Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa—a declaration of war- against the United States in 1998. Al-Qaeda continues to carry out his mission as Islamists gain a foothold in every country that has a significant Muslim population--to destabilize the region and attack Western interests. The Islamists that attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 were well armed—the attack well planned and executed by Ansar al-Sharia militias. For the Obama Administration to say it was a spontaneous demonstration against an Islamic video is a “Pinnochio moment”.
The White House and State Department have repeated that mantra so many times that they believe it.. I hope the initiators of the lie can sleep at night, since the families of the four Americans who were killed by the jihadists are still suffering. The political goals, that surround this falsehood, seem to bring together aspiring individuals whose moral integrity is trumped by their personal ambitions to advance their careers. State Department spokesperson Victory Nuland has been rewarded with an ambassadorship to Norway. Susan Rice the UN Ambassador, set to become the next Secretary of State except for the national outcry—but instead received a consulation prize--National Security Adviser. The list goes on of the loyal guard protecting President Obama at risk of losing a second term 2012. It was a “Hail Mary” moment, and it worked. A year and a half later the Administration continues to perpetuate the “mantra” that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has ended with the demise of Osama bib Laden.
So I am not surprised at the politicized remarks by the State Department and our U.S. ambassador to the UN, that the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 were a spontaneous act. The video Innocence of Muslims may have been a contributing factor in the demonstrations in Egypt, but the attacks in Benghazi were their hatred for the United States. In the attacks we lost Ambassador Chris Stevens, and three other embassy officials.
As the attacks unfolded in Benghazi, I was returning from the Mintao Refugee Camp in Burkina Faso, where I met with several Tuareg and Arab elders displaced from northern Mali. Thousands of this desert society were escaped from the region overrun by National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine, a rebel Islamist movement. Nascent Tuareg rebels had been pushed aside. Both had become affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) from Algeria, Movement for Oneness in Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), and members of Boko Haram from Nigeria, and al-Shabaab from Somalia. These Islamist extremists are embedded across the vast Sahel, and into North Africa. Afghan and Pakistani jihadists had infiltrated Mali, and helped in training Islamist recruits, the latest sign that the region was slipping into terrorist stronghold.
After the Arab Spring uprising, the U.S.-NATO incursion into Libya, several rebel militia groups affiliated with al-Qaeda were supported with arms by our Arab allies in the region.The strongest militia group to emerge was Ansar al-Sharia and the Libyan Islamic Front. Other Islamists from the Sahel region including Mali, were interwoven in these rag-tag militias.
Mali, a fledgling democracy, was destabilized after the downfall of Muammar Gadhafi. Enlisted Tuareg fighters returning home brought with them large caches of arms which fell into the hands of the radical Islamists. Similar weapons fell into the hands of al-Qaeda linked rebel militias in eastern Libya, headquartered in Benghazi, involved in numerous attacks on diplomats, NGO’s, and the U.S. Consulate earlier in 2012.
We should have learned a lesson from all the Islamist terrorist attacks going back the 1983, when there were thirty-six suicide attacks against Americans inside Lebanon, including the Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing sixty-three people. That October truck bombs struck two buildings housing American and French troops, killing 300 soldiers. The Islamic Jihad was responsible for that attack bombing, with others following by a Shi’ite Islamic group with ties to Iran.
In Africa terrorists undertook numerous attacks against Western interests in 1980 in Nairobi, Kenya. Terrorist cells spread throughout the Horn of Africa and East Africa with attacks on U.S. military troops in Mogadishu, Somalia in October 1993, and the bombing U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; the bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in Yemen in October 2000; bombing the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya in November 2002. After the U.S. embassy bombings journalist Charles Cobb Jr., wrote, “The large number of Africans reflects the continent’s fertility as a recruiting ground for the radical Islamist movements that, some believe, have emerged due to the failures of post-colonial African governments to provide adequate education systems and healthy economies.” In the disastrous attacks on September 11, 2001 against the United States, twelve of the twenty-two terrorists came from African countries. On October 10, 2001 allAfrica.com reported that seven of the terrorists came from Egypt, two from Kenya; one each from Libya, Zanzibar, and Comoros.
In May 2003, while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Mauritius, I received a report that three Western residential complexes in eastern Riyadh, Saudi Arabia had been attacked by al-Qaeda terrorists. According to diplomatic security sources, there had been many warnings of this attack, and a nearby “safe house” filled with munitions was uncovered in a raid. Even after that, no additional precautions reportedly were taken. As a result thirty-six people, including ten Americans were killed in the attack.
There were many signs of al-Qaeda’s presence in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, while Osama bin Laden was in Sudan from 1991 to 1996. The State Department could have readily made embassy assessments to determine that they were adequately protected, had appropriate setbacks, and perimeter separation; able to withstand the shock of a high-level earthquake. We had enough warning and knowledge from the prior embassy bombings to upgrade and protect, or replace every embassy in Africa and elsewhere. Also no embassy should have been located in a multi-tenant building, as we were on the fourth floor, adjacent to a busy street. Some of our embassies were in strategic locations, while others were in more dangerous conflicted areas. All embassies needed to operate in a secure environment, with American trained personnel protecting our diplomats at the embassy, at home, and while carrying out bilateral relations in the host country. This should have been part of a master plan once expansion began around the world after World War II.
At the end of the Cold War in the 1980s, the U.S. focused more of its attention on the Eastern Bloc countries, and very rapidly built over a dozen new embassies there, although the real threat to U.S. security was in Africa. The increased presence of al-Qaeda and radical Islamists in Africa since the early 1990s was alarming. Radical Islamists were gaining support in the populous, poverty-stricken Muslim countries. The U.S. embassy closures in Africa in the 1990s increased our exposure to global terrorism, with al-Qaeda recruiting and training in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, and spreading to other parts of the continent.
In 1996 U.S. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell had sent cables to the State Department regarding the lack of security at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. An official felt the ambassador was overreacting. A security team was sent to inspect the embassy and reported that it met their standards for a medium-threat facility. General Anthony Zinni visited the embassy in early 1998 and reported there were significant risks, and that the embassy would be an easy target for terrorists. The State Department felt no security upgrades were necessary. The U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam was no better protected from potential attacks. The world knows what happened on August 7, 1998, with the terrorist bombings of both embassies, in which 224 people died. Why didn’t the State Department take these warnings more seriously? Why was Congress so shortsighted that it did not protect our overseas operations by providing adequate funding? Why were U.S. intelligence sources so naive in their belief that sub-Saharan Africa did not have a well-organized al-Qaeda network? These attacks were planned while Osama bin Laden was next door in Sudan. The attacks could have been avoided with a more consistent engagement of the countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa as far back as the early 1990s.
We are living in the most crucial time in modern history since the Cold War. At least then we could see our enemy, which is no longer the case. Today’s enemy has no name, no face, no uniform, and not even a standing army. Their mission is to control the world under Sharia, the brutal Islamic law; take the world back to the time in the twelfth century when Islam controlled vast regions of North Africa and the Middle East. Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups are bent on destroying Western culture-- particularly the United States. They will attack U.S. interests at every juncture possible. In the recent attacks in Benghazi there were signs reading, “America has long been an enemy to Islam”, and “Death to America”, which tell a chilling story.
The State Department, reportedly, did not provide adequate cover for Ambassador Chris Stevens and the other three embassy officials who were killed. The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi did not meet minimum security standards for such a facility in a conflicted area. Our intelligence leading up to the unrest that was unfolding was faulty. In addition had there been adequate U.S. security protection after the initial attack, instead of depending on local contract officers, the diplomats could have been saved. The U.S embassy also has a full time regional security officer (RSO), who oversees surveillance detection units, the “eyes and ears” around our missions. The RSO’s role is to make sure there is adequate security at the embassy, consulates, and residences; undertake counter-surveillance measures. Based on reports, we depended too much on the host country government security forces and private security contractors for protection. The disastrous results could have been prevented, had we followed established diplomatic security standards. Instead history has repeated itself —we did not protect our diplomats operating in harm’s way.