Did the US actually have a consulate in Benghazi? Or was it only a CIA post?

[mainer]

According to this commenter, we had no official consulate. Therefore the State Department had no responsibility for its protection. Anyone have any information to contradict this? It does change the whole picture, doesn't it?

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/19/issa_s_benghazi_document_dump_exposes_several_libyans_working_with_the_us

Don Bacon
"attacking the U.S. consulate"

There is no US consulate in Benghazi, which is why State didn't care about security and why State tried to avoid responsibility. It was a CIA operation with a dozen agents. (Ineffective, of course.) Why should State provide security for CIA? Besides, the Agency likes to keep a low profile.

The US does not have an embassy, a consulate or a diplomatic mission in Benghazi. There are none listed on this State Department list of all the US embassies and consulates in the world.
http://www.usembassy.gov/

On September 12, 2012, SecState Clinton made two statements. She never used the word “consulate.”To describe the place that was attacked in Benghazi she used instead the words ‘U.S. diplomatic post, compound, our buildings and our office.’
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/09/197654.htm
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/09/197630.htm

There is (and was) no US consulate in Benghazi. No consul. No consular officials. No commercial officers. No diplomats of any kind. No consulate. It was CIA.

Why was Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi? President Obama said Stevens was in volatile eastern Libya "to establish a new cultural center and modernize a hospital." Sure.

Actually Stevens was playing CIA agent in Benghazi, just like he did a year ago when he organized militants to bring Gaddafi down. Their relationship was different this time. Stevens was in Benghazi arranging for an arms shipment to Turkey. While Stevens was in Benghazi the ship Intisaar´(victory), with 400 tons of cargo which included ´SAM-7 surface-to air anti aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG`s), sailed from Benghazi to Iskenderun, Hatay province, Turkey, a stone’s throw from Syria.

I checked his link, and it's true. No US consulate is listed for Benghazi.

Thank you, GOP, for telling the whole world about our CIA operation there!

(edited to add link to the website where the comment appears)

[cali]

1. something about this

doesn't pass the smell test- specifically the claim that a U.S. Ambassador was the one arranging an arms deal.

[Angry Dragon]

2. Issa outed the CIA -- that would make him a terrorist

or did he just commit treason??

[TheDebbieDee]

35. Yeah, I read the headline of a Washington Post article that was

alleging the same thing. In the repukes zeal to undermine President O by holding hearings on the Benghazi incident, the repukes inadvertantly unveiled a CIA operation.....

Trying to score points with the American people and telling the world where our spies work, those assholes!

[grasswire]

3. who is Don Bacon?

Did he say how he knows about this stuff?

[mainer]

4. I don't know who he is .. but it's true there's no Benghazi consulate listed

on the US list of consulates

http://www.usembassy.gov/

His post made me stop and go hmmmm. The bit about Stevens doing CIA business seemed a bit farfetched to me too, but I do find it interesting that there's no official State Department outpost there.

Which does call into question why the State Department should be protecting a CIA outpost.

We DO know there was a CIA facility there.

[pinboy3niner]

25. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi was re-opened in late August

Consular Section will Reopen on Monday, August 27, 2012
http://libya.usembassy.gov/en-081612.html


Remarks by Ambassador Chris Stevens at the Reopening of the Consular Section
http://libya.usembassy.gov/en_082612.html

The second link identifies Jenny Cordell as the U.S. Consul there.

[mainer]

26. This announcement is for the Consular section in Tripoli, not Benghazi.

As far as I can tell, the consular section mentioned above is on Airport Road in Tripoli.

And Jenny Cordell works in Tripoli.

[mainer]

30. WRONG. It's in Tripoli. Here's the announcement

US Embassy Officially Opens Consular Section in Tripoli
28/08/2012 13:18:00
At a reception on Sunday hosted by the US Embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, marking the reopening of the embassy’s consular section, US Ambassador Christopher Stevens announced that the office was to resume full services on August 27, offering a full range of consular services regarding issuing of US visas and assistance to Americans living in or visiting Libya.

At a reception on Sunday hosted by the US Embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, marking the reopening of the embassy’s consular section, US Ambassador Christopher Stevens announced
that the office was to resume full services on Monday (August 27), offering a full range of consular services regarding issuing of US visas and assistance to Americans living in or visiting Libya.

http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=1&i=9095

[mainer]

31. Who are you and why are you posting disinformation?

This is a clearly false statement.

[glacierbay]

33. Quit being so confrontational

He clearly made a mistake, I doubt it was intentional. I looked at it and also thought that it meant that it pertained to Benghazi, when you pointed out the mistake, I deleted my post.

[mainer]

36. I thought it was intentional because it was obvious to me it was Tripoli.

Yet it was posted as "proof" there was a consulate in Benghazi. When you go searching for "proof" of a Benghazi consulate, wouldn't you look for the word "Benghazi"?

[CentralMass]

44. Brother of Macon D. Bacon ?

[formercia]

5. Issa does whatever is politically expedient

He should at least have his Security Clearance revoked.

[Enrique]

6. interesting

the line is pretty blurred between the State Dept. and CIA, especially in certain regions. Remember that guy Davis that killed a couple of people in Pakistan, they were initially calling him, laughably, a "diplomat".

[pinto]

7. For clarity, please cite the Don Bacon quote source.

fwiw, I think Sec. Clinton's "U.S. diplomatic post" would imply a consulate. And I'll take the role of the diplomat - Ambassador Stevens was a diplomat - on face value 'till I hear some cited sources.

I realize the CIA likely operates in tandem with embassies around the world. Often independently. Yet portraying Stevens as a CIA "agent" is a stretch, imo. Conspiracy theories thrive on vague sources and tenuous implications.

Thanks.

[mainer]

11. Here's the link

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/19/issa_s_benghazi_document_dump_exposes_several_libyans_working_with_the_us

[pinto]

16. Thanks. I see nothing to imply a CIA conspiracy in play here -

from the cited article:

One of the cables released by Issa names a woman human rights activist who was leading a campaign against violence and was detained in Benghazi. She expressed fear for her safety to U.S. officials and criticized the Libyan government.

"This woman is trying to raise an anti-violence campaign on her own and came to the United States for help. She isn't publicly associated with the U.S. in any other way but she's now named in this cable. It's a danger to her life," the administration official said.

Another cable names a Benghazi port manager who is working with the United States on an infrastructure project.

"When you're in a situation where Ansar al-Sharia is a risk to Americans, an individual like this guy, who is an innocent civilian who's trying to reopen the port and is doing so in conjunction with Americans, could be at risk now because he's publicly affiliated with America," the official said, referring to the group thought to have led the Benghazi attack.

One cable names a local militia commander dishing dirt on the inner workings of the Libyan Interior Ministry. Another cable names a militia commander who claims to control a senior official of the Libyan armed forces. Other cables contain details of conversations between third-party governments, such as the British and the Danes, and their private interactions with the U.S., the U.N., and the Libyan governments over security issues.

[mainer]

19. No, CIA just got caught in the conflict. Why does Clinton/State Dept get blamed for this?

If it's a CIA station, shouldn't the CIA be in charge of providing security? Why is Hillary Clinton and the State Department getting blamed for not protecting it?

I'm not saying there's any CIA plot here. I'm just saying that the Administration may have been trying to preserve security by being circumspect in their statements. It wasn't about politics; it was about not revealing our operations to the world.

But thanks to Romney and the GOP, it's now spilling out across the front pages.

[glacierbay]

21. You can't blame just Rmoney and the R's

this whole thing is a clusterfuck from the beginning, there's plenty of blame to go around here and I said so from the very beginning that this could very well cause problems for the Admin.

[pinto]

23. My take -

Exterior security is the role of the host government. Legally a nation's authority doesn't extend beyond the embassy/consulate property.

Internal security, as far as I know, is a State Department function. Hence the tag on Sec. Clinton.

The Republicans made deep cuts in funding State Department security functions. The Department can only function with the funds allocated by the Congress.

Admin statements (via Sec. Rice) were real time, initial reports from current CIA cables on the situation.

Nobody was trying to hide anything from what I can see.

And, yeah, some circumspection is appropriate in an on-going foreign affairs situation.

Romney, et al, are playing this incident for purely political purposes. There's no foreign policy there. imho, it's the antithesis of foreign policy.

[Vattel]

8. Hmmmmm.

Last edited Sat Oct 20, 2012, 02:53 PM - Edit history (1)

Seems that some of this is true. On the official State dept. list of websites for embassies and consulates, nothing is listed for Benghazi. Secretary of State Clinton did call it a "diplomatic post." Stevens had origianlly been sent to Libya as a representative to the revolutionaires before Ghadaffi was removed from power.

On the other hand, he was our Ambassador to Libya. And no evidence is offered that he was CIA.

[mainer]

13. Tripoli is listed in the State Department list

It's under the category "Middle East and North Africa"

[Vattel]

24. Sorry, I should have said Benghazi. It is corrected on edit.

[OldDem2012]

18. Stephens could very easily have worn two hats in Libya...

....happens all the time.

And no, we'll probably never know if Stephens was a CIA operative.

The GOP attack on this issue is rapidly falling apart.

[glacierbay]

9. Yes it was a US consulate

The building was rented from a Libyan citizen for use as a consulate from what I understand.
Even if it was a CIA post, you really think that the terrorists cared? They attacked and killed 4 US citizens, one of them being the US Ambassador to Libya.

Don Bacon [send him mail] is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, "war is a racket."

[mainer]

10. But apparently not on the Department of State list

We're not talking about what the terrorists thought. We're talking about whether the State Department had a responsibility to protect a CIA nest, and whether Hillary Clinton should get the blame for this.

[glacierbay]

12. Where's the proof that it was a CIA post?

I haven't seen any so far. And most CIA posts are at either US Embassies or at Consulates.

[mainer]

15. It was revealed in the New York Times

I think about a dozen CIA operatives were said to be in the nearby building that was attacked in Benghazi.

Found the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/world/africa/attack-in-libya-was-major-blow-to-cia-efforts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

"Among the more than two dozen American personnel evacuated from the city after the assault on the American mission and a nearby annex were about a dozen C.I.A. operatives and contractors, who played a crucial role in conducting surveillance and collecting information on an array of armed militant groups in and around the city.

“It’s a catastrophic intelligence loss,” said one American official who has served in Libya and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the F.B.I. is still investigating the attack. “We got our eyes poked out.”"

[glacierbay]

17. SOP is that CIA station chiefs and agents

are assigned to embassies and consulates and are usually given diplomatic immunity, most other countries do this also, but the simple truth is that the building in Benghazi was a consulate and Ambassador Stevens, until I see definitive proof, was not a CIA officer and the State Dept. was responsible for the security of that post.

[mainer]

20. Wow, so the majority of people in that building were with the CIA?

Two dozen evacuated (including Stevens' escorts).

A dozen worked for the CIA.

That's a lot of CIA operatives for just a consulate.

[glacierbay]

22. That's really not a lot

when you consider that the Moscow Embassy in the former Soviet Union had hundreds of CIA agents during the cold war. The same thing with all the Warsaw Pact nations during the cold war.
The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies had thousands of KGB and GRU agents assigned to their Embassy in DC and their many consulates around the US.

[mainer]

38. Yes it WAS a lot of CIA personnel.

"– Half the US personnel evacuated out of Benghazi were CIA. While it is common knowledge that the CIA stations personnel abroad, it seems very unusual to have half a mission’s complement to be Agency. The New York Times reports that though the Agency has been cooperating with the new post-Qaddafi Libyan intelligence service, the size of the CIA’s presence in Benghazi apparently surprised some Libyan leaders. The deputy prime minister, Mustafa Abushagour, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal last week saying that he learned about some of the delicate American operations in Benghazi only after the attack on the mission, in large part because a surprisingly large number of Americans showed up at the Benghazi airport to be evacuated."

http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2012/09/26/ambassador-stevens-in-libya-just-wrong-cia-place-wrong-time/


By taking the blame for this as a State Department failure, Clinton and the Administration are covering the fact there were CIA operations going on, a revelation which would inflame the political situation in Libya. They're taking a bullet to cover for the CIA.

[glacierbay]

39. Are you kidding me

do you honestly think that people didn't know that the CIA were conducting ops in Libya?
You don't know what they were doing, nobody knows.
There is plenty of blame to go around for what happened, and I just wish that Pres. Obama would hold a press conference and lay out everything and cut Rmoney off at the pass.

[CoffeeCat]

43. and if true, then the Obama Administration will come out looking like heroes...

...and the Republicans and their rabid politicizing and INCORRECT assertions--will look like complete clowns.

The Republican conspiracy theories and endless fire breathing will be seen as rantings from people who didn't know what the hell was really happening. The Obama Administration--who did understand the background, the seriousness of the situation and the need to be careful about what they said--will look like the grown ups in the room who were being responsible and measured in the name of national security and protecting critical overseas government operations.

If all of this shakes out with that narrative--it will be devastating for Romney and for the Republican.

Can you imagine? Every single word about Benghazi and every Republican accusation about Obama "not doing his job" will be used against them.

[Politicalboi]

14. In the meantime

Bush took 444 days to start the investigation on 9/11. These assholes are so disgusting.

[Iggy]

28. Meh... Hard to Know Since The Company (CIA)

is not accountable to anyone in the government.

I don't really care about this issue-- the larger issue is four of our good people were tossed into
the meat grinder with NO freakin security to protect them.

weak, very weak.

[upi402]

29. good luck

welcome to DU

[Iggy]

32. CLUE: For Those Scrambling for Excuses

IF you don't want to be politically vulnerable during election season: Rule #1 is not to do anything really, really
ignorant.

Rule #2: Don't let the CIA change the account of what actually happened-- four or five times. that sort of bullcrap
gets the attention of the puffed-up toadies in the Senate. and then-- lamestream media jumps all over it like a cheap
suit.

[winstars]

34. But, Eddie Munster said we should have had MARINES! there. He is a complete idiot, Palin is smarter!

[mainer]

37. Links: an attack on the CIA, not on Stevens

Stevens was just in the wrong place in the wrong time.

I had postulated earlier that the attack on this "consulate" (not really a consulate) was actually targeting the CIA. It turns out that I'm not the only one who thinks so.

"The attack in Benghazi was an attack on one of the CIA’s largest operations in the region. This is clear from the fact that Steven’s death was a secondary event in the attack on the compound. They attackers were after what was in the compound, not Stevens.

This was also underlined by the fact that over half of the US personnel evacuated from Benghazi were CIA, the sheer number of them surprising even to Libyan officials and the fact that a CIA safe house was also attacked at the same time."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/benghazi-attack-on-largest-cia-regional-operation-ambassador-stevens-death-collateral/5308368

And:

"– Many wondered why the media was reporting from early on the deaths of four Americans at the Benghazi Consulate, while Clinton continuously only mentioned two (Ambassador Stevens and computer person Sean Smith). Well, that’s because she did not want to tell us that the other two who lost their lives were “former” Navy SEALS now acting as State Department “contractors.” Even when Clinton finally acknowledged the SEALS’ deaths following widespread press reports, she only mentioned that one’s role was as security for the Ambassador.

Clinton pointedly did not mention what the other SEAL was doing in Libya. That is because the other deceased man was in Libya on an intel mission. The SEAL told ABC News that he was in Libya in the field tracking down and blowing up MANPADS, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. The US saw its way to allowing those weapons to be used against Qaddafi and now wants to take them back so they are not used against us. Such ops are not State Department work and fall cleanly into CIA territory."

http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2012/09/26/ambassador-stevens-in-libya-just-wrong-cia-place-wrong-time/

[unc70]

40. Any follow up on this story?

This looks like an important story. Realize problems since while public, still classified information that can not be discussed officially.

Haven't seen anything more.

[mainer]

41. A bit more information here

Article says that there were ONLY FIVE people in the Benghazi mission compound that night. Which makes it hardly a consulate, and more of a temporary facility where State Department staff came and went. Not a place where Marines would be permanently stationed as guards for a mostly empty building.

But in the CIA annex a mile or so away, where the mortars hit, there was far more personnel.

"What was U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens doing in Benghazi on Sept. 11 in the first place? There, he proved to be a far easier target than he would have been in the embassy in Tripoli, which is more than 400 miles away from Benghazi by plane and more than 600 miles away by road?

Any such discussion must begin with the fact that Stevens’ great value as ambassador to Libya was his knowledge of the country and the personal contacts that he nurtured in his extensive travels. In an exercise in “expeditionary diplomacy,” he had slipped into Libya in a Greek cargo ship that docked in Benghazi in April 2011, at a time when the outcome of the revolution was still very much unknown, and he maintained that operating style throughout his assignment there...
(snip)

Stevens was clearly a courageous man who did not see his mission as sitting safely in the capital city meeting high-level government officials in gilded reception rooms. According to my ex-diplomat friend, Stevens would have had the authority to set his own schedule and travel plans, without Washington’s approval. His familiarity with Benghazi apparently gave him a sense of security about the situation there, even on the anniversary of Sept. 11.

That reading proved to be false — tragically false — but that’s a difficult point for the Obama administration to make without appearing to shift blame to a public servant who was clearly much admired, and who gave his life for our country."

http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/10/22/in-benghazi-stevens-fatally-misjudged-risk-reward/

[mainer]

42. Issa and the GOP are forcing the CIA into the open, and hurting our security abroad

To score points against Obama and Clinton, they are spilling secrets left and right, trying to lay the blame on the State Department. They don't give a damn about our nation's security.

The Obama Administration is forced to defend itself with its hands tied behind its back, because it has to protect the secrecy of our intelligence operations in Libya.