Excerpts from State
Department Background Briefing on Libya, October 9, 2012 (Fox News Not Invited)
Background Conference Call With Senior State Department
Officials Washington, DC October 9, 2012
MODERATOR:
…
So
joining us tonight are two Senior State Department Officials, … Senior State …
and Senior State Department Official Number Two…just
a reminder ... this is on background.
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE: …
...Chris
Stevens – coming into Benghazi on April 5th,
2011, is the only U.S. Government ... in Libya at this time. They
set up shop in a hotel… A few weeks later in June, a bomb explodes in the
parking lot in front of the hotel. ...by August they settle on a large compound which is where
the actual activity on 9/11 took place.
The
compound is roughly 300 yards long – that’s three football fields long – and a
hundred yards wide. We need that much room to provide the best possible setback
against car bombs. Over the next few months, physical security at the compound
is strengthened. The outer wall is upgraded, its height is increased to nine
feet.It is topped by three feet of barbed wire and concertina wire all around
the huge property. External lighting is increased. Jersey barriers, which are
big concrete blocks, are installed outside and inside the gate. Steel drop bars
are added at the gates to control vehicle access and to provide some anti-ram
protection. The buildings on the compound itself were strengthened.
The
compound has four buildings on it, … Building C is a building that is
essentially a large residence. It has numerous bedrooms and it is – it has a
safe haven installed in it, …Building C ultimately is the building that the
Ambassador was in. The
Tactical Operations Center.. That’s where the security officers had their main
setup, that’s where the security cameras are, a lot of the phones – it’s
basically their operations center. So I’ll call it the TOC from now on. And
then there was a barracks. …In that barracks is a Libyan security
…Security on
the compound consists of five Diplomatic Security special agents (i. e., Americans)and
four members of the Libyan Government security force (i. e., Libyans), It is a …
friendly militia, … deputized by the Libyan Government to serve as … our host
government security. In addition …there is an additional security force at
another U.S. compound two kilometers away… a rapid reaction force, a quick
reaction security team
…
The Ambassador has arrived in Benghazi on 10th of September. He does
meetings both on the compound and off the compound on that day, spends the
night. The next day is 9/11. …because it is 9/11, out of prudence, he has all
his meetings on the compound. He receives a succession of visitors during the
day.
About
7:30 in the evening... his last meeting… is with a Turkish diplomat… the
meeting is over, at 8:30 –all these meetings…(are) in what I call Building C…
he escorts the Turkish diplomat to the main gate. There is an agent there with
them. They say goodbye. They’re out in a street in front of the compound.
Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There’s nothing unusual. There has been nothing
unusual during the day at all outside.
…the
Ambassador returns to Building C, where …Sean Smith… one of the victims – and
four other Diplomatic Security agents are all at Building C. One Diplomatic
Security agent is in the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center. All of these
agents have their side arms.
…
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 TOC. 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.
..
I should … describe what a safe haven is. A safe haven is a fortified area
within a building. This particular safe haven has a very heavy metal grill on
it with several locks on it. It essentially divides the one – the single floor
of that building in half, and half the floor is the safe haven, the bedroom
half. Also in the safe haven is a central sort of closet area where people can
take refuge where there are no windows around. In that safe haven are medical
supplies, water, and such things. All the windows to that area of the building
have all been grilled. A couple of them have grills that can be open from the
inside so people inside can get out, but they can’t be – obviously can’t be
opened from the outside.
The
agent with the Ambassador in the safe haven has – in addition to his side arm,
has his long gun, or I should say – it’s an M4 submachine gun, standard issue.
The other agents who have heard the noise in the – at the front gate run to
Building B or the TOC – they run … to Building B, one to the TOC – to get their
long guns and other kit. By kit, I mean body armor, a helmet, additional
munitions, that sort of thing.
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.
…
the attackers, when they came through the gate, immediately torched the
barracks. It is aflame, the barracks that was occupied by the … armed host
country security team. ……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.
…
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. …attackers
penetrate … Building C. They walk …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. The window 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.
…
the agent I talked to said he could not see (3 feet) away in the smoke and the
darkness. So they’re in the bathroom and they’re now on the floor of the
bathroom because they’re starting to hurt for air. They are breathing in the
bottom two feet or so of the room, and even that is becoming difficult.
So
they make a decision that they’re going to have to leave the safe haven. They
decide that they’re going to go out through an adjacent bedroom which has one
of the window grills that will open. The agent leads the two others into a
hallway in that bedroom. He opens the grill. He’s going first because that is
standard procedure. There is firing going on outside. I should have mentioned
that during all of this, all of these events that I’ve been describing, there
is considerable firing going on outside. There are tracer bullets. There is
smoke. There is – there are explosions. I can’t tell you that they were RPGs,
but I think they were RPGs. So there’s a lot of action going on, and there’s
dozens of armed men on the – there are dozens of armed men on the compound...the
agent 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.
At
that point, he radios the other agents. Again, the other agents are barricaded
in Building C and – Building B, and the TOC. He radios the other agents that
he’s got a problem. He is very difficult to understand. He can barely speak.
The
other agents, at this time, can see that there is some smoke, or at least the
agents in the TOC – this is the first they become aware that Building C is on
fire. They don’t have direct line of sight. They’re seeing smoke and now
they’ve heard from the agent. So they make a determination to go to Building C
to try to find their colleagues.
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 armored
vehicle, 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 special security team, the quick reaction security team from
the other compound, arrive on this compound. They came from what we call the
annex. With them – there are six of them – with them are about 16 members of
the … militia ….members were on our compound to begin with.
As
those guys … move to the TOC, where one agent has been manning the phone… that
agent …has been on the phone. He had called the quick reaction security team,
he had called the Libyan authorities, he had called the Embassy in Tripoli, and
he had called Washington. He had them all going to ask for help. And he
remained in the TOC.
So
at this point … the quick reaction team, … go to the TOC with the …Brigade.
They get him out of the TOC…All the agents … are suffering from smoke
inhalation. The agent that had been in the building originally with the
Ambassador is very, very severely impacted, the others somewhat less so, but
they can’t go back in. The remaining agent, the one that had come from the TOC,
freshest set of lungs, goes into the building himself, though he is advised not
to. He goes into the building himself, as do some members of the quick reaction
security team.
The
agent makes a couple of attempts, cannot proceed. He’s back outside of the
building. He takes his shirt off. There’s a swimming pool nearby. He dips his
shirt in the swimming pool and wraps it around his head, goes in one last time.
Still can’t find the Ambassador. Nobody is able to find the Ambassador.
At
this point, the quick reaction security team and the Libyans…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 armored vehicle with the body of Sean, and they exit the main
gate.…
they take fire almost as soon as they emerge from the compound. They go …
toward the annex. …There are crowds. There are groups of men. They turn around
and go the other direction. … They make another u-turn. … There is traffic in
the roads around there. …they’re going at a steady pace … trying not to attract
too much attention, so they’re going maybe 15 miles an hour down the street.
…
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. And they continue far down
the block …another crowd where this road t-bones into a main road. There is a
crowd there. They pass through the crowd and on – turn right onto this main
road. This main road is completely choked with traffic, enormous traffic jam
typical for, I think, that time of night in that part of town. There are shops
along the road there and so on.
Rather
than get stuck in the traffic, the agents careen their car over the median –
there is a median, a grassy median – and into the opposing traffic, and they go
counter-flow until they emerge into a more lightly trafficked area and
ultimately make their way to the annex.
Once
at the annex, the annex has its own security – a security force there. There
are people at the annex. The guys in the car join the defense at the annex.
They take up firing positions on the roof – some of them do – and other firing
positions around the annex. The annex is, at this time, also taking fire and
does take fire intermittently, on and off, for the next several hours. The fire
consists of AK-47s but also RPGs, and it’s, at times, quite intense.
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.
So
that’s the end …
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.
QUESTION:
...When did you finally find Ambassador Stevens? And do you know now how
he got to the hospital? Was it definitely Libyans? Were they the militia…
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: We do not know exactly how the Ambassador
got to the hospital. That is one of the issues that we are – that we hope to
resolve in the ongoing reviews and the information we are still seeking. We
know he got to the hospital at some point. The hospital picked a cell phone out
of his pocket, and we believe just started calling numbers that were on the
cell phone that had received calls, and that is how we got the information that
he was there.
QUESTION:
Hi, thanks so much for doing this. Do you have any response from the charge
from Erik Nordstrom, the Regional Security Officer who left this summer, who is
set to testify tomorrow to say that it was a mistake to begin to normalize
security operations and reduce security resources in accordance with an
artificial timetable? That’s from a letter he sent earlier this month to the
oversight committee.
QUESTION:
… 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.
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: … as Official Number One said earlier, the
Ambassador did events in the city on the 10th. He had plans to do
events in the city later in the week. But on the 11th, he remained
in the compound.
As
in terms of the – of any kind of security threat, the – both ODNI spokesman and
the DNI have been correctly quoted as saying that there was no actionable
intelligence of any planned or imminent attack.
QUESTION:
… before the attack, did the Ambassador request that security be increased in
Benghazi? And if so, did anything ever come of it?
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: The – when the Ambassador traveled to
Benghazi, he traveled with two additional security agents over and above the
complement of three who were assigned to post. So there were five agents with
him there rather than the two who are normally assigned there – the three who are
normally assigned. So they were up two.
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: … since unfortunately we couldn’t fit
everything on one compound, we had two – the principle compound and the annex.
We … therefore, had our security … divided between the two compounds.
QUESTION:
… I want to be clear on one thing. You said as soon as they heard the noises
outside, they went to look and saw armed men assaulting the compound. That was
the very first thing that they saw after hearing the noise outside?
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE: They heard noises, firing, and an
explosion. The agent in the TOC looked at his camera and saw people coming
through the front gate.
QUESTION:
…I just wanted to …whether it is possible to now say clearly that this was very
much a preplanned attack, and if so, whether you can explain why there was no
actionable intelligence.
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: This – that subject is now under
review …
QUESTION:
Can you at least explain the process by which if a request for more security
comes in, how that’s – how you go about determining resources, so in the
instance of the reports that more security was requested by the folks in Libya,
can you sort of walk through how that process works?
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: Certainly. The – this is sort of an
iterative process, a discussion between the field and Washington, back and
forth; the field identifying what their needs are, Washington working very,
very closely with them. We always attempt to mitigate our risk. We cannot
eliminate them. Sometimes the post – any post in the world might come in and
say, “We need A, B, and C,” there would be a dialogue, and instead of sending
them A, B, and C, we would send them B, C, and D because in this discussion
process, we go to functionality, and when we determine the functionality that
gets us the maximum – a maximum possible security, then we – that is what we
deliver to the post.
QUESTION:
… in view of … the attack and the intensity of it and the numbers of people
involved, what – can you say what kind of security presence might have been
needed to repel an attack like that? I mean, what – I mean, if the criticism is
there wasn’t enough security, how much would you have needed to protect the
compound from this attack?
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: …The lethality and the number of
armed people is unprecedented. There had been no attacks like that anywhere in
Libya – Tripoli, Benghazi, or elsewhere – in the time that we had been there.
And so it is unprecedented. In fact, it would be very, very hard to find a precedent
for an attack like that in recent diplomatic history.
PRN: 2012/1613
