| Submit your comments on this article | ||
| Africa North | ||
| Congress to probe security flaws for Libya diplomats | ||
| 2012-10-07 | ||
| WASHINGTON - Congressional investigators have issued a subpoena to a former top security official at the US mission in Libya. The official is Lt. Col. Andy Wood, a Utah National Guard Army Green Beret who headed up a Special Forces "Site Security Team" in Libya. Lt. Col. Andy Wood led a 16-member Special Forces site security team responsible for protecting U.S. personnel in Libya. The subpoena compels Lt. Col. Wood to appear at a House Oversight Committee hearing next week that will examine security decisions leading up to the Sept. 11 Muslim extremist terror assault on the U.S. compound at Benghazi. U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his colleagues were killed in the attack. Lt. Col. Wood has told congressional investigators that his 16-member team and a six-member State Department elite force called a Mobile Security Deployment team left Libya in August, just one month before the Benghazi assault. Wood says that's despite the fact that US officials in Libya wanted security increased, not decreased. Wood says he met daily with Stevens and that security was a constant challenge. There were 13 threats or attacks on western diplomats and officials in Libya in the six months leading up to the September 11 attack. A senior State Department official told CBS News that half of the 13 incidents before September 11 were fairly minor or routine in nature, and that the Benghazi attack was so lethal and overwhelming, that a diplomatic post would not be able to repel it.
"We tried to illustrate...to show them how dangerous and how volatile and just unpredictable that whole environment was over there. So to decrease security in the face of that really is... it's just unbelievable," Wood said. The State Department official says there was a "constant conversation" between security details in Libya and officials in Washington D.C. Sources critical of what they view as a security drawdown say three Mobile Security Deployment teams left Libya between February and August in addition to the 16-member Site Security Team on loan from the military. That's 34 highly-trained security personnel moved out over a six month period. One State Department source told CBS News the security teams weren't "pulled," that their mission was simply over.
| ||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 I recommend a Roswell Probe(tm). |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-10-07 16:54 |
| #3 An obviously frustrated six-member State Department elite force called a Mobile Security Deployment team State Department "elite"...??? Things have surey changed in the last few years. Whatever is being reported, I cannot believe the late Ambassador does not share some responsibility for his demise, and the demise of the others. Again, unless things have change dramatically, the Chief of Mission (COM) has a great deal of authority over who comes and goes and what security measures are in place in the host country. The last chapter on this one should be quite interesting. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-10-07 11:33 |
| #2 State made the decision? Is there room for Hillary under the bus? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-10-07 11:09 |
| #1 Putting themselves in jail are they? |
| Posted by: Angiting Snore1647 2012-10-07 09:08 |