Photo: Ambassador Stevens being paraded through the keffiyeh-clad
streets of Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012
Despite the lies and
blame-game of the Obama administration, we finally have an accurate account of
what really happened during the jihadist attack on our consulate in Benghazi,
from two two senior State Department officials.
It was, without
question, a full-out military attack on the US.
The Obama administration
knew from the start that this was a very well-organized
jihadist attack. Blaming our freedoms, our first amendment rights for the
jihadist attack, was a second attack on the American people (perhaps even more
frightening) perpetuated by the Obama administration.
The transcript is
frightening and deeply disturbing. The Obama administration is at war with the
American people, and Americans are dying because of it. This is surely
impeachable. Romney ought to be shouting this from the mountain tops.
What
Happened In Benghazi Powerline, October 13, 2012
Photo:
Bloody fingerprints indicate at least some Americans were still alive when
dragged from the embassy building.
The State
Department has released a transcript of a briefing that
two high-ranking department officials gave to a number of reporters via conference
call on October 9 (Tuesday). I am not certain about this, but I believe
the transcript was only made public today. You should read it in its
entirety; it is the most detailed description I have seen of the
events in Benghazi on September 11.
While this is by no means
clear, it appears that the State Department may have released the transcript as
part of the escalating conflict between Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. In their desperation to avoid
responsibility for the Benghazi debacle, Obama and Biden have pointed fingers
in two directions: at the intelligence community for reporting incorrectly that
the incident was a protest over a YouTube video clip, and at the State
Department for not providing adequate security for the Ambassador.
Here are some excerpts from
the narrative:
A few
minutes later – we’re talking about 9 o’clock at night – the Ambassador retires to
his room, the others are still at Building C, and the one agent in the
[Tactical Operations Center]. At 9:40 p.m., the agent in the TOC and the agents
in Building C hear loud noises coming from the front gate. They also hear
gunfire and an explosion. The agent in the TOC looks at his cameras – these are
cameras that have pictures of the perimeter – and the camera on the main gate
reveals a large number of people – a large number of men, armed men, flowing
into the compound. One special agent immediately goes to get the Ambassador in
his bedroom and gets Sean, and the three of them enter the safe haven inside
the building. …
They turn around
immediately and head back – or the two of them, from Building B, turn around
immediately with their kit and head back to Villa C, where the Ambassador and
his colleagues are. They encounter a large group of armed men between them and
Building C. I should say that the agent in Building C with the Ambassador has
radioed that they are all in the safe haven and are fine. The agents that
encounter the armed group make a tactical decision to turn around and go back
to their Building B and barricade themselves in there. So we have people in
three locations right now.
And I neglected to mention
– I should have mentioned from the top that the attackers, when they came
through the gate, immediately torched the barracks. It is aflame, the barracks
that was occupied by the 17th February Brigade armed host country security team.
I should also have mentioned that at the very first moment when the agent in
the TOC seized [sic -- apparently should read "sees"] the people
flowing through the gate, he immediately hits an alarm, and so there is a loud
alarm. He gets on the public address system as well, yelling, “Attack, attack.”
Having said that, the agents – the other agents had heard the noise and were
already reacting.
Okay. So we have agents in
Building C – or an agent in Building C with the Ambassador and Sean, we have
two agents in Building B, and we have two agents in the TOC. All – Building C
is – attackers penetrate in Building C. They walk around inside the building
into a living area, not the safe haven area. The building is dark.
They look through the grill, they see nothing. They try the grill, the locks on
the grill; they can’t get through. The agent is, in fact, watching them from
the darkness. He has his long gun trained on them and he is ready to shoot if
they come any further. They do not go any further.
They have jerry cans. They
have jerry cans full of diesel fuel that they’ve picked up at the entrance when
they torched the barracks. They have sprinkled the diesel fuel around. They
light the furniture in the living room – this big, puffy, Middle
Eastern furniture. They light it all on fire, and they have also lit part of
the exterior of the building on fire. At the same time, there are other
attackers that have penetrated Building B. The two agents in Building B are
barricaded in an inner room there. The attackers circulate in Building B but do
not get to the agents and eventually leave.
A third group of attackers
tried to break into the TOC. They pound away at the door, they throw themselves
at the door, they kick the door, they really treat it pretty rough; they are
unable to get in, and they withdraw. Back in Building C, where the Ambassador
is, the building is rapidly filling with smoke. The attackers have exited. The
smoke is extremely thick. It’s diesel smoke, and also, obviously, smoke from –
fumes from the furniture that’s burning. And the building inside is getting
more and more black. The Ambassador and the two others make a decision that
it’s getting – it’s starting to get tough to breathe in there, and so they move
to another part of the safe haven, a bathroom that has a window. They open
the window. Thewindow is, of course, grilled. They open the window trying
to get some air in. That doesn’t help. The building is still very thick in
smoke. …
Okay. We’ve got the agent.
He’s opening the – he is suffering severely from smoke inhalation at this
point. He can barely breathe. He can barely see. He’s got the grill open and he
flops out of the window onto a little patio that’s been enclosed by
sandbags. He determines that he’s under fire, but he also looks back and sees
he doesn’t have his two companions. He goes back in to get them. He can’t find
them. He goes in and out several times before smoke overcomes him completely,
and he has to stagger up a small ladder to the roof of the building and
collapse. He collapses. …
The agent in the TOC, who
is in full gear, opens the door, throws a smoke grenade, which lands between
the two buildings, to obscure what he is doing, and he moves to Building B,
enters Building B. He un-barricades the two agents that are in there, and the
three of them emerge and head for Building C. There are, however, plenty of bad
guys and plenty of firing still on the compound, and they decide that the
safest way for them to move is to go into an armoredvehicle, which is parked
right there. They get into the armored vehicle and they drive to
Building C.
They drive to the part of
the building where the agent had emerged. He’s on the roof. They make contact
with the agent. Two of them set up as best a perimeter as they can, and the
third one, third agent, goes into the building. This goes on for many minutes.
Goes into the building, into the choking smoke. When that agent can’t proceed,
another agent goes in, and so on. And they take turns going into the building
on their hands and knees, feeling their way through the building to try to find
their two colleagues. They find Sean. They pull him out of the building. He is
deceased. They are unable to find the Ambassador. …
At this point, the quick
reaction security team and the Libyans, especially the Libyan forces, are
saying, “We cannot stay here. It’s time to leave. We’ve got to leave. We can’t
hold the perimeter.” So at that point, they make the decision to evacuate the
compound and to head for the annex. The annex is about two kilometers away. My
agents pile into an armoredvehicle with the body of Sean, and they exit
the main gate. …
[T]hey take fire almost as
soon as they emerge from the compound. They go a couple of – they go in one direction
toward the annex. They don’t like what they’re seeing ahead of them. There are
crowds. There are groups of men. They turn around and go the other direction.
They don’t like what they’re seeing in that direction either. They make another
u-turn. They’re going at a steady pace. There is traffic in the roads around
there. This is in Benghazi, after all. Now, they’re going at a steady pace and
they’re trying not to attract too much attention, so they’re going maybe 15
miles an hour down the street.
They come up to a knot of
men in an adjacent compound, and one of the men signals them to turn into that
compound. They agents [sic] at that point smell a rat, and they step on it.
They have taken some fire already. At this point, they take very heavy fire as
they go by this group of men. They take direct fire from AK-47s from about two
feet away. The men also throw hand grenades or gelignite bombs under – at the
vehicle and under it. At this point, the armored vehicle is extremely heavily
impacted, but it’s still holding. There are two flat tires, but they’re still
rolling. …
As the night goes on, a
team of reinforcements from Embassy Tripoli arrives by chartered aircraft at
Benghazi airport and makes its way to the compound – to the annex, I should
say. And I should have mentioned that the quick reaction – the quick reaction
security team that was at the compound has also, in addition to my five agents,
has also returned to the annex safely. The reinforcements from Tripoli are at
the compound – at the annex. They take up their positions. And somewhere around
5:45 in the morning – sorry, somewhere around 4 o’clock in the morning – I have
my timeline wrong – somewhere around 4 o’clock in the morning the annex takes
mortar fire. It is precise and some of the mortar fire lands on the roof of the
annex. It immediately killed two security personnel that are there, severely
wounds one of the agents that’s come from the compound.
At that point, a decision
is made at the annex that they are going to have to evacuate the whole
enterprise. And the next hours are spent, one, securing the annex, and then
two, moving in a significant and large convoy of vehicles everybody to the
airport, where they are evacuated on two flights.
Barack Obama, meanwhile,
was jetting off to Las Vegas for a fundraiser.
It was obvious to the
reporters on the call that this narrative blows Obama’s evasions sky high:
First
question is from the line of Anne Gearan with the Washington Post. Please go
ahead.
QUESTION: Hi. You said a
moment ago that there was nothing unusual outside, on the street, or outside
the gates of the main compound. When did the agents inside – what – excuse me,
what did the agents inside think was happening when the first group of men
gathered there and they first heard those explosions? Did they think it was a
protest, or did they think it was something else?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT
OFFICIAL TWO: The agent in the TOC heard the noise, heard the firing. Firing is
not unusual in Benghazi at 9:40 at night, but he immediately reacted and looked
at his cameras and saw people coming in, hit the alarm. And the rest is as I
described it. Does that help?
This exchange is priceless:
OPERATOR:
The next question is from the line of Brad Klapper with AP. Please, go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi, yes. You described
several incidents you had with groups of men, armed men. What in all of these
events that you’ve described led officials to believe for the first several
days that this was prompted by protests against the video?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT
OFFICIAL TWO: That is a question that you would have to ask others. That was
not our conclusion. I’m not saying that we had a conclusion, but we outlined
what happened. The Ambassador walked guests out around 8:30 or so, there was no
one on the street at approximately 9:40, then there was the noise and then we
saw on the cameras the – a large number of armed men assaulting the compound.
So Hillary Clinton and the
State Department unequivocally reject the account that Barack Obama and Joe
Biden have given. It is hard to imagine what “intelligence” reports Obama could
have received that blamed the YouTube video. He is lying, evidently.
Posted by Pamela Geller on
Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 01:45 PM
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