by Brandon Webb
One of the authors was near General Petraeus and his wife, Holly, at the Veteran’s Day parade in New York City in 2011. By this time, Petraeus had been sworn in as Director of the CIA. While Petraeus was surrounded by friends who respected him and was never in any danger, it was disconcerting how easily his own Personal Security Detachment (PSD) lost track of him. For at least an hour, the general was out there flapping in the breeze without any security around him because the SUV filled with his bodyguards was stuck in traffic at the end of the parade.
What the PSD personnel may have lacked as bodyguards, they made up for by knowing the intimate details of his personal life. One of those details was Paula Broadwell.
It was well known to Petraeus’s Personal Security Detachment that he and Broadwell were having an affair. He wasn’t the only high-ranking Agency head or general engaged in extramarital relations, but when the 7th floor wanted Petraeus out, they cashed in their chips.
The FBI had been alerted to Paula Broadwell’s shenanigans months prior and had investigated her and her relationship with the general. In fact, the FBI had been trying to shut the investigation down for months prior to Petraeus’s resignation for the simple reason that they could find no criminal wrongdoing. The reality of the situation is that high-ranking CIA officers had already discovered the affair by consulting with Petraeus’s PSD and then found a way to initiate an FBI investigation in order to create a string of evidence and an investigative trail that led to the information they already had—in other words, an official investigation that could be used to force Petraeus to resign.
The FBI was never allowed to shut down their investigation. What benefit FBI director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder got by playing along with the CIA’s palace coup is unknown at this time. It is interesting that Petraeus was already on his way out the door over Benghazi and the CIA nonetheless forced him out on their terms rather than on his own. It seems purely vindictive, and perhaps was meant to sabotage any future possibility of a presidential campaign.
For her part, Paula Broadwell has hired a high-power public relations firm to rehabilitate her image, and none of us are looking forward to the daytime talk show or reality TV program that we all fear is coming.
GENERAL HAM
In the wake of the Benghazi attack, the political media machine went into overdrive, each end of the spectrum trying to paint their opposition in the worst light possible. One rumor that began circulating on the internet was that General Ham, the AFRICOM commander at the time of the 9/11/12 attack, had “gone rogue.” The story went that the Obama administration did not want to send reinforcements or support the GRS element in Benghazi and had ordered General Ham to stand down air support and other assets that could have been moved into the theatre. It was said that General Ham had blown off these orders and was preparing to support the GRS team when he was “apprehended” and later forced into retirement.
Great story, but completely false. Sources indicate that the DOD rebuttal is actually much closer to the truth in this case. The original rumor was spread by someone making an anonymous post on an internet message board. From there, rather dubious media outlets picked up the story and ran with it, fooling many people in the process.
“The speculation that General Carter Ham is departing Africa Command due to events in Benghazi, Libya, on [Sept. 11,] 2012 is absolutely false,” Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his statement. “General Ham’s departure is part of routine succession planning that has been ongoing since July. He continues to serve in Africom with my complete confidence,” the release reads (www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=118400).
Check your sources. Don’t be a cyber-chump.
AC–130
Another cute story was that there was an AC–130 gunship circling over Benghazi the night of the attack but that the crew was denied permission to initiate airstrikes in support of the GRS element on the ground. This story is also false. There were two unarmed drones over Benghazi the night of the attack. A JSOC operator with the GRS element was able to monitor the video feed from the drones for situational awareness purposes, but there was no gunship support.
ARMED DRONES
AFRICOM allocated two drones and positioned them overhead, but these drones were not armed with Hellfire missiles. Even if there had been armed drones overhead, launching a missile strike within yards of the annex would have been very risky.
6
Conclusion
WHAT STANDS OUT the most from the Benghazi attack is that America lost four great men. Chris Stevens was a very sharp ambassador who understood Libya like few other Americans. Sean Smith was a dedicated communications specialist for the State Department and an Air Force veteran who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Glen Doherty and Ty Woods were two of America’s best, showing intense moral and physical courage during the night of the attack and the morning after.
Beyond an epitaph for the fallen, Benghazi must be viewed as a commentary on American foreign policy and counterterrorism strategy. What lessons can be learned from the failures of Benghazi? It is beyond concerning how the media lied and distorted the truth about the attack; caught up in the fervor of the 2012 presidential election, much of both the mainstream and alternative media got it wrong. The lesson to Americans is clear in this case: take what you hear with a grain of salt and always question the narratives, and the backgrounds of the authors whose stories are being sold to you. Even if it is coming from your favorite source of trusted news. None of these outlets constitutes a paragon of truthfulness.
The security failures at the consulate are appalling; however, in the aftermath of any attack, it is natural to focus on a lack of security. After any devastating terrorist assault, be it 9/11/01 or 9/11/12, security will always be seen as inadequate in hindsight. Still, a more permanent solution should have been implemented in Benghazi much sooner. Ambassador Stevens pushed for this, knowing how important Benghazi would be for US interests.
Instead, it was labeled as a Temporary Mission Facility and never given the defenses that this mission required. This was the key institutional failure from a security standpoint—that there was not enough support for the mission and little continuity between the personnel stationed there on temporary duty, since they rotated in and out of Benghazi so fast. Currently, Congress is looking over how budgets will be allocated and how security can be upgraded, but these measures have already taken place after previous embassy attacks such as the ones in Kenya and Tanzania, and the tangible end result seems ambiguous at best. This is especially true now, given the amount of political posturing being done by those in Congress.
Immediately after the attack in Libya, the State Department and the Obama White House indicated that the attack occurred because of an inflammatory internet video filmed in America that insulted Islam. The US government later had to retract these statements and reverse course as the controversy around the attacks grew and it became increasingly apparent that there was no protest outside the consulate in Benghazi and that the violence had little to do with some offensive video.
However, the media frenzy around whether or not there was a protest, whether or not the attack was motivated by a YouTube video, and why security at the consulate was weak—as well as the innuendo about Obama refusing to support the GRS team while they were under attack—played right into the administration’s hands because the truth paints a far grimmer picture.
The last thing the White House wanted was journalists digging into what was really going on in Libya, namely, secret weapons transfers from Libya to Syria, a program that remains a peripheral issue in the story of the Benghazi attack. More importantly, they did not want the press investigating the true motivations behind the assault.
Did Ansar Al-Sharia get inspired after seeing the Egyptians storming the US embassy in Cairo the day before? Did they get offended by an internet video? Did they choose 9/11 as t
he date for the attack because of the obvious symbolism? Maybe. But another contributing factor was JSOC operations in Libya, which kicked the hornets’ nest and pissed off the militia.
The other media circus of the last year was about high-level leaks coming from the White House after the Bin Laden raid in Pakistan. One of these leaks came from a senior official who fed information to The New Yorker. Nicholas Schmidle was spoon-fed the story because his father is a general. The New Yorker had to sit on the story for months in order to make it appear as if Schmidle were consulting with sources, to create the illusion of actual investigative journalism as opposed to government propaganda, which is what the resulting article, “Getting Bin Laden,” is. Schmidle’s work on the Bin Laden raid was wildly inaccurate because he was being fed garbage designed to make the Obama administration look good.
It is an open secret in Washington, DC, that John Brennan is a world-class windbag. Previous investigations by SOFREP, published in our e-book No Easy Op, exposed some of Brennan’s antics. His activities have continued unabated since then as he runs highly compartmentalized secret operations from his seat as Obama’s counterterrorism adviser. He has long had his eye on becoming the Director of Central Intelligence or Director of National Intelligence but will find it challenging going through the confirmation process because of the political baggage he carries due to past support for so-called “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.”
With tacit support from Michael Vickers and James Clapper, Brennan works to exploit a number of loopholes and utilize the Obama administration’s creative interpretations of Title 10 and Title 50 powers to launch operations across North Africa and the Middle East, with Admiral McRaven no doubt happy to be along for the ride.
These operations may very well be warranted. One of the main targets is known to be Yasin Al-Suri, one of the last major league Al Qaeda leaders. The world will certainly be a better place after JSOC puts a bullet in his head. Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, also known as “Yasin Al-Suri,” is one of the last high-level AQ operatives on the US government’s kill list. With a ten million–dollar bounty on his head from the State Department, Al-Suri is known to be a terrorist facilitator, moving men and money between Iran and Pakistan. Darwinism has taken effect after over a decade of the War on Terror. The dumb terrorist leaders are all dead, and now it is the masterminds who are left.
The end game for terrorists like Al-Suri is an Islamic caliphate, something which would probably never happen even without US opposition due to larger geopolitical issues, but the idea of a united Sunni insurgency spreading across the Middle East is enough to have Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states nervously wringing their hands in a cold sweat.
The problem occurs when a bunch of 18th-century tribesmen in sandals with rusty AK–47’s are permitted to wag the dog—that is, when their actions move a multibillion-dollar counter-terrorist apparatus across the world, and its operations begin to get out of control . . . all with a non-elected political appointee running the show.
Because John Brennan is running his own private war, he is not going through the normal chain of command, and operations are not deconflicted. Ambassador Stevens, for instance, was not read on to the JSOC operations in Libya. He was kept in the dark and ultimately killed in a retaliation that he never could have seen coming. Likewise, the CIA never knew what hit them. They were trying to track down fissile material in Libya and had no way of knowing what was coming. In the days after the attack, even GRS employees thought that the consulate was hit because Ansar Al-Sharia was upset over some YouTube video.
The problem is exacerbated by the poor communication between different agencies. There has always been some bad blood between the CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Defense, but this has only gotten worse because of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan.
SEAL Team Six executed the raid and conducted the SSE on the objective; however, they were technically operating under the auspices of the CIA at the time, to skirt around the Title 10/Title 50 distinctions. Because of this, the CIA got the SSE materials off the objective and has been analyzing them. Even though it was SEALs who recovered the information, the CIA has only shared a very small percentage of the intelligence windfall that resulted from the raid with DOD. DOD in turn has decided to stop sharing information with the CIA, creating a frustrating situation for those trying to carry out sophisticated counter-terrorist operations around the globe.
The issue of operations not being properly deconflicted is likely to escalate as we move into the next phase of the War on Terror. Season 1 of the GWOT is just about over as America begins to withdraw from Afghanistan. Season 2 of the GWOT will be premiering soon, and it will be even more global in nature, with an optempo previously unseen.
Ambitious bureaucrats like John Brennan need to be reined in or fired if these operations are to be successful, or we will see plenty more Benghazis happen. This occurs on a fairly regular basis in Afghanistan, where JSOC will raid a terrorist compound and kill the enemy, and the conventional units who patrol the area end up paying the price. Long after JSOC takes off in their black helicopters, the conventional forces are getting IED-ed along the roads by angry jihadists who are retaliating against any Americans they can find.
This is what really happened in Benghazi, and this is why the Obama administration is more than happy to have the media fixated on red herrings like poor security at the consulate or wound up in an intellectual Gordian knot about some YouTube video.
In 1987, Seymour Hersh wrote an article titled “Targeting Gaddafi,” which detailed how the White House’s National Security Council was exploiting a legal loophole in order to kill the dictator. He wrote in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra scandal that, “Oliver North would emerge in the public’s perception as a unique and extraordinary player inside the National Security Council, a hard-charging risk-taker who was different from his colleagues. It is now apparent that North was but one of many at work in the White House who believed in force, stealth and operations behind the back of the citizenry and the Congress. He was not an aberration, but part of a White House team whose full scope of operations has yet to be unraveled.”
From Oliver North to John Brennan, this is just the way that the system works regardless of the administration. The dead bodies they leave in their wake—men like Glen, Ty, Sean, and Chris—are, at the end of the day, just collateral damage in a war waged by those with political ambitions.
Nothing changes after Benghazi. The State Department claims to have disciplined several employees, but in truth they just shuffled personnel around a little. The politically powerful remain in power, and the fun and games continue. As the Global War on Terror enters the next phase in North Africa and elsewhere, we can only hold our breath and wonder which of our friends will be killed in the next debacle.
Appendix I: Bios of the Four American Heroes
CHRIS STEVENS was born and raised in Northern California. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, a J.D. from the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in 1989, and an M.S. from the National War College in 2010. He spoke Arabic and French. Prior to joining the Foreign Service in 1991, Ambassador Stevens was an international trade lawyer in Washington, DC. From 1983 to 1985, he taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. Stevens was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. He arrived in Tripoli in May 2012 as the US Ambassador to Libya. Ambassador Stevens had served twice previously in the country—as Special Representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council from March 2011 to November 2011 during the Libyan revolution and as the Deputy Chief of Mission from 2007 to 2009.
SEAN SMITH grew up in San Diego, California. He graduated from Mission Bay High School in 1995, enlisted in the Air Force in July 1995, and served for six years, becoming a ground radio maintenance (2E) specialist. He was promoted to staff sergeant in August 2000. He completed his mili
tary service in 2002. As a Foreign Service employee, he lived in The Hague, Netherlands, with his wife, Heather, and children, Samantha and Nathan.
TYRONE (TY) WOODS led a distinguished Navy SEAL career for over 20 years. After retiring from the military, Ty continued to serve his country as an independent security contractor for the CIA. His work included multiple deployments to some of the most hostile parts of the world to protect US national interests.
GLEN DOHERTY served as a US Navy SEAL for nine years. He worked extensively as an independent security specialist throughout some of the most dangerous places on the planet, all in support of the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. Glen believed in working hard and playing harder; before giving up his life, he was frequently found skiing in Utah or surfing with friends at his home break in Encinitas, California.
Appendix II: A Brief History of Libya
THE HISTORY OF Libya is a history of conflict with foreign invaders, from the ancient Greeks and conquering Islamic Ottomans to the first generation of American sailors and naval warfighters who battled the Barbary pirates. Libya also rests on a geographical plane where both trans-Saharan trade routes and various maritime endeavors intersect with each other, making the country a center of commerce and cross-cultural exchange throughout the centuries.
There was a time in Libya, perhaps witnessed by the Greeks upon their arrival, before desertification, when the country was largely green and flush with a complex system of irrigation canals. Giraffes and other exotic animals thrived in a Libya very different from the one we know today. As the Sahara desert began to dry out and expand, it acted as something of a filter for trade between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. In these early years of trans-Saharan commerce, caravans of camels traveling across the desert were known to number in the tens of thousands.