Information thread regarding wide range of Benghazi issues

Posted 5-21-15

20.) Hillary Clinton official statement released at approximately 10:10 PM, 9-11-12. : "Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation." This statement was released by State Dept, under Clinton's name, prior to her telephone consultation with Obama which took place shortly after this statement was released. This excerpt was part of a longer official statement.

At the time the statement was released, Glen Doherty, who had not yet arrived at the Annex, and Tyrone Woods, were still alive. The statement mentions the death of Sean Smith (without identifying him): " As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. "

Any e-mail sent to Clinton time-stamped after 4 AM Benghazi time would not have influenced her formal statement of September 11th.






**Posted 5-18-15

19.) The refusal of Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy to activate the FEST team is an entirely separate, and unrelated, issue from the disproven belief that Gibson's 4-man Army team in Tripoli was told to "stand down" when they attempted to go to the airport and fly to Benghazi early in the morning hours of September 12th. The "stand down" story grew out of Congressman Chaffetz' verbal characterization of Greg Hick's testimony, leading to the use of the "stand down" story for a long time that followed. Gibson himself testified that he was never told to stand down, and that he had not used those words when communicating with Hicks.




**Posted 5/22/14**

18.)The UK closed its Benghazi Mission on June 12, 2012, after four attacks on Brits in Benghazi, including a serious one on the British Ambassador the day before. The Red Cross left Benghazi and Misrata on August 5, 2012, after 7 of its workers were abducted in Benghazi and 3 major RPG attacks on the RC facilities in those cities, including one on 8-5.

Italy, France, Turkey, Malta, the European Union and the United Nations each had a diplomatic presence in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.


**Posted 5/11/14:**

17.) There was no live video feed available to the State Dept., or the White House during the initial attack on the Special Mission Compound (SMC). Sean Hannity repeatedly made that statement in error in the days following 9-121-12 and created confusion by doing so. There WAS audio communication between the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) located on the SMC compound, and the State Dept., the Embassy in Tripoli, the Annex, and others. A drone did provide an overhead view to the Defense Dept. starting just before the DS agents left for the Annex.)

11.) Panetta and Dempsey visited with Pres. Obama at the White House from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM. They returned together to the Pentagon. Obama knew before they arrived that the attack was taking place, having been advised by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon shortly before their arrival.

10.) While Obama's activity between 5:30 PM and 6:30 PM is still in question, he was on a phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu from 6:30 PM to 7:25 PM. Immediately after that, he and Biden were joined by Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough and Chief of Staff Jack Lew. The much-circulated photo of these 5 men in the Oval Office (posted by rex in another thread) was date-stamped 7:28 PM. That was the last publicly-acknowledged specific whereabouts of Obama in the White House until the next morning.

9.) The 4-man military force under the command of LTC Gibson that wanted to go to Benghazi at dawn was not told to "stand down" by anyone. They were, however, prevented from taking the plane by Admiral Losey, who ordered them instead to remain in place and continue their assigned duty of protecting the staff at the Embassy in Tripoli. They protected American personnel in their move from the Embassy to the Libya Annex, and later secured approval to meet the first plane from Benghazi at the Tripoli airport. One member of that group, a medic, accompanied the wounded to a Tripoli medical facility and has been credited with playing a major role in saving the life of one of them.

8.) There were two American active duty military members on the first flight from Tripoli to Benghazi (the Doherty flight). These two men were present at the Benghazi CIA Annex during the final morning attack that took the lives of Doherty and Woods , as well as nearly took the life of David Ubben, the DS agent who had evacuated to the Annex. It has been reported on many sites that no American military personnel were on the ground in Benghazi that night. The other five men on that rescue flight from Tripoli were 4 CIA security personnel (including Doherty) and one CIA linguist.

7.) Sean Smith's mother has asked on several occasions if the bloody handprint seen on an outside wall of the villa might be her son's. I'm sure she posed the question rhetorically, to make the point that she is not getting the information she has requested. However, I have twice recently seen comments implying it may be his in the comments of mainstream news webpages. Though clarification may not be necessary for anyone on this particular board, I will make the statement that we know it is not his blood. Smith was in the main villa during the entire time of the attack and died of smoke inhalation.

4.) The initial attack at the SMC started at 9:42 PM Benghazi time. At 11:20 PM, the 5 DS agents departed the SMC for the Annex and survived a dangerous drive back, with Wickland driving. Their vehicle took on small arms fire for much of the way, arriving at the Annex with two flat tires at 11:30 PM. The CIA rescue team stayed behind to continue the search for Stevens. (Smith's body had already been recovered and they had possession of it.)

The CIA rescue team then endured a second attack at the SMC that lasted about 15 minutes and they were forced to leave for the Annex with Smith's body. They arrived at the Annex around 11:47 PM. A few minutes before midnight, a small-arms and RPG attack began at the Annex (at this point all Americans other than Stevens body were gone from the SMC and were at the Annex). This attack lasted until approx. 1:00 AM.

After 1:00 AM, there was a long period of very little activity at the Annex. The 7-man reinforcement team from Tripoli (5 CIA personnel and 2 U.S. military personnel) arrived at the Annex just after 5:00 AM. Shortly thereafter, at 5:15 AM, a 90-second, 5 round mortar attack began, killing Doherty, who had just arrived from the airport, and Woods, and critically injuring one of the DS agents, David Ubben. One of the Benghazi CIA GRS agents was also seriously wounded by the mortar fire. All American personnel, as well as Smith's body, departed the Annex at approximately 6:30 AM for the airport in Tripoli , and made it without incident, protected by a long entourage of Libyan militia personnel, their trip monitored by the replacement drone. The first group of Americans , including the wounded, left the airport in Benghazi for Tripoli at 7:30 AM. Stevens body was transported to the airport by Libyan personnel, arriving at 8:25 AM. The second group of Americans, including two civilian contractors and the four deceased, arrived back in Tripoli via a Libyan Air Force C-130 at 11:30 AM.



3.) Chris Stevens was making his first trip to Benghazi after 108 days as Ambassador. He had spent 227 days in the city in 2011 in his role as Special Envoy to the rebel-led transitional government. During that 2011 assignment, he had a personal security force of 10 DS agents, had lived at the CIA Annex for a couple of weeks after a car bomb exploded in front of his hotel, and then became the original "tenant" of the Special Mission Compound in June of 2011, working out of the facility until he returned to the U.S. in November of 2011.


2.) One item of misinformation that continues to be reported by the media almost daily (have read or heard it half a dozen times this week alone), is that the Benghazi attack took place at a time when there were anti-American demonstrations erupting throughout the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the video.

The ONLY anti-American demonstration in response to the video that preceded the attack in Benghazi was the second part of the demonstration in Cairo on Sept. 11th. NO other country experienced demonstrations in response to the video prior to, or during, the Benghazi attacks.


1.) Additional security cameras sat in boxes at the time of the attack at the Special Mission Compound, awaiting technicians to arrive to install them.

The camera monitor in the guard booth at the Main Gate was out of operation on the night of attack, scheduled to be repaired by the same techs that were to install the additional new cameras.

I was like, "Wut?" this morning, then I was like, "Alright, dude!"

Can we get a sticky for this?

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6.) In a somewhat related, and disturbing, matter, a ghastly picture was posted a couple of days ago in a Benghazi thread on this board of a naked man who had been brutalized and was being assaulted with a cattle prod. The poster implied that it was Chris Stevens. There are posters all over the internet showing that same body and saying it is Stevens. IT IS NOT.

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Thanks for pointing that out.

I have corrected that post and it now contains the real photo,
which incidentally does not depict the ambassador as having a wonderful evening.

Can you provide a more factual account of Ambassador Stevens being upset about the public notice of his arrival in the city? I understand he was upset, but explain more of why, plus how. In addition, how did he address this through channels and did those channels funnel back to SoS Clinton, and if so, have there been emails available noting her concern or conversely, her refusal to bolster the security?

This has to be the longest series of facts posted about anything in the history of this board.

Hopefully this special counsel uses facts like these instead of doing the typical grandstanding and attention seeking.

Concur with the sticky.

George Will mentioned on Fox today he wants to know if American Aircraft could have flown over the residential area to scare the Libyans.

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Can you provide a more factual account of Ambassador Stevens being upset about the public notice of his arrival in the city? I understand he was upset, but explain more of why, plus how.

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See added text on item #14