Benghazi Might Have Been Different If Security Personnel Were Not Held Back! Why Was CIA Giving The Orders?

'13 Hours' Author: CIA Held Commando Team Back in Benghazi

Tuesday, 09 Sep 2014 06:55 PM

By Sean Piccoli

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A former commando hired by the CIA to defend a U.S. embassy post in Libya toldNewsmax TV on Tuesday that he and his team lost critical and potentially life-saving minutes by being ordered to sit idle while the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi was under attack.

Mark Geist, one of five security contractors who co-wrote the new book "13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi" told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner that his team's account of what happened that night in 2012 should be judged by the fact that it comes from eyewitnesses.



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"We were there," Geist said of the sequence of events that ended with four Americans killed, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens.

Geist was responding to a Democratic congressman who said no evidence exists to support the authors' claim of a stand-down order. According to "13 Hours," the diplomatic annex security team was armed and ready to go less than a mile from where militants were overrunning the post.

"I can't speak for what Washington's doing," said Geist. "Call it a stand-down, call it a wait — the truth of the matter is that there was 20-25 minutes where we were not allowed to go, and had we gone we would've been able to utilize a resource.

"You got six operators that have probably close to 100 years of experience combined in counter-insurgency operations. You have that asset at your availability: Are you going to use it or are you going to hold it back?"

Geist recalled the night of the attack, which is the subject of a special congressional investigation, as "very tense."

"You have Americans on the radio calling for help . . . You can hear the panic in their voice, and our job is to go help fellow Americans — it's ingrained in us," he said.

Two of the dead were from Geist's team, once the ex-commandos finally overrode their sit-tight order from a CIA station chief — identified in the book only as "Bob."

Bob was reportedly trying to round up a homegrown Libyan militia to repel the attackers so he wouldn't risk blowing the agency's local cover.

Geist said the resulting delay was a case of two sets of people with different priorities.

"It wasn't necessarily that we didn't trust him," Geist said of Bob, "because he did his job very well and we do our job very well. We just have two different jobs."

Asked how certain he was that going in earlier would have made a difference, Geist said, "Getting into the 'if' this or 'if' that, there's a number of things that could've happened."

"I do believe — and I know my fellow operators believe — that a better outcome or a more positive outcome probably would have come about, had we been able to get over there sooner," he said.

"Because then you would've had Americans giving back intel of what's actually happening, and not depending on some local [Libyan] national over the telephone for your information."

Another commando and co-author of the book, Kris "Tanto" Paronto, said in a separate interview on Newsmax's "The Steve Malzberg Show" that he was comfortable with the decision to disobey orders.

"I can sleep with that at night. I can't tell you why things were done on higher, I don't know. I really have no idea why a stand on order came from or where it came from besides my local chain of command. Other than that, we did what we had to do tonight," he said.

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"It's hard to just sit there, it's hard to just sit there, but you don't start arguing and yelling especially with your chain of command because all that's going to do is hurt in the long run eventually.

"Finally when it came to the last straw, you just make the decision and you go. Whether consequences be damned, you got to save Americans and you got save our friends."

Geist told Malzberg:

"Imagine hearing the desperation of a close friend of a family member over the radio calling for you to come help and you're not able to go out there and you know you have the skill set to come over and help them, to do something, to make a difference.

"That's what we do. I mean that's what we're trained to do, that's everything about us. It's to go help others and save lives if we can."



Related Stories: 

• Islamist Militia Now Guards US Embassy in Libya
• Tripoli Under Militia Control as Libya Chaos Deepens

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2007 Gitmo Graduate Paid Us Back By Setting Up The Attack At Benghazi. Guess We Blew That One!

Former Guantanamo Detainee May Have Organized Benghazi Attack

Abu Sufyan bin Qumu, a leading Libyan terrorist, named as possible key organizer of 2012 Benghazi attack.

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By Elad Benari

First Publish: 1/9/2014, 3:13 AM

Fire near U.S. consulate in Benghazi

AFP/File

American officials have identifieda former inmate of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a possible key organizer of the Benghazi attack which killed the ambassador to Libya 16 months ago, the BritishGuardian reported on Wednesday.

Abu Sufyan bin Qumu, a leading Libyan terrorist, was named at the time as a possible suspect in the September 11, 2012 attack on the consulate in Benghazi in which the ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed.

He went to ground shortly afterwards and no evidence was ever forthcoming. However, the Washington Post reports that he and two other men will soon be added to the U.S. list of "specially designated" international terrorists, partly because of their alleged involvement in the attacks.

The disclosure is doubly important, firstly because it charges a known Al-Qaeda associate in Benghazi with partial responsibility for the attack and secondly because the analysis provided by U.S. intelligence claims his men drove to Benghazi from the city of Derna, where he is based, on the day of the attack, suggesting some element of planning.

A bitter political row has ensued ever since the attack, with Republicans claiming that the Obama administration deliberately tried to mislead the public into thinking the attack was a spontaneous protest that got out of control rather than a terrorist assault, perhaps inspired by Al-Qaeda.

U.S. military leaders have defended their response to the 2012 assault on the consulate in Benghazi. The House Intelligence Committee has accused the White House of withholding support for an FBI investigation into the attack.

No clear evidence has emerged to tie any Al-Qaeda group directly to the attack, noted the Guardian. The man most often accused of orchestrating it is Ahmed Abu Khattala, founder of Libya's Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia.

Abu Khattalah was seen at the compound when it was overrun but, while he has admitted being at the scene he has denied involvement in the attack. He was named in sealed criminal charges filed by the U.S. Justice Department against several suspects in the Benghazi attack.

The Guardian noted that Bin Qumu leads a group of the same name, Ansar al-Sharia, in Derna, and it remains a subject of dispute whether the two are related. The name means simply "Supporters of Sharia".

However, it is several hours' drive from Derna to Benghazi, too far for Bin Qumu's men to have arrived only in response to a protest that had already started, suggesting they at least knew about the planned attack unless their presence was merely coincidental.

There is no comment on whether Bin Qumu was personally present, noted the report.

Bin Qumu is believed to have trained with Osama bin Laden in 1993, and then worked for him as a driver when Al-Qaeda was based in Sudan. He fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, fled the NATO invasion in 2001 and was later arrested in Pakistan and flown to Guantanamo Bay.

He was transferred to Libyan custody in 2007 and released a year later.