Andy Workman B.S., M.A.

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 12 PART 2 finale one WHY I KEEP TALKING ABOUT IT For the last 12 days, I have not been trying to retell 13 Hours. If you want the battle, read the book or watch the movie. I wanted people to understand what happened BEFORE the attack and what happened AFTER it. The warnings were there. The attacks had already started. Security requests had already been made. People on the ground were asking for help. The morning of September 11, we personally carried another threat warning directly to Ambassador Stevens. Then the attack happened. Four Americans died. Chris Stevens. Sean Smith. Tyrone “Rone” Woods. Glen “Bub” Doherty. And in the years since, I have learned things I did not know that night. Cable traffic. Timelines. Intelligence. What was happening in Washington. What military assets were available. What people were being told. What Sarah Adams, Boon, and others have uncovered. That is why I still talk about Benghazi. Not because I am stuck in 2012. Not because I need attention. And not because I want to spend the rest of my life arguing with government reports. I talk about it because if we do not tell the truth about why something failed, we cannot fix it. The government can write reports. Agencies can protect themselves. Politicians can blame each other. People can argue over terminology until the end of time. But none of that changes what happened. Four Americans are dead. Families lost sons, husbands, fathers and brothers. And those of us who were there will carry that night for the rest of our lives. I will keep telling what I saw. I will keep telling what I heard. I will keep asking the questions people in power would rather stop answering. And I will keep saying their names. Chris. Sean. Rone. Bub. Because Benghazi should never become just another political argument people remember every four years. It happened. There were failures. There were warnings. There were opportunities to do better. And Americans paid the price. NEVER FORGET BENGHAZI. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 12 PART 1 ACCOUNTABILITY Even with everything we know now, It’s a fact nobody inside the State Department, Department of Defense, or CIA will ever be held accountable for the catastrophic failures that left Americans exposed and cost lives. Except for the ones that expose it and tell the truth like Tanto, Jake, Boon, Oz and myself did. That is the reality of Benghazi. People were reassigned, reinstated, promoted, retired, protected, or allowed to disappear back into the system. Four Americans were dead, and the institutions responsible kept moving. And this is not just about Benghazi. Our government has failed Americans before, and it has failed Americans since. Different administrations. Different agencies. Different crises. Same pattern. Warnings are missed and ignored. Bad decisions are made. People die. Then the investigations start, everybody protects their own, and meaningful accountability disappears. September 11, 2001. Benghazi 9/11/2012 Abbey Gate. Mogadishu. The USS Cole. Hurricane Katrina. COVID. That’s a short list! Different events. Different failures. Different agencies. But the same question keeps coming back: WHO IS ACTUALLY HELD ACCOUNTABLE WHEN GOVERNMENT FAILURE COSTS AMERICAN LIVES? If your incompetence or dereliction of duty costs American lives, there should be real consequences. If you accept a position where Americans depend on your judgment, preparation, and decisions for their lives, then you accept the responsibility that comes with that job. You do not get to take the title, the authority, the salary, and the power, then hide behind bureaucracy when your failures get people killed. And when the evidence proves criminal negligence, willful dereliction of duty, corruption, or deliberate misconduct, the people responsible should be prosecuted. If convicted, they should go to prison! If you cannot handle that responsibility, do not take the fucking job. Because if nobody is ever held accountable, why should anyone believe the system will ever fix itself? #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #Accountability #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 11 PART 3 of 3 THE AIR SUPPORT THAT NEVER CAME By the time Benghazi was attacked, this was not happening in a vacuum. Cairo had already been breached that day. Benghazi had been deteriorating for months. Western targets had already been attacked. Security requests had been denied, reduced, or ignored. And that morning, we personally carried another threat warning directly to Ambassador Stevens. That is why my question is bigger than just Benghazi and who told the military to stand down crap. WHY WASN’T THE WHOLE REGION SPINNING UP? After Cairo was breached, why weren’t U.S. and allied assets across the region being put on alert, repositioned, fueled, crewed, or prepared in case something else happened? Especially Benghazi! The warning signs had been there for months. The argument always becomes, “Could a fighter jet or some other aircraft have made it there after the attack started?” That is not the question I am asking. My question is: WHY WAS NOTHING ALREADY MOVING? The official timelines show F-16s at Aviano were never launched. FAST platoons were held. The Commander’s In-Extremis Force was sent to Sigonella instead of Benghazi. A four-man SOCAFRICA team in Tripoli was told not to board a plane to Benghazi and remain in place. The bigger failure was posture. I had flown through Crete on my first trip into Benghazi. I knew U.S. and allied military assets operated in that region. Souda Bay was only a few hundred miles away. Sigonella was in Sicily. Aviano had F-16s. And I keep hearing the argument that the jets were not armed or could not have dropped bombs in the city. That misses the point. We did not need bombs first, we needed aircraft overhead. A fighter making low passes over that fight changes the enemy’s calculation immediately. Get something there. Send the armed package behind it if you need to. Years later, I was shown cable traffic from that night referencing the medical bird Charleston wanting to come to Benghazi from Germany. After the first attack on our compound, our team leader told the Charleston we didn’t need them, we were good. That was not intentional. He was responding to the situation as he understood it. Nobody outside Benghazi understood we were still under attack. We were still knee deep in the fight. Once that message went out that we were “good,” people farther up the chain were making decisions based on a picture that was already wrong. If you don’t understand why the response broke down, you can’t fix it. A medical bird was moving. Libyan authorities were cooperating with aircraft movement. So where was the combat support? Where were our allies? We came to the aid of the British Ambassador when his convoy was attacked in Benghazi. That is what Americans do. We help our allies. We move. We respond. So when Americans needed that same help, where was everybody? The official record can argue over “stand down,” “hold,” “remain in place,” or “do not board.” Fine. The result was the same. The region was not postured to respond when Americans needed it. Sarah Adams and Boon have made the same broader point: we were not asking somebody to rescue us so we could run away. We needed reinforcement. We were still in the fight. And nobody came. After months of warnings, previous attacks, denied security requests, Cairo being breached, and another threat warning that morning… WHY WASN’T THE WHOLE REGION ALREADY SPINNING UP? The only answer I can come up with is incompetence! #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 11 PART 2 THE STAND-DOWN When the U.S. consulate came under attack, we were at the CIA Annex about a mile away. We were geared up, ready to go, and prepared to move. Then Bob looked directly at me and said “stand down you need to wait” Let me make something crystal clear: that stand-down did not come from Washington, the Pentagon, or somebody else talking in his ear. It came from Bob. Weeks before September 11, the commander of the 17 Feb had already told Bob that if anything happened, they were not going to help us. Then, on the night of the attack, while we were getting ready to go, Bob got that same commander on the phone. And again, the answer was the same: they were not going to help. But understand this part too: WE DID NOT KNOW THAT. We had no idea what 17 Feb was telling Bob that night or what they had told him weeks earlier. If we had known they had already told him they were not coming, we would have punched out immediately. We were standing there ready to move, believing Bob was still trying to coordinate some kind of local response and a joint link-up. Meanwhile, he already knew 17 Feb was not coming. And he was still telling us to stand down. I was standing there. Bob looked directly at me and said it. Americans were under attack. We were about a mile away. We were ready to move, and Bob was telling us not to leave. We did not wait for him to change his mind. The final straw was Alec Henderson, the senior Diplomatic Security agent at the compound, coming over the radio: “If you guys don’t get here now, we’re all gonna fucking die.” That was it. Americans were calling for help. Hell, we started leaving before our team leader was even with us. We left without Bob’s permission. That is the stand-down I have been talking about all these years. And that stand-down order is the reason Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith are not with us today. If we had left when we were ready, the attackers wouldn’t have had free rein to set the buildings on fire. That is a fact! Bob gave the order. Bob knew 17 Feb was not coming. We did not know. And we went anyway. We were the only hope they had of getting out alive. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 11 PART 1 By the morning of September 11, the warning signs had been piling up for months. Then Benghazi gave us more. Around 9 or 10 that morning, I drove our CIA Chief of Base, “Bob,” and another case officer to meet with local Libyan intelligence. It was the first time they had met at this location, directly across the street from the U.S. Special Mission compound. Normally I wouldn’t have gone inside. This time I did because something about the place didn’t feel right. The office itself felt wrong too. From the second floor, you could clearly see into the main compound where Ambassador Stevens’ villa was located. After years of doing this kind of work overseas, it didn’t look like any intelligence office I was used to. Hardly any furniture. Small desks. A few office chairs. Almost empty. I didn’t sit in on the meeting. But when Bob and the other case officer came out, we went straight to the U.S. compound. The Libyans had warned them that intelligence indicated a local government facility in Benghazi would be attacked that day. We took that warning directly to Ambassador Chris Stevens. Morning of September 11, local intelligence was warning that an attack was expected in Benghazi that day. There was another red flag. A Libyan police officer assigned around the U.S. mission was reported photographing the compound from an elevated position across the street. Sean Smith knew about it and later wrote online: “Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” Then look at what was happening elsewhere. Hours before Benghazi was attacked, protesters in Cairo breached the perimeter of the U.S. Embassy, entered the compound, tore down the American flag and replaced it with a black flag. So by then, an American diplomatic facility had already been overrun on September 11. Washington knew unrest was spreading across the region. It knew Benghazi was a high-threat post. It knew about the previous attacks. It knew about the security shortfalls. And that morning, we had personally carried another threat warning directly to Ambassador Stevens. Yet no American military force had been positioned close enough to Benghazi to respond quickly if something happened. That is what amazes me to this day. Cairo had already been breached! Benghazi had been warning Washington for months. We had another threat warning that morning. And still, nothing was being moved toward that region in anticipation of trouble. Then that night the attack started. And even after Washington knew Americans were under attack, the later House investigation found that almost six hours after the first attack began, no military asset ordered by the Secretary of Defense was moving toward Benghazi or Tripoli, aside from personnel already in Tripoli who arranged their own movement. Think about that. The warnings were there. The security failures were known. Another U.S. Embassy had already been breached that day. And still, when Benghazi erupted, the military response was starting from behind. That is why Day 11 is not about retelling the 13 Hours. If you want the fight, read the book or watch the movie. This is about what happened before the first shot was fired and how many chances there were to be ready. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 10 Ambassador Chris Stevens was back in Benghazi. But understand something before I go any further: The security problems in Benghazi was already known. This wasn’t discovered after four Americans were dead. The people on the ground had been warning Washington for months. They asked for more Security. They asked to keep additional military security in Libya. Ambassador Stevens himself backed requests for more security. And Washington’s response? Requests were reduced. Requests were denied! Other requests went unanswered…WTF! The military Site Security Team was allowed to leave! Charlene Lamb, THE Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. When Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom wanted to keep additional Mobile Security Deployment personnel in Libya, Lamb wrote: “NO, I do not [I repeat] not want them to ask for the MSD team to stay!” Read that again. Had nothing to do with funding! This was happening while the threat was getting worse and after attacks happened not before. The U.S. compound in Benghazi had already been bombed. A hole had already been blown through its perimeter wall. The British Ambassador’s convoy had already been attacked with an RPG. So, Western targets were being hit. Extremist groups were operating in eastern Libya. And the people on the ground were saying: We need more security. Washington still did not give them the security posture they were asking for and needed! And after Benghazi? Charlene Lamb wasn’t fired from the State Department. She was placed on administrative leave, later reinstated, and given another assignment. That tells you a hell of a lot about accountability in Washington. Get Americans killed and move up! But responsibility did not stop at Charlene Lamb’s desk. Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State. Chris Stevens was not some stranger buried deep inside her department. Hillary had selected him to represent the United States during the Libyan revolution and later nominated him to become Ambassador. Hillary knew Libya was unstable. Her department knew Benghazi was dangerous, all verified from her secret server emails. Her security people on the ground were asking for more help, attacks had already happened, warnings had already been written. The requests had already been sent and denied. Maybe Hillary personally didn’t deny every or any security request because the record does not show that. But this was her State Department. So despite everything her department knew, the security on the ground did not match the threat in Benghazi that was growing. Then came September 10. Chris came to the CIA Annex, where he received a briefing on what we were seeing in eastern Libya. Later he went to meet with the Benghazi Local Council and something happened that matters. The media showed up, now his presence in Benghazi was public. Think about the position they had put him and his team in! The threat was known, previous attacks were known, requests for more security were known. The Ambassador was now physically in Benghazi, now people outside the U.S. government knew he was there too. And the clock was almost out for one desperate U.S Consulate begging for help! They were being treated as the redheaded stepchild! One day left. Hillary had already been given multiple opportunities to act. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #ChrisStevens #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 9 - 1 of 4 TYRONE “RONE” WOODS I had never worked with Rone before this rotation. He was our Assistant Team Leader at the Annex and our medic. Before GRS, he had spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL, retired as a Senior Chief, served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also a registered nurse and paramedic. He was the kind of guy who had both the tactical experience and the medical experience you wanted around when things went bad. What I remember most about him was how laid-back and motivated he was. Easy to work with. No drama. Just did his job. He had extended his rotation and only had about a week or so left. He should have already been home under his original schedule. At the time, I had Scottish Highlands (cattle or cows for you city dwellers) back home, and Rone was planning to buy a whole cow’s from me once I got home and had it butchered. That is the kind of thing I remember. Not some big heroic speech. Not some dramatic conversation. Just two guys talking about normal life back home. Rone had three sons, including an infant son at the time. He had a family waiting for him, and he was almost done with that extended rotation. A week or so. That was about all he had left. And then September 11 happened. When people talk about Benghazi, they usually talk about the attack, the politics, the investigations and the arguments. I remember the guys. Rone was one of them, Laid-back, Motivated, Experienced, leader, medic, A father, A brother, A Son and A Warrior. And a guy who was supposed to be home already. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #TyroneWoods #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 8 A week or so before Ambassador Stevens was set to come back to Benghazi, we already knew what his events were going to look like. One of the events planned for September 13 was a public event at a local school. So before he arrived, we went out and did a security assessment of the location. We walked the building, looked at entrances and exits, evacuation routes, hard points and places we could use if something went bad, the location sucked. The access was bad. The exit routes were bad, everything was a chokepoint! It was going to be a public event. Too many people, too many unknowns and not enough good options if something happened. We talked about it a lot. We believed that was going to be the day he got attacked. We also shut down a lot of our operations so we could help augment security for the Ambassador’s movements. We weren’t going to be driving his convoy or replacing DS. We were going to be there as additional security, overwatch and basically a QRF if something went wrong. State Department personnel also came over to our compound before the visit. We did active-shooter training and medical training together so they understood how we would move and respond if something happened. That part matters. We weren’t sitting around thinking Benghazi was safe. We were preparing because we knew something was going to happen. We were checking locations. We were planning emergency routes. We were coordinating with State. We were training together. We were preparing to change our own operations to support the Ambassador’s security. And this was all before September 11. The school event never happened. We were now 3 days away. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

THE TEST Part 9: If Jesus Wasn’t Crucified, Who Was? Don’t believe me. Read it yourself. Last Tuesday we ended with one question: If Jesus was not crucified, who was actually on the cross? The Qur’an says: “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them…” -Qur’an 4:157 That is the claim. Now prove the explanation. The Qur’an does not identify who was crucified instead. It does not explain how the appearance was created. It does not name a witness to any substitution. Later Islamic commentators offered different theories about what happened. But those theories are not historical evidence. Now apply THE TEST. If someone else died on that cross: Who was it? Who witnessed the substitution? Where is the 1st-century record? Where is the source that predates the Qur’an and says Jesus escaped crucifixion? And one more question. If that was not Jesus on the cross… why were His mother and His followers there watching? John says: “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother…” -John 19:25 So if someone else was supposedly substituted… Did His own mother not recognize Him? Did His followers not recognize Him? That does not prove the entire case by itself. But it makes the substitution claim even harder to explain. And this matters because the Qur’an’s claim comes centuries after the event. You cannot answer earlier historical evidence simply by saying: “It was made to appear so.” That only repeats the claim. It does not prove it. So show the evidence. Not a later interpretation. Not a theory written centuries afterward. Not “maybe this is what happened.” Show the earlier evidence that Jesus was not the man crucified. If that evidence exists, bring it. If it does not, then we have to ask why a later revelation should overturn the earlier historical record without producing evidence for its version. That is THE TEST. Next Tuesday: Who independently verified Muhammad’s claim that the being in the cave was actually Gabriel? Read it yourself. #TheTest

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 7 One thing people probably don’t understand about Benghazi is the way you rotate security personnel matters. On the GRS side, we had overlap between rotations. The outgoing team didn’t just disappear and leave the incoming guys to figure everything out. We had time to pass along routes, problem areas, local knowledge, changes in the city and what we were seeing on the ground. The State Department’s DS side did not have that same continuity. Benghazi was being staffed through short-term TDY rotations. By September 1, only 3 DS agents were on the ground. Congressional testimony described all 3 as “brand new to the service,” all on temporary duty, and none had previously served at a high-threat post. That doesn’t mean they were bad guys or incapable. Some DS personnel had solid military backgrounds. The bigger problem was the system they were being dropped into. From what I saw, many of the DS guys relied heavily on local drivers because they simply did not know Benghazi the way we did. They knew how to get to a few key locations, like the Annex and maybe the hospital, but they didn’t have the same local familiarity or handoff between rotations that we had. That matters more than people think. Security is not just carrying a gun. You need to know your city, need primary routes, alternate routes, choke points, hospitals, neighborhoods, where trouble normally develops and how to move when your route is gone. And there is another difference people miss: training versus experience. DS agents received training for dangerous assignments, but training does not replace years of operating in high-threat environments. GRS was built around guys who already had substantial operational experience before they ever got there. GRS guys had around 8 years in Special Forces or comparable high-threat backgrounds before coming into the program. I was an exception 4 year O311. Training gives you a foundation. Experience gives you judgment. You can have good people and still put them into a bad system and shity situations. That is what I believe State was doing in Benghazi: rotating people through on short TDYs with limited continuity, limited local knowledge and, for the 3 agents there by September 1, no previous high-threat-post experience. Then Ambassador Stevens arrived on September 10 with 2 additional DS agents, bringing the total to 5 on the ground for the night of the attack. Five sounds better than 3 on paper. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. How well do they know the city? How long have they worked together? Do they know alternate routes? Can they move without depending on somebody else to tell them where to go? And how much of what they know came from a course versus years of actually doing the job? Those things matter when everything goes to shit. And by September 7, we were only 4 days away. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 6 By late August and early September 2012, the intelligence picture was getting worse too. On August 19, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff produced an intelligence update titled “Libya: Terrorists to Increase Strength During Next Six Months.” It warned there were “no near-term prospects” for reversing Libya’s trend toward becoming a terrorist safe haven and said eastern Libya was likely to become an even broader safe haven by the end of the year. It also warned that those conditions would allow terrorists to increase attacks against Western and Libyan interests. Then, on September 5, AFRICOM produced another assessment on extremism in Libya. It said the disarray in Libya’s security services was giving jihadists freedom to recruit, train and move fighters and weapons. Most importantly, it said the threat to Western and U.S. interests remained high, particularly in northeast Libya. That matters because Benghazi is in northeast Libya. And this wasn’t the first time people were saying it. Back in June, State Department security officials were already discussing what they called “an active terrorist cell in Benghazi” that was planning and carrying out attacks against Western interests, including the U.S. mission. Another security official warned that extremist activity had increased so much that he feared they had already crossed a threshold where they would start seeing more attacks on Western targets. So by the beginning of September, you had: Repeated attacks against Western targets. Growing extremist activity. A weak Libyan government that could not control the security environment. Intelligence assessments warning eastern Libya was becoming a terrorist safe haven. AFRICOM saying the threat to U.S. and Western interests in northeast Libya remained high. The intelligence community later said there was no specific, credible warning of the exact September 11 attack. But there was plenty of strategic warning that the environment was getting worse and U.S. facilities and personnel in Benghazi were at risk. That is the distinction people need to understand. There may not have been a warning with the exact date and time. But there sure as hell wasn’t a shortage of warnings. By September 5, the United States government was writing in its own intelligence reports that the threat to Americans in northeast Libya remained high. We were now 6 days away from September 11. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 5 By the summer of 2012, Benghazi was trying to look like a city moving toward democracy. Libya was having its first national election in more than 40 years on July 7, and on paper that looked like progress. But what was happening on the ground told a different story. Election offices were being stormed, ballot material were being destroyed, even a helicopter carrying election materials was shot at and one election worker was killed. Public offices and security facilities were being attacked, and police, military officers and judges were being targeted. That was the environment Benghazi was operating in. I would say the Armed groups had the influence, the government didn’t. Militias could challenge police and security forces. People were be kidnapped in the middle of the city and nobody seemed to know who had them or where they were. On July 31, 7 members of an Iranian Red Crescent delegation was kidnapped in Benghazi while returning to their hotel after meeting with the Libyan Red Crescent. That is what the public record says. They were “humanitarian workers” invited into Libya and were grabbed by armed men at around 1 a.m. What I remember hearing at the time was that there were questions about whether those guys were really just humanitarian workers or whether some of them had connections to Iranian intelligence or security services. I have never seen it publicly confirmed. There was also a large shootout while I was there between what I remember was a militia and the police over impounded vehicles. But here is another part people miss when they hear all of this. Most of the regular Libyans I dealt with were still polite, respectful and grateful. Benghazi being dangerous did not mean every Libyan walking down the street hated Americans. That wasn’t my experience. Hell, sometimes the problem was us. We had one female case officer who just would not listen to us and seemed determined to be Jason Bourne everywhere she went. There were several times we had to step in and de-escalate situations in hotels and restaurants because she had pushed something farther than it needed to go. That was part of operating there too. You had to understand the culture, read the room, know when something was actually a threat and know when somebody was creating a problem that didn’t need to exist. So when I talk about Benghazi becoming more dangerous, understand what I mean. The average person on the street wasn’t necessarily the threat. The problem was that government control was weak, armed groups had power, extremist activity was growing, officials and security personnel were being targeted, and nobody really seemed capable of controlling all of it. Benghazi was changing right in front of us. And we were getting closer to September 11. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 4 I was operating out of the Annex. We were not the State Department, we were not at the U.S. Consulate, and we did not operate under the same security structure. By August 2012, the State Department mission in Benghazi had security “tripwires.” The tripwires I’m talking about applied to the State Department mission in Benghazi. State’s own security people were also asking for more U.S. protection. In July, the Libya mission requested additional temporary-duty U.S. security personnel, and Eric Nordstrom was pushing to keep additional security teams in Libya. Instead of the U.S. security presence growing as the threat got worse, it was shrinking. By August, those conditions were piling up. A State Department cable from August 16 said officials were reviewing the tripwires because of increasing violent incidents, organizations leaving Benghazi, the rise of potentially anti-Western militias, and weak Libyan security support. The local armed security presence at the U.S. mission was no longer being provided. Requests for a daily police presence had gone unanswered. State officials were also raising concerns about their relationship with the 17 Feb. That is what people need to understand when they hear the word “tripwire.” It wasn’t just some general warning. These were specific conditions that were supposed to trigger changes in how the State Department operated. And by then, the State Department mission was already down to mission-critical personnel. There wasn’t much left to reduce. So they were discussing another option: suspended operations. That meant restricting outside movement and conducting business from inside the compound. Think about where things had gotten by August. Violence was increasing, militias were becoming more aggressive, local security support was breaking down, and other organizations were leaving Benghazi. And State was already discussing what to do if normal operations could no longer continue. By August, the warning signs were no longer hard to see. They were right in their faces, but Washington didn’t want to see it or hear it. We were less than a month away from September 11. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 3 DERNA Earlier in my time in Libya, I made 2 trips into Derna. We drove through the city, got out, and even walked the markets. At that point, we could still operate there. That changed. As the security situation deteriorated, Derna became a place we stopped going ourselves. The terrorist presence had grown to the point that the risk was no longer worth it. That wasn’t just our assessment either. Government testimony later described Derna as an area Americans generally avoided because it was known for harboring al-Qaeda sympathizers. At the same time, we were getting reports about AQ activity, sightings and locations throughout eastern Libya. There were intelligence personnel whose job was to help locate and track those networks, including through electronic communications and signal collection. What most people don’t know is that I watched some of those reports get ignored. If Bob found out we were taking personnel out specifically to help locate or track AQ activity, he would shut it down. I’m not going into names, equipment, specific locations or methods. There is no reason to. The important part is that we were not operating blind. The terrorist presence was there, people on the ground were seeing it, and there were opportunities to learn more about what those networks were doing. Here is something else most people probably don’t know. On September 11, 2012, when the attack in Benghazi began, an unarmed Predator was already flying over Derna conducting an intelligence collection mission. Once Benghazi came under attack, that Predator was redirected to us. Think about that. By September 11, Derna had become dangerous enough that we had stopped going there ourselves, yet the United States was still collecting intelligence over the city. Members of Ansar al-Sharia in Derna were later identified by the State Department as having been involved in the Benghazi attacks. The threat didn’t suddenly appear on September 11. We had been watching it grow. The question was never whether the warning signs existed. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #Derna #NeverForget

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 2 By June 11, 2012, the British had already been getting warning signs in Libya. On March 18, the British School in Benghazi was robbed at gunpoint. On April 2, a British armored diplomatic vehicle was attacked after driving into a protest. On June 8, two grenades were thrown at a parked British diplomatic vehicle in Sabha. I had left Benghazi 5 days earlier, on June 6, the same day the U.S. consulate was attacked. When that call came in, I remember thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m flying home today.” If it had turned into a full-on attack, I would’ve missed that flight home. Then came June 11. The British Ambassador’s convoy had been using the same route repeatedly, which made their movements predictable. After a meeting that day, the convoy was returning through Benghazi when it was ambushed with an RPG and small-arms fire. Two British security personnel were wounded. Once again, Bob told the GRS team to stand down. This time, the Team Leader made the difference. He made the decision to go anyway. The GRS team rolled out, responded to the attack, and our medic treated the wounded British security personnel. That matters because leadership matters. Same Chief of Base. Same kind of hesitation. Different Team Leader. Different decision. By that point, the British had already been changing how they operated in Benghazi because of the security situation. After the June 11 ambush, they suspended their Benghazi mission altogether. When they later returned for day missions, their vehicles and weapons were stored at the U.S. consulate. Think about that. The British had already been targeted multiple times. Their Ambassador was then ambushed. They changed the way they operated and reduced their exposure even further. The United States stayed. Did they change their security posture or start listening to the guys on the ground? Nope. And we were still 92 days away from September 11. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen

12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI: DAY 1 Before September 11, 2012, Benghazi was already giving us warning after warning. This didn’t just come out of nowhere. Western facilities were being targeted. Diplomats were being attacked. Extremist groups were operating throughout the area, and the security situation kept getting worse. On April 6, an explosive was thrown over the wall of the U.S. compound. A few days later, a UN convoy was attacked. The Red Cross was hit with RPGs. Then came June 6. I was in Benghazi that night, sitting at the CIA Annex watching the cameras when the call came in that the U.S. consulate was under attack. There were only 2 DS security personnel at the consulate that night. As soon as the call came in, I initiated our SOP. Wake everybody up, Gear up, Get the vehicles ready. We had already told the 2 guys at the consulate that if something happened to them, we had their back. We were their quick reaction force. (QRF) We normally had ourselves ready to move in about 5 minutes. That night we were ready within roughly 5 to 10 minutes. It was around 3:30 a.m. local time in Benghazi Then Bob stopped us. He told us to stand down. Still wasn’t the 1st time either. Not “wait.” Not “hold for a minute.” Stand down! And yes, I remember the words. He told us we were not going and that he would call 17Feb and have them handle it. It’s the Team Leaders that make the decision and difference… Meanwhile, an explosive had just blown roughly a 9-by-12-foot hole through the exterior wall of the U.S. compound. Official reports later documented the attack and said the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigade claimed responsibility, although that claim was never substantiated. Thankfully, nobody was killed that night. But look at what had just happened. An American compound had been attacked again. The wall had been blown open and there were only 2 security personnel there. Read that again! An American security team was sitting nearby, geared up and ready to move. And we were told to stand down. That was June 6, 2012. 97 days before September 11. And that wasn’t the only warning. We were also seeing AQ activity in and around Benghazi. Reports were coming in about sightings, locations and activity. There were people whose job was to help locate and track those networks through intelligence collection, including electronic communications and signal gathering. And if Bob found out we were taking people out specifically to help locate or track AQ activity, he would stop us from doing it. The threat was there. The intelligence was there. The attacks were already happening. And people on the ground were trying to understand what was developing around us. I know some of you were expecting me to do this as a podcast or video series. I just don’t have the time this year to put that together the way I would want to. So for the next 12 days, I’m going to tell you pieces of this story that most people have probably never heard. Some of it is documented in government records. Some of it has been uncovered since. And some of it I know because I was standing there when it happened. Tomorrow, June 11. The British Ambassador’s convoy gets hit! And once again, Bob tells us to stand down. But that time, things go differently. #12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen