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The Quickie FBI Visit to Benghazi and the Arrests in Turkey

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Two updates to the Benghazi attack story I’ve become obsessed with.

Multiple reports say the FBI has finally visited the attack site in Benghazi. The AP reports they were only onsite (the assumption being the sites include the consulate, the safe house, and presumably another safe house location) for about 12 hours.

Agents arrived in Benghazi before dawn on Thursday and departed after sunset, after weeks of waiting for access to the crime scene to investigate the Sept. 11 attack.

The agents and several dozen U.S. special operations forces were there for about 12 hours, said a senior Defense Department official who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation. The FBI agents went to “all the relevant locations” in the city, FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright said. The FBI would not say what, if anything, they found.

The FBI visit comes less than 24 hours after the WaPo visit on Wednesday when they discovered a bunch of documents.

More than three weeks after attacks in this city killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, sensitive documents remained only loosely secured in the wreckage of the U.S. mission on Wednesday, offering visitors easy access to delicate information about American operations in Libya.

At first, I wondered whether this was a response to the WaPo’s apparent ease of access to the compound–that may have added urgency. But the AP story suggests that the FBI asked for military transport to Benghazi several days before the trip–so Tuesday at the latest.

Little said it was “a matter of days” between the request for the FBI to access the Benghazi crime scene and the team’s arrival Thursday, Libya time, when the U.S. military airlifted them to the city.

Read more →

Chris Stevens’ Rescheduled Meeting with the February 17th Brigade

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I’m working on a post on the Blue Mountain Group Libyan contractors’ role in the Benghazi attack. But first, I want to point out a detail pertaining to the security provided by the February 17th Brigade–the militia that provided armed patrols outside of the Benghazi consulate.

In its report on the documents it found at the consulate the other day, the WaPo suggested one of the documents anticipated an attack.

At least one document found amid the clutter indicates that Americans at the mission were discussing the possibility of an attack in early September, just two days before the assault took place. The document is a memorandum dated Sept. 9 from the U.S. mission’s security office to the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, the Libyan-government-sanctioned militia that was guarding the compound, making plans for a “quick reaction force,” or QRF, that would provide security.

“In the event of an attack on the U.S. Mission,” the document states, “QRF will request additional support from the 17th February Martyrs Brigade.”

This appears to overstate the document somewhat. While it is clear that a September 9 document (page 8) lays out the terms of the militia’s role as a Quick Reaction Force, the January 25, 2011 US Mission Evacuation Plan (page 9) anticipates the involvement of QRFs (since the plan pre-dated Qaddafi’s ouster, the militia wouldn’t have provided that service at the time). And the militia was already serving in that role (and served better than some of the western contractors), according to reports. So the document seems to reflect ongoing discussions about that security agreement–including an apparently new understanding that the Americans would provide housing for the QRF personnel.

Now, that document was a draft agreement between the February 17th Brigade and the Regional Security Office.

But I do find one detail from Ambassador Stevens’ schedule of interest. On September 11, the day he died, he was initially scheduled to meet with a representative of the militia at 11 AM. Though a hand-written note suggests that meeting was moved to “another day.” (The itinerary may have been a draft, since it was printed on September 8 and had a few other hand-written notations, though interestingly it appears to have been folded at one point as if to put in a pocket.)

That’s not that big of a deal: after all, Stevens worked closely with the militias throughout the war. But it appears the Americans were in the process of tweaking their security agreement and it appears that Stevens intended to meet with the militia while he was in Benghazi. Given how central Stevens was in determining how much and what kind of security the consulate would have, I wonder whether part of those discussions were to discuss precisely the security concerns everyone is now pointing to as a big State lapse.

Note, Eli Lake’s first story on Benghazi claimed an al Qaeda affiliate had asked the February 17 Brigade to stand down during this attack. And attacks on the Brigade were repeated in other right wing outlets.

Romney Foreign Policy Advisor’s Wife Joins Dance on Ambassador Stevens’ Grave

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Next up in the campaign to turn the Benghazi attack into Obama’s Jimmy Carter? Danielle Pletka, one of the architects of the false claims that got us into Iraq War.

She draws a parallel between the Obama Administration’s treatment of the Benghazi attack and Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar’s attempts to blame the March 11, 2004 Madrid bombing on ETA rather than al Qaeda. Of course, in Pletka’s version, Aznar’s willingness to get suckered into Bush’s–and Pletka’s–illegal war in Iraq bore no role in Aznar’s loss at all; just his attempts to hide the real culprits.

Why did Aznar insist it was ETA? Simple. He didn’t want the Spanish people to believe that the terrorist attack in Madrid was related to Spain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, fearing they would punish him at the polls. Ironically, however, it was not the bombings themselves that doomed Aznar and his party in elections held three days later; rather it was the handling, the appearance of a cover-up, and the widespread belief that all of the above was done in the aid of Aznar’s political fortunes rather than policy.

Of course, last I checked, Obama had admitted this was a terrorist attack, so the parallel falls apart unless you’re one of the people trying to turn the September 11 death of a talented Ambassador–one who called for light security himself—into an electoral opportunity.

I’m sure this effort to win political advantage from Stevens’ death has no connection with the fact that Pletka’s husband, Stephen Rademaker, is a Romney foreign policy advisor. (h/t Ali Gharib) I mean, given Pletka’s history, she’d be willing to politicize an Ambassador’s death all on her own, without the obvious conflict of interest of her husband’s political investments and career possibilities.

Again: there are legitimate reasons to have Congress investigate this. Which is why it would be nice if the Romney campaign would stop this celebration and allow people without obvious conflicts of interest–someone like Mike Rogers–to conduct that investigation.

The Libyan Left Behind Novels

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I confess I’m skeptical every time a set of documents gets “left behind” in Libya. First there were the intelligence documents showing how the US and UK collaborated in the rendition and torture of Libyan opposition figures. Then there was Ambassador Chris Stevens’ journal, in apparently undamaged condition. And now there are the documents a WaPo reporter found at the still unsecured compound.

Documents detailing weapons collection efforts, emergency evacuation protocols, the full internal itinerary of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s trip and the personnel records of Libyans who were contracted to secure the mission were among the items scattered across the floors of the looted compound when a Washington Post reporter and a translator visited Wednesday.

[snip]

At least one document found amid the clutter indicates that Americans at the mission were discussing the possibility of an attack in early September, just two days before the assault took place. The document is a memorandum dated Sept. 9 from the U.S. mission’s security office to the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, the Libyan-government-sanctioned militia that was guarding the compound, making plans for a “quick reaction force,” or QRF, that would provide security.

“In the event of an attack on the U.S. Mission,” the document states, “QRF will request additional support from the 17th February Martyrs Brigade.”

Other the documents detail — with names, photographs, phone numbers and other personal information — the Libyans contracted to provide security for the mission from a British-based private firm, Blue Mountain. Some of those Libyans say they now fear for their lives, and the State Department has said it shares concerns about their safety.

Not only do I find it a remarkable coinkydink that only in Libya do documents have a way of conveniently appearing. But all the documents in question are documents that address a specifically relevant subject matter at a convenient time. Moreover, given earlier reports that documents showing contacts were looted, I’m doubly skeptical an itinerary of Chris Stevens’ meetings would be left lying around, particularly given all the questions about what he was doing in Benghazi. And I’ll come back to my thoughts about the Libyan security contractors in a later post.

Ah well. None of that takes away from the laudable work of the reporters that continue to unearth this stuff.

Which brings me to the real question raised by the discovery of these documents. Thus far, at least 3 media teams have spent significant time at the compound.

And yet the FBI haven’t shown up for a visit once.

Perhaps that’s a factor of the FBI having chased their Arabic Agents out of the Bureau (I haven’t heard of similar problems with Agents of North African descent); it’d be a lot easier to at least do a few evidence collection visits if the FBI officers didn’t look and sound like Ken and Barbie. But in the WaPo’s case, at least, a reporter and a translator made it safely in and out of the compound.

Maybe the FBI can deputize the press to conduct this investigation?

Why Can’t Darrell Issa Read the Wall Street Journal?

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In addition to the rather amusing fact that Darrell Issa is conducting an investigation that Mike Rogers should be conducting, there’s another oddity about his “investigation.” The answers to the questions he asks Hillary Clinton have been available for over 10 days in this WSJ front page article.

In his letter, Issa asks,

  1. Was State Department headquarters in Washington aware of all the above incidents? If not, why not?
  2. If so, what measures did the State Department take to match the level of security provided to the U.S. Mission in Libya to the level of threat?
  3. Please detail any requests made by Embassy Tripoli to State Department headquarters for additional security, whether in general or in light of specific attacks mentioned above. How did the Department respond to each of these requests.

In the September 21 article, the WSJ listed several of the attacks in Issa’s letter (as well as an April 10 attack on the UN’s envoy). More importantly, it provided anonymous explanations from senior State Department officials describing their thinking about security in Benghazi.

The State Department chose to maintain only limited security in Benghazi, Libya, despite months of sporadic attacks there on U.S. and other Western missions. And while the U.S. said it would ask Libya to boost security there, it did so just once, for a one-week period in June, according to Libyan officials.

[snip]

State Department officials said security for the consulate was frequently reviewed and was deemed sufficient to counter what U.S. officials considered to be the most likely threat at the time: a limited hit-and-run attack with rocket-propelled grenades or improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

There was a string of attacks in Benghazi in the months before Sept. 11, including a June 6 IED explosion outside the consulate compound. “These types of incidents were the ones that were our principal concerns,” a senior State Department official said. Based on the outcome of the June 6 attack, in which a perimeter wall was damaged but no Americans hurt, a second State Department official added: “Our security plan worked.”

[snip]

[After the Brits pulled out of their consulate in Benghazi] The U.S. deemed the security level sufficient and decided to stay, “given the very important mission that we have in eastern Libya to support U.S. national security interests,” said a senior State Department official. He said “robust” security improvements had been made to the compound since the Americans moved into it in May 2011, including cement barriers and barbed wire.

More importantly, the article describes who made the decision to opt for a light security approach over something more aggressive: Ambassador Stevens.

Current and former officials said the security choices in Benghazi reflected efforts by Mr. Stevens to maintain a low-profile security posture and show faith in Libya’s new leaders, despite questions about their ability to rein in heavily armed bands of militants. Read more →

How Does a Paper Personal Journal Survive a Fire?

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Michael Calderone catches CNN not disclosing that their reporting purportedly based on “a source familiar with Ambassador Stevens’ thinking” was actually working off his personal journal which they had obtained and not disclosed to the FBI team investigating his killing.

On Wednesday on his show, “Anderson Cooper 360,” Cooper told Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that “a source familiar with Ambassador Stevens’ thinking told us that in the months before his death he talked about being worried about the never-ending security threats that he was facing in Benghazi and specifically about the rise in Islamic extremism and growing al Qaeda presence.” The source, Cooper continued, “also mentioned [Stevens] being on an al Qaeda hit list.”

But what Cooper didn’t reveal at the time was that CNN’s sourcing was tied, at least partially, to Stevens’ thinking as written in his personal journal.

In one version of their explanation CNN said they “came upon” the journal (Calderone has the transcription).

We came upon the journal through our reporting and notified the family.

In another, they describe it consisting of seven pages in a hard-bound book.

The journal consists of just seven pages of handwriting in a hard-bound book.

Several things stink about this story. First of all, consider that the attack was in Benghazi, not Tripoli, where Stevens was stationed and where he presumably kept his personal affects. So for CNN to have “come upon” it in Benghazi, it presumably would have been on Stevens’ person when he was attacked. If that’s the case, how did it survive the fire [correction, smoke] that killed Stevens?

And consider the role of this picture. CNN included in its spread of pictures of the trashed Consulate. While it clearly shows that some papers did survive, the picture immediately following shows just ashes survived the flames. Also, this image shows the papers having been ransacked; we know that the attackers got sensitive papers. How likely is it that the attackers wouldn’t have taken the Ambassador’s personal journal, even while taking everything else of interest?

That suggests two possibilities. That the journal was on Stevens’ person when he was brought to the hospital, and the person who brought him (or someone in the hospital) gave it to CNN. Or, that the attackers got the journal and one of them got it to CNN (which might explain why CNN’s language here is so sketchy).

There is, of course, one other possibility: that the journal always remained in Tripoli, at the Embassy or the Ambassador’s residence, and one of the staffers shared it with CNN.

In any case, I suspect the reason CNN didn’t reveal they had the journal at first has to do with how they found it. But that may mean they have other relevant information about the attack.

Fox News Blames Benghazi Attack on Gitmo Detainee

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Fox News quotes sources claiming that former Gitmo detainee Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamouda Bin Qumu was involved in–and may have planned–the attack on American’s Consulate in Benghazi.

Intelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda — with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.

That revelation comes on the same day a top Obama administration official called last week’s deadly assault a “terrorist attack” — the first time the attack has been described that way by the administration after claims it had been a “spontaneous” act.

[snip]

Sufyan Ben Qumu is thought to have been involved and even may have led the attack, Fox News’ intelligence sources said. Qumu, a Libyan, was released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2007 and transferred into Libyan custody on the condition he be kept in jail. He was released by the Qaddafi regime as part of its reconciliation effort with Islamists in 2008.

His Guantanamo files also show he has ties to the financiers behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The declassified files also point to ties with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a known Al Qaeda affiliate.

Like Fox, I strongly suspect the Benghazi attack was planned in advance.

But Fox has grasped on one of the most damning pieces of evidence in Hamouda’s Gitmo file to insinuate close ties to al Qaeda–that his alias was found on Mustafa Al Hawsawi’s laptop–without considering that his role as a truck driver for an Osama bin Laden company might explain it. Nor does it look at Hamouda’s participation in an LIFG splinter group, which may have caused him financial troubles and might make his role in factional politics today rather interesting.

Plus, there’s more interesting details about Hamouda in the public record. For example, in a July 2, 2007 Administrative Review Board, Hamouda reportedly said he didn’t want to go back to Libya for fear he’d be held responsible for earlier drug charges. But a September 25, 2007 WikiLeaks cable records his lawyer saying he had no such fears–both in June 2007 (so before the ARB) and again in September. Read more →