Embassy in Tripoli, “felt we needed more, not less” security personnel in the country, but were told “to do with less

The regional security office for the U.S. Embassy in Libya compiled a running list of 230 security incidents through July 2012 in a memo that ultimately concluded that “the risk of U.S. Mission personnel, private U.S. citizens, or businesspersons encountering an isolating event as a result of militia or political violence is HIGH.”

The document, obtained by CBS News, is the latest piece of evidence suggesting security in the country was tenuous ahead of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

Since the attack, there have been increasing questions about whether the State Department did enough to safeguard its diplomatic personnel in Libya, with some security officers for the mission claiming that repeated requests for additional security were ignored by officials in Washington.

In an email to congressional investigators dated Oct. 1 만원 꽁 머니, Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom said he sent similar lists of security incidents to superiors as a “significant part of (diplomatic post’s) and my argument for maintaining” Diplomatic Security and Defense Department assets in Libya through October because the Libyan government “was overwhelmed and could not guarantee our protection.”

More in After the Arab Spring

“Sadly, that point was reaffirmed on Sept 11, 2012 in Benghazi,” he wrote.

Nordstrom, who served in his post as regional security officer from September 2011 through July 2012, said the 230 incidents outlined in the memo “paint a clear picture that the environment in Libya was fragile at best and could degrade quickly. Certainly, not an environment Where post Should be directed to ‘normalize’ operations and reduce security resources in accordance with an artificial time table.” In Benghazi, violent episodes appeared to be on the rise starting in June 2012 and included an explosion at the consulate June 6th, and an attack on the British Ambassador’s convoy on June 11.

He wrote that an earlier version of the memo, which started tracking security incidents in June 2011, was attached to the diplomatic post’s Hardship and Danger Pay report, “which resulted in an increase of danger pay to 30 [percent] of base bay” this summer.

He also claimed to have provided similar reports during regular emergency action committee meetings, though they typically focused on incidents falling within smaller time frames – two weeks or a month, he wrote.

Nordstrom is expected to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Deputy Assistant Director for International Programs Charlene Lamb, who approves security requests, and Lt. Col. Andy Wood, the former head of a U.S. Special Forces “Site Security Team” in Libya, are also scheduled to testify.

Wood, in an interview with CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, said he and many other senior staff at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, “felt we needed more, not less” security personnel in the country, but were told “to do with less. For what reasons, I don’t know.”

The State Department has formed a special panel to investigate the consulate attack but have told CBS News’ U.S. State Department correspondent Margaret Brennan that any withdrawal of security personnel prior to the Benghazi attack had “no impact whatsoever on the total number of fully trained American security personnel in Libya overall or in Benghazi specifically.” There was a Quick Reaction Force on standby in Tripoli to deploy if needed. That team did arrive in Benghazi on the night of the attack, but not until hours after the assault began.

The State Department also has continued to cite the threat assessment conducted by the Director of National Intelligence which stated that there was, “no actionable intelligence that an attack on our post in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”

The Obama administration initially described the attack as an outgrowth of a protest against an anti-Muslim film produced in the U.S., which also sparked violent demonstrations outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo a day earlier.

Faced with persistent criticism from Republican lawmakers and others at the description of the attack as spontaneous, particularly given the use of heavy weaponry and organized tactics, administration officials have since classified it as a terrorist act, though Defense chief Leon Panetta said it took him “a while” to even reach that conclusion.

Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamic fundamentalist militia in Benghazi has been considered a likely suspect in the attack and is believed to have links to al Qaeda’s North African branch – al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Several other militant groups have been mentioned as possible culprits, and CBS News senior correspondent John Miller says that discerning the specific identity of those responsible will be difficult due to the blurred lines between the myriad extremist groups operating in Libya, and the wider region.

The memo noted that the rise of private militias in lawless portions of Libya threatened the fledgling national government, “which does not yet have the ability to effectively respond to and manage the rising criminal and militia related violence.”

Related Posts

In it, Garzon, a slightly-built 52-year-old with short-cropped gray hair and glasses, appears shaken and at times hesitant. He sits in a simple chair in front of the judge, with four rows of chairs behind him in the small courtroom. Garzon is wearing a dark jacket and trousers with an open-necked shirt. Behind him are two men in dark uniforms, and several other unidentified people are in the room. He also answers questions from a prosecutor. Garzon’s testimony added little new to what is already known about the crash on the evening of July 24 as the high-speed train, carrying 218 people in eight carriages, approached the capital of Spain’s northwestern Galician region. But the video was the public’s first look at the court testimony of the driver who walked away from the accident with a gash in his head. ABC said its footage showed 18 minutes of excerpts from the full 55-minute session, accompanied by what it said was a transcript of the full session. The paper said it obtained a copy of the video that the court took of the session but has not made public. The train had been going as fast as 119 mph (192 kph) shortly before the derailment. The driver activated the brakes “seconds before the crash,” reducing the speed to 95 mph (153 kph), according to the court’s preliminary findings based on black box data recorders. The speed limit on the section of track where the crash happened was 50 mph (80 kph). In his Sunday night testimony, Garzon said he was going far over the speed limit and ought to have started slowing down several miles (kilometers) before he reached the notorious curve. Asked whether he ever hit the brakes, Garzon replied, “The electric one, the pneumatic one … all of them. Listen, when … but it was already inevitable.” His voice shakes, his sentences break down and he appears close to tears as he replies to a question about what was going through his mind when he went through the last tunnel before the curve. “If I knew that I wouldn’t think it because the burden that I am going to carry for the rest of my life is huge,” he said. “And I just don’t know. The only thing I know, your honor, sincerely, is that I don’t know. I’m not so crazy that I wouldn’t put the brakes on.” Garzon said that after the derailment he called central control in Madrid about the accident. “At the speed I was going and the smashup, though I couldn’t see what was behind me. I knew what I was up against and I knew it was inevitable that there was a calamity and so (I called Madrid) to activate the emergency protocol,” he testified. Garzon also explained a photograph on his Facebook page which showed a train speedometer registering 124 mph (200 kph). He said he took the photo “as a laugh or whatever you want to call it” while a colleague was driving a test train on a different track some time ago. His Facebook page was taken down shortly after the crash. It is not known who removed it. The investigating judge is trying to establish whether human error or a technical failure caused the country’s worst rail accident in decades, and Garzon is at the center of the investigation. The judge provisionally charged Garzon on Sunday with multiple counts of negligent homicide. Garzon was not sent to jail or required to post bail because none of the parties involved felt there was a risk of him fleeing or attempting to destroy evidence, according to a court statement. National rail company Renfe said Garzon is an employee with 30 years of experience who became an assistant driver in 2000 and a fully qualified driver in 2003. Garzon went back to court, voluntarily, to offer more testimony on Wednesday. In that second appearance, he said he was talking by phone to the train’s on-board ticket inspector moments before the accident and hung up just before the train left the tracks. But that contradicted what the court said the black boxes showed – that Garzon was on the phone at the time of the derailment. The court said the inspector would testify Friday as a witness. It said the judge has ruled that while the phone call was inappropriate it could not be considered a cause of the accident. Health authorities say 57 people from the crash are still in the hospital, 11 of them in critical condition.
SP: John Mueller’s “Terror, Security, and Money”–an expose of all the money and lives we waste combating an exaggerated terrorist threat|
We invented coffee and pizza.” Starbucks has struggled and closed stores in other countries with a strong coffee culture including Australia, New Zealand and Israel

No comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *