to the compound in the event of an attack. BMG hired Libyan locals who could speak the common language in the area and did not arm them with any weapons, which proved detrimental when it came time to choose whether to stay and fight or flee the scene. It was again, a poorly vetted diplomatic arrangement that left Americans on their own in a time of need.
After interviewing over 107 witnesses, including 15 that were on the ground the night of the attack, it is clear there was a tremendous disconnect between Washington and Libya, and that we failed our Americans in Libya.
It was more than clear that, despite growing security threats and the previous attacks in the region, there were no improvements made to the compound in the event of an emergency. Leading up, Undersecretary of Management at the State Department Patrick Kennedy even rejected recommendations to improve security as part of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Diplomatic Review in Benghazi.
The poor security is not only a diplomatic failure by the State Department, but a historic failure that resulted in the loss of four American lives. I still cannot fathom why we put the lives of our American lives in the hands of an unstable transitional government in a war-torn country.
Had it not been for the extraordinary bravery of the CIA, GRS, DS agents, the response by men serving in Tripoli, and the former senior members of the Qaddafi regime who provided the evacuation of American personnel to Benghazi airport for their departure to Tripoli, the death toll would have been much higher.
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