Email Shows State Department Rejecting Request of Security Team at US Embassy in Libya

[dipsydoodle]

Source: ABC News

ABC News has obtained an internal State Department email from May 3, 2012, indicating that the State Department denied a request from the security team at the Embassy of Libya to retain a DC-3 airplane in the country to better conduct their duties.

Copied on the email was U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in a terrorist attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012, along with three other Americans. That attack has prompted questions about whether the diplomatic personnel in that country were provided with adequate security support.

No one has yet to argue that the DC-3 would have definitively made a difference for the four Americans killed that night. The security team in question, after all, left Libya in August.

But the question – both for the State Department, which is conducting an internal investigation, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding hearings next week – is whether officials in Washington, D.C., specifically at the State Department, were as aware as they should have been about the deteriorating security situation in Libya, and whether officials were doing everything they could to protect Americans in that country.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/email-shows-state-department-rejecting-request-of-security-team-at-us-embassy-in-libya/

[dkf]

1. The waiver is more of a problem it seems to me.

By Suzanne Kelly, Elise Labott, and Mike Mount

The U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, was operating under a lower security standard than a typical consulate when it was attacked this month, according to State Department officials.

The mission was a rented villa and considered a temporary facility by the agency, which allowed a waiver that permitted fewer guards and security measures than a standard embassy or consulate, according to the officials.

There was talk about constructing a permanent facility, which would require a building that met U.S. security and legal standards, the officials said.

Allowing a waiver would have been a decision made with input from Washington, Libyan officials and the ambassador, according to diplomatic security experts.

“Someone made the decision that the mission in Benghazi was so critical that they waived the standard security requirements, which presents unique challenges to the diplomatic security service as you can imagine,” said Fred Burton, vice president for Intelligence at STRATFOR, an intelligence analysis group.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/24/u-s-post-in-benghazi-had-less-than-standard-security-before-attack/

[The Magistrate]

2. What Were They Going To Do With The Antique, Sir?

Those things are vintage, and when flyable, worth a mint.

[groundloop]

7. Vintage, yes. Worth a mint, no.

There are still many DC-3's in service all over the world carrying freight and passengers. There's even a company in Wisconsin installing turbo-prop engines on them.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. They flew one in for an air show a few years ago.

I saw it coming in. It was amazing--it looked almost stationary in the sky, compared to the speed of more modern aircraft.

[TheMadMonk]

13. I got to watch the Gypsymoth parade in Australia.

Hundreds of them flew by, almost right overhead for hour after hour.

[TheMadMonk]

12. Why, because they are extremely servicable with an absolute...

...minimum of support equipment and specialist knowledge. Any halfway decent rev head can become a DC-3 mechanic over a weekend.

The Goony Bird is also the absolute epitome of reliability and punishability.

And as noted below, battered old workhorses, held together with duct tape and baling twine are actually cheap as chips, particularly in that part of the world.

What might be worth a pretty penny is a DC-3 in good or better physical condition.

[secondwind]

3. Didn't the State Dept. request more funding and was turned down by the Baggers?

[progressivebydesign]

4. how would an airplane have changed anything? Sad that the MSM didn't do this post 9/11

when Bush cooked everything up to attack Iraq.

[USMCMustang]

5. A DC-3?

Imagine the maintenance requirements. Why not something newer?

[TheMadMonk]

14. Because of the maintenance requirements.

The essential toolbox for a DC-3 is less than what the average rev head would have on the garage wall.

The fabrication and machining facilities needed for more complex matters are a very basic welding shop with a lathe. Some sort of mill is useful but not strictly necessary.

If the shit ever does hit the fan, the Goony Bird will be the last big plane flying, decades after anything remotely comparable left the ground.

[librechik]

6. seems like poor judgement to send the security team home in August.

Libya couldn't possibly be a stable environment less than 6 months after Khadafy. Have no idea how the DC3 would have helped anything. A last minute escape path? Holy Moly why not a jet pack?

[arewenotdemo]

8. I wonder if Stevens ever met with his killers.

As the American representative to the Transitional National Council in Benghazi during the revolution he may well have made their acquaintance.

[triplepoint]

9. How Does a DC-3 Defend the Embassy Against Automatic Weapons, RPGs, and Mortars?

Maybe the plane could have evacuated our embassy personnel before they were killed. That's a hypothetical "maybe."

Looks very much like the culmination of a pattern (if there is such a thing):

Officials believe that quick response may have been possible because there are active terrorist cells in Benghazi that have carried out five attacks since April—three against diplomatic targets, including the U.S. Consulate. One higher-profile assault in June targeted the convoy carrying the British ambassador to Libya and used sophisticated techniques that suggested it was well-planned.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444517304577653680320732176.html

[kelliekat44]

11. What exactly does prevent suicide bombers and attacks by hand held weapons?

Certainly not DC-3, nukes, or even drones. We must come to realize that no amount of sophisticated weapons can stop anyone hell bent of killing themselves for their own beliefs.

[TheMadMonk]

15. As you say, evacuation may have been possible.

Or it may well have (and likely) made no difference under the circumstances of the attack that happened.

Whether or not they were able to make it to the plane in time, is irrelevant if the option to decamp by plane is unavailable.

[sad sally]

16. Dad of US bodyguard 'blown up twice' in Benghazi says State Department should admit mistakes

By NBC News staff and Reuters

The father of an American bodyguard injured in the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Libyan city of Benghazi said Wednesday the State Department should own up to what he said were its mistakes and release more information about what occurred.

David Ubben, a 31-year-old State Department employee, suffered broken bones and other injuries in the Sept. 11 attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

As David Ubben recuperates at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, his father, Rex Ubben, said he did not blame the State Department or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for his son's injuries.

But he added, "I do find it troubling that they have not owned up to their shortcomings; in government, in the military, and in business, if something goes wrong, you admit it, correct it, and move on."

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/04/14215003-dad-of-us-bodyguard-blown-up-twice-in-benghazi-says-state-department-should-admit-mistakes?lite