In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say
By Ernesto Londoño and Abigail Hauslohner, Published: September 29
On the eve of his death,
U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens
was ebullient as he returned for the first time in his new role to
Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that embraced him as a savior during
last year’s civil war. He moved around the coastal town in an armored
vehicle and held a marathon of meetings, his handful of bodyguards
trailing discreetly behind.
But as Stevens met with Benghazi civic leaders, U.S. officials
appear to have underestimated the threat facing both the ambassador and
other Americans. They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost
there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas.
Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic
sites in high-threat regions.
A U.S. military team assigned to
establish security at the new embassy in Tripoli, in a previously
undisclosed detail, was never instructed to fortify the temporary hub in
the east. Instead, a small local guard force was hired by a British
private security firm as part of a contract worth less than half of what
it costs to deploy a single U.S. service member in a war zone for a
year.
The two U.S. compounds where Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a sustained, brutal
attack the night of Sept. 11,
proved to be strikingly vulnerable targets in an era of barricaded
embassies and multibillion-dollar security contracts for U.S. diplomatic
facilities in conflict zones, according to interviews with U.S. and
Libyan officials and eyewitnesses in recent days.
Cautioned to be low-key
Days before the ambassador arrived from the embassy in Tripoli, a
Libyan security official had warned an American diplomat that
foreigners should keep a low profile in Benghazi because of growing
threats. Other Westerners had fled the city, and the British had closed
their consulate.
Despite the security inadequacies and the
warning, Stevens traveled to Benghazi to meet openly with local leaders.
Eager to establish a robust diplomatic presence in the cradle of the
rebellion against
Moammar Gaddafi, the ousted autocratic leader, U.S. officials appear to have overlooked the stark signs that militancy was on the rise.
This
account of Stevens’s last days and the attack, which includes new
details about security at the compound and the ambassador’s movements,
was assembled from more than a dozen interviews with American officials,
prominent Libyans and others familiar with the case. Most agreed to
speak only on the condition of anonymity.
The attack marked the first violent death of a serving ambassador in a generation and has become a
thorn in President Obama’s reelection bid.
It also raised the prospect that a country Washington assumed would
become a staunch ally as it recovered from its short civil war could
turn into a haven for fundamentalists.
U.S. officials investigating the assault say their
preliminary assessment
indicates that members of Ansar al-Sharia, a fundamentalist group with
deep roots in Benghazi, carried out the attack with the help of a few
militants linked to al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Africa. Intelligence officers
and a team of FBI agents in Libya are continuing the investigation.
When
bullets and rocket-propelled grenades started raining on the main U.S.
compound Sept. 11, the small guard force was quickly overrun, and the
building was set ablaze. That visual, along with the
now-iconic image of a dying Stevens
being dragged by Libyans toward safety, could have hardly been further
from the message the veteran ambassador had traveled to Benghazi to
spread: America is here to stay.
“The revolution started there,”
said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
citing the ongoing probes into the attacks. “We wanted to make sure the
U.S. was seen as interested in the views of the east. There was no
greater advocate of that than Chris.”
‘Like his home’
Stevens was enthralled to be back in Benghazi, a city where he
had served the year before as a special envoy to the rebels, said a
close Libyan friend who was by his side Sept. 10.
“He had
connections, contacts all over the eastern part of the country,” said
the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he fears
that his close affiliation with Americans poses a risk. “Benghazi was
like his home. He wore jeans. He used to run outside the compound. He
felt very safe going to markets, to the square, meeting friends for
coffee.”
The main purpose of Stevens’s visit was opening an
education and cultural facility that would be called “the American
space.” The initiative was a cornerstone of his goal of deepening
Washington’s relationship with Libya, an oil-rich nation emerging from
four decades of Gaddafi’s bizarre, totalitarian rule.
Once a
nuclear threat and avowed nemesis of the West, Libya appeared poised to
become a close ally in a region seething with anti-American sentiment.
After all, NATO airstrikes had helped save Benghazi, the capital of the
rebels in the civil war, and turn the tide against Gaddafi’s forces.
Stevens was transfixed by the possibilities.
“He lost friends
during the revolution, as did almost every Libyan, and he respected
their losses,” Hannah Draper, a Foreign Service officer stationed in
Tripoli wrote in a tribute to Stevens
posted on her blog. “He supported the revolution, but his real passion was rebuilding a free Libya.”
Two
weeks before his death, Stevens had taken an important step toward
normalizing relations with Libya by opening a full-services consular
section in Tripoli, enabling Libyans to apply for visas.
“Since
returning to Libya as ambassador in May, there’s one question I’ve heard
almost every day from Libyans: ‘When are you going to start issuing
visas again?’ ” Stevens told attendants at the Aug. 26 groundbreaking of
the consular section. “Now, at last, you have your answer: Tomorrow.”
Insecurity
has beset Libya since the country’s civil war ended in October 2011
with Gaddafi’s dramatic execution. Militias have been reluctant to
disband or surrender weapons. After the U.S. Embassy formally reopened
in Tripoli last fall, the U.S. military’s Africa command dispatched a
team to help build its security infrastructure. The troops, however,
were never assigned to bolster security at the site in Benghazi, said
Eric Elliott, a spokesman for the Africa command. Elliott and the State
Department could not say why.
During the summer, the military team
became smaller as the State Department assumed responsibility for
security at the embassy at the end of July. Those who remained turned
their attention to building a relationship with Libya’s burgeoning armed
forces, Elliott said.
Inexpensive contractors
The Benghazi compound was an anomaly for U.S. diplomatic posts.
It was not a formal consulate and certainly not an embassy. It was a
liaison office established before Gaddafi’s ouster. It was staffed by
the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, a State Department
office that dispatches government officials to hardship posts for short
tours. Instead of signing a costly security contract similar to those
the government has for facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the State
Department this summer awarded a contract to Blue Mountain, a small
British security firm, to provide local guards at the Benghazi compound.
The year-long contract, which took effect in March, was worth $387,413,
a minuscule sum for war-zone contracting. Blue Mountain and the State
Department declined to comment for this article.
Security in
eastern Libya deteriorated sharply in recent months. A string of
attacks, some linked to fundamentalist groups, made clear that
Westerners were no longer safe. The International Committee of the Red
Cross suspended operations and evacuated staff in the east after an
attack June 12 on its compound in the port city of Misrata. In Benghazi,
convoys transporting the U.N. country chief and the British ambassador
were attacked in April and June, respectively. The British government
shut down its consulate soon afterward.
The U.S. outpost had a
close call of its own June 6, when a small roadside bomb detonated
outside the walls, causing no injuries or significant damage. But the
Americans stayed put.
Geoff Porter, a risk and security analyst
who specializes in North Africa, said the sudden and stark shift from
“predictable violence to terrorism” in the east over the summer was
unmistakable.
“The U.S. intelligence apparatus must have had a sense the environment was shifting,” he said.
But
if Stevens was deeply worried about deteriorating security, as CNN has
reported he wrote in an entry in his journal, he kept quiet, said the
Libyan friend who was with him the day before the attack.
“We
didn’t talk about attacks,” the friend said. “He would have never come
on the anniversary of September 11th if he had had any concerns.”
Three
days before the attack, a U.S. official in Benghazi met with security
leaders to ask them about the threat level, a senior Libyan official in
the east said on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing
investigation.
The American did not disclose the ambassador’s visit.
“They
told him, ‘Look, if there’s going to be any foreign presence [in the
city], it better be discreet,’ ” the Libyan official said.
Attack timeline
The assault on the compound was launched from three directions
around 9 p.m., the Libyan official said. Guards and members of militias
friendly to the United States who responded to try to repel the
attackers were shot in the legs, the official said, suggesting the
gunmen had been instructed not to shoot to kill.
Sean Smith, 34, an information management officer, died during that phase of the attack and Stevens, 52, was trapped and mortally injured.
A
group of Americans managed to escape to a second compound about a mile
away, according to the Libyan official and others with knowledge of the
attack. The site was used by U.S. diplomatic and intelligence personnel,
according to people briefed on the attack.
Soon after the
evacuated Americans arrived there, the second location came under
attack, according to the Libyan official and a Libyan fighter who
assisted in the evacuation. The fighter — a member of the militia known
as the February 17th Brigade, which was friendly toward the Americans —
received a call from a counterpart in Tripoli. He said the Americans at
the second compound needed help and told him to get in touch with a man
named Paul. When the militia leader got the American on the phone, Paul
told him not to send his men.
“Listen, my men have orders to shoot
on sight, and the situation in the safe house is under control,” Peter
told the militia leader, according to the account by the Libyan
official.
In a lengthy firefight at the second compound, two
former Navy SEALs who had been deployed to Benghazi as security
contractors were killed. Hours later, the Americans who survived managed
to get to the airport and flee the city.
This week, the U.S.
Embassy in Tripoli evacuated nonessential embassy staff, citing security
risks. The Benghazi compound was an empty, burned-out husk.
Youssef
Arish, whose family owns property next door to the facility and who
remembers Stevens fondly, said most Libyans were bereft by the attack.
“It’s
only a few people, and they don’t just hate America,” he said. “They
hate the [Libyan] government; they consider them non-Muslims. They’re
just a few people, but they’re going to hurt the relations between Libya
and other” nations.
Hauslohner reported from Benghazi and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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