Author Topic: US Comes Clean About Two Navy Seals Killed in Benghazi Attack  (Read 1898 times)

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famousdayandyear

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US Comes Clean About Two Navy Seals Killed in Benghazi Attack
« on: September 20, 2012, 12:34:25 am »
U.S. officials clarify administration description of two heroes in Libya attack

The two former Navy SEALs killed in last week's attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were not part of Ambassador Chris Stevens' official security detail but took up arms in an effort to protect the facility when it was overrun by insurgents, U.S. officials tell the Washington Guardian.

The two former SEALS,  Tyrone Woods, 41, and Glen Doherty, 42, were not employed by the State Department diplomatic security office and instead were what is known as personal service contractors who had other duties related to security, the officials said.

They stepped into action, however, when Stevens became separated from the small security detail normally assigned to protect him when he traveled from the more fortified embassy in Tripoli to Benghazi, the officials said.

The two ex-Seals and others engaged in a lengthy firefight with the extremists who attacked the compound, a fight that stretched from the inner area of the consulate to an outside annex and a nearby safe house -- a location that the insurgents appeared to know about, the officials said.

The officials provided the information to the Washington Guardian, saying they feared the Obama administration’s scant description of the episode left a misimpression that the two ex-Navy SEALs might have been responsible for the ambassador’s personal safety or become separated from him.

“Woods and Doherty weren’t part of the detail, nor were they personally responsible for the ambassador’s security, but they stepped into the breach when the attacks occurred and their actions saved others lives -- and they shouldn’t be lumped in with the security detail,” one senior official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the State Department.

The administration has not fully described the two former Navy SEALs' activities, characterizing  their work only vaguely  as being security related. “Our embassies could not carry on our critical work around the world without the service and sacrifice of brave people like Tyrone and Glen," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the attacks.

As recently as Sunday, UN Ambassador Susan Rice gave a similar description. “Two of the four Americans who were killed were there providing security. That was their function. And indeed, there were many other colleagues who were doing the same with them,” Rice told ABC's This Week program.

In fact, officials said, the two men were personal service contractors whose official function was described as "embassy security," but whose work did not involve personal protection of the ambassador or perimeter security of the compound.

Many U.S. agencies in foreign hotspots like Benghazi rely on and even share contract workers with special skills like those of retired Navy SEALs for security, reconnaissance and threat assessments.

Unlike full embassies like the one in Tripoli, consulates like Benghazi usually don’t have a contingent of Marines to provide security and some private contractors help fulfill some of those responsibilities.

Those briefed on the latest intelligence say investigators are trying to determine when and why Stevens’ official State Department security team got separated from the ambassador when the attacks occurred the evening of Sept. 11.

The separation of the team from the ambassador remains one of the more serious matters under review, the officials said.

In addition, while the administration has downplayed any link to al-Qaida, there is evidence some of  the attackers were affiliated with another group that sympathizes with al-Qaida and has grown more influential in Libya and other parts of north Africa.

State Department officials did not respond to emails or phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.

The current evidence leads U.S. intelligence to believe that a band of Islamist extremists with some ties to the north African affiliate of al-Qaida had accumulated a stash of weapons and extra human muscle, performed some reconnaissance to identify possible U.S. targets, and may have even infiltrated the Libyan security forces that help protect the consulate in hopes of eventually conducting a terrorist operation somewhere in Benghazi.

However, U.S. intelligence does not believe -- at present -- that the attackers specifically targeted Stevens, official said. Instead, they think the attackers sprang into action when, seeing crowds forming outside the consulate on Sept. 11, they perceived an opportunity to carry out a terrorist attack, officials said.

“Yes, they were killed in a terrorist attack on our embassy,” Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday. “The best information we have now, the facts that we have now, indicates an opportunistic attack on our embassy.”

U.S. intelligence believes part of their motivation for launching the attack was a tape from al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri that surfaced the night of Sept. 10 imploring Libyans to attack Americans in retribution for the U.S. drone strike that killed Libyan-born al-Qaida leader Abu Yahya al-Libi in June.

The Washington Guardian reported on Friday that U.S. intelligence had intercepted and translated Zawahiri’s message imploring Libyans to attack U.S. officials the night before the consulate attack and were still analyzing its significance when the ambassador was killed. No significant changes to security countermeasures at the diplomatic mission were taken until after the compound was overrun.

http://www.washingtonguardian.com/print/revising-libya-story

Offline DCPatriot

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Re: US Comes Clean About Two Navy Seals Killed in Benghazi Attack
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2012, 12:44:53 am »
The contracting company that serves as agents for these "former Seals" is merely trying to make it clear that it wasn't the quality of their men that got the Ambassador killed.

Susan Rice is a proven liar.  As is that smug SOB press secretary at the White House.
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Offline NavyCanDo

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Re: US Comes Clean About Two Navy Seals Killed in Benghazi Attack
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2012, 06:51:17 pm »
Beck may be correct, in his assumption that they were CIA

And that their presence their had something to do with the arms supplied by Obama to the Arab Spring (the terrorist).


Too many dots to connect for me, I'll leave it up to Beck and his chalk board. But he could be on to something.
A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it. :Jonathan Cahn

famousdayandyear

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Re: US Comes Clean About Two Navy Seals Killed in Benghazi Attack
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2012, 09:42:38 pm »
This posting of mine also must state the article's use of the term "former" SEALs is not accurate. This may seem like a technicality to some, but it is not to the SEAL community.  SEALS no longer serving as such are "retired SEALs".  In other words, a SEAL is ALWAYS a SEAL.  That is their credo, and I am at fault in not addressing this sooner.