The problem was, how does the USA inject a military presence without a war. I think the DOD really dropped the ball on this. The USA had just dissolved the dictator government of Libya. The USA recognized government that replaced Gaddafi had no military itself. It would have been appropriate for the USA to replace the military in the country for it's foreign service commitment.
The USA foreign service counts on the sponsoring country to protect their missions. That was absent in Libya at the time. There was no ability to respond to any attacks on the embassy or the consulate in Libya by regional USA forces. That is the truth of the situation. The "normal" embassy environment didn't exist. Body guards were already present and when do innumerable bodyguards become a militia within a country.
It really comes down to lack of intelligence post Gaddafi. That is what this is. The USA was only learning of the after math of the attacks to end the killing of the people in east Libya. The USA didn't count on militias dotting the landscape or them being hostile toward a USA presence at the time.
The Vanity Fair article posts to the fact most other embassy missions had left post Gaddafi. The USA perceived an environment where opportunity existed to advance democracy. That obviously was far more optimistic than reality.
I'd like to lay blame somewhere, but, the sincere problem was the lack of current intelligence. I think the agencies were doing all they could, but, it was post war. It needed more muscle than we estimated.
There was a successful CIA site which entered the picture at Benghazi. With a stable CIA presence there was no real reason to believe a consulate would be attacked. It was a vacuum of information and the damnable devotion of the USA to instilling democracy. I really think the people making the decisions were convinced they were correct. There is no intentional or incompetency involved here. The CIA was there. They were not having problems.
It is not a Hillary Clinton problem and further investigations is sincerely a witch hunt.
The USA was operating on the FACT it needed to intervene to end the killing in east Libya. No militia could defeat Gaddafi. The USA and France had to carry out bombing runs to end the aggression in east Libya, in particular Benghazi. The role of The West in Libya didn't invite the idea there were strong militias that could cause a problem for the USA. There was a fire fight in Benghazi. It wasn't as though the USA didn't have muscle. It did. What was not known to the USA was the fact militias were building at a faster rate than estimated. That is all this is. The base of knowledge was new and incomplete.
I might point out, the consulate grounds is where the gasoline was found to start the fires. The early assessment never considered barrels of gasoline as a danger to the consulate. The gasoline was there to power the vehicles. The ambassador died of smoke inhalation. If the fires were never set to create a hostile environment the four dead might still be alive.
"Hind sight is 20/20." The Benghazi Commission does not have a consensus for it's continued witch hunt. The email issue is a political side show. There is no "E-mail Committee" YET.
August 2013
By Fred Burton
...But Libya was a target-rich environment (click here) for American political, economic, and military interests, and the United States was determined to retain its diplomatic and intelligence presence in the country—including an embassy in Tripoli and a mission in Benghazi, which was a linchpin of American concerns and opportunities in the summer of the Arab Spring. Tunisia had been swept by revolution, and so had Egypt. “The United States was typically optimistic in its hope for Libya,” an insider with boots on the ground commented, smiling. “The hope was that all would work out even though the reality of an Islamic force in the strong revolutionary winds hinted otherwise.”...
The USA foreign service counts on the sponsoring country to protect their missions. That was absent in Libya at the time. There was no ability to respond to any attacks on the embassy or the consulate in Libya by regional USA forces. That is the truth of the situation. The "normal" embassy environment didn't exist. Body guards were already present and when do innumerable bodyguards become a militia within a country.
It really comes down to lack of intelligence post Gaddafi. That is what this is. The USA was only learning of the after math of the attacks to end the killing of the people in east Libya. The USA didn't count on militias dotting the landscape or them being hostile toward a USA presence at the time.
The Vanity Fair article posts to the fact most other embassy missions had left post Gaddafi. The USA perceived an environment where opportunity existed to advance democracy. That obviously was far more optimistic than reality.
I'd like to lay blame somewhere, but, the sincere problem was the lack of current intelligence. I think the agencies were doing all they could, but, it was post war. It needed more muscle than we estimated.
There was a successful CIA site which entered the picture at Benghazi. With a stable CIA presence there was no real reason to believe a consulate would be attacked. It was a vacuum of information and the damnable devotion of the USA to instilling democracy. I really think the people making the decisions were convinced they were correct. There is no intentional or incompetency involved here. The CIA was there. They were not having problems.
It is not a Hillary Clinton problem and further investigations is sincerely a witch hunt.
The USA was operating on the FACT it needed to intervene to end the killing in east Libya. No militia could defeat Gaddafi. The USA and France had to carry out bombing runs to end the aggression in east Libya, in particular Benghazi. The role of The West in Libya didn't invite the idea there were strong militias that could cause a problem for the USA. There was a fire fight in Benghazi. It wasn't as though the USA didn't have muscle. It did. What was not known to the USA was the fact militias were building at a faster rate than estimated. That is all this is. The base of knowledge was new and incomplete.
I might point out, the consulate grounds is where the gasoline was found to start the fires. The early assessment never considered barrels of gasoline as a danger to the consulate. The gasoline was there to power the vehicles. The ambassador died of smoke inhalation. If the fires were never set to create a hostile environment the four dead might still be alive.
"Hind sight is 20/20." The Benghazi Commission does not have a consensus for it's continued witch hunt. The email issue is a political side show. There is no "E-mail Committee" YET.
August 2013
By Fred Burton
...But Libya was a target-rich environment (click here) for American political, economic, and military interests, and the United States was determined to retain its diplomatic and intelligence presence in the country—including an embassy in Tripoli and a mission in Benghazi, which was a linchpin of American concerns and opportunities in the summer of the Arab Spring. Tunisia had been swept by revolution, and so had Egypt. “The United States was typically optimistic in its hope for Libya,” an insider with boots on the ground commented, smiling. “The hope was that all would work out even though the reality of an Islamic force in the strong revolutionary winds hinted otherwise.”...
