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Official Claims Questions on Benghazi Led to Demotion

By JEREMY W. PETERS and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 8, 2013


WASHINGTON — A State Department official on Wednesday offered the first public testimony from an American diplomat who was on the ground in Libya the night last September when the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi was attacked. And he said he was later demoted for raising questions about how the attack was handled.


The official, Gregory Hicks, described a frantic series of phone calls from the American Embassy in Tripoli, where he was stationed, to Washington and, ultimately, to J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador, who was in Benghazi. He only heard Mr. Stevens utter, “Greg, we’re under attack,” before the line went dead.

Mr. Hicks was serving at the time as the embassy’s second-ranking official, but he said that since returning to Washington he felt he had been punished for speaking out.

“I’ve been effectively demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer,” he said during a six-hour hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. Hicks described asking in vain for air support from Italy and being told that it could not make it there in time. Then, later, he pleaded for men who would never come. Fearing that armed Islamic militants might storm the embassy in Tripoli, staff members there hurriedly dismantled their sensitive communications equipment and got ready to evacuate to a more secure annex operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. One aide started smashing hard drives with an ax.

“None of us should ever experience what we went through in Tripoli and Benghazi,” Mr. Hicks said.

Mr. Hicks and two other State Department officials who were witnesses said they felt that the investigation of the episode undertaken by the department was inadequate because many people who were directly involved in the attacks — including some of them — were not interviewed.

“They stopped short of interviewing people who I personally know were involved in key decisions,” said Eric Nordstrom, an official in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

The hearing into the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi episode became a political spectacle well before the panel’s chairman, Darrell Issa of California, gaveled it to order on Wednesday morning. Republicans promised damning revelations that could ultimately undo the Obama presidency. “Every bit as damaging as Watergate,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said this week.

The Benghazi inquiries have drawn the White House into a tense standoff with Congressional Republicans, who are threatening to subpoena witnesses, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state, and Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations.

“This is a subject that has, from its beginning, been subject to attempts to politicize it by Republicans,” the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said Wednesday as the hearing was under way.

Mr. Hicks testified that his relationship with his superiors began to sour after he started asking questions about why Ms. Rice initially blamed a YouTube video, not terrorism, for the attack. “The sense I got was that I needed to stop the line of questioning,” he said.

And when Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, visited Libya to investigate further, Mr. Hicks said his bosses told him not to talk to the congressman. When he did anyway, and a State Department lawyer was excluded from one meeting because he lacked sufficient security clearance, Mr. Hicks said he received an angry phone call from Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.

This revelation made the Republicans on the committee take note. “So this goes right to the person next to Secretary of State Clinton. Is that accurate?” asked Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio. Mr. Hicks responded, “Yes, sir.”

Cluck U wrote:jellybean is born again...he is seeing the light!

Shame on those clowns trying to cover this subject up.

Obama's transparency...

Ibanez wrote:

Cluck U wrote:jellybean is born again...he is seeing the light!

Shame on those clowns trying to cover this subject up.

Obama's transparency...

I don't see how anyone can seriously deny that something is rotten with this attack.

Ibanez wrote:

Cluck U wrote:jellybean is born again...he is seeing the light!

Shame on those clowns trying to cover this subject up.

Obama's transparency...

I don't see how anyone can seriously deny that something is rotten with this attack.

LeadBolt wrote:

Ibanez wrote: I don't see how anyone can seriously deny that something is rotten with this attack.

Watch MSNBC. They have found goo gobs of people who deny something was rotten and are indoctrinating many more.

I was in college during Watergate. My room mate subscribed to the Washington Post who broke the story and pushed it. I subscribed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch where James J. Kilpatrick was the editor. you would have never known that they were reporting the same story.

I still hold that Obama is the most arrogant, lawless President since Nixon, and the founding of the Republic.

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

AZGrizFan wrote:

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

Way to toe the party line, dawg.

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

CID1990 wrote:

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

So in other words, what difference at this point does it make? Right?

Our diplomats and our military have always worked under the assumption that when you get in a tight spot, the US Government has their backs. We all know the risks, but if Benghazi does in fact represent an instance of people being left to die out of political expediency then that goes WAY beyond the pale.


Sent from the center of the universe.

Baldy wrote:

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

Interesting...dawg finally making a little sense.

Kinda reminds me of the pussies who complain about a few people getting killed by guns. After the next mass shooting, people just need to keep their mouths shut and realize they knew of the risks of living in a country where guns are so easily accessible.

houndawg wrote:

Baldy wrote: Interesting...dawg finally making a little sense.

Kinda reminds me of the pussies who complain about a few people getting killed by guns. After the next mass shooting, people just need to keep their mouths shut and realize they knew of the risks of living in a country where guns are so easily accessible.

If they don't like guns they should move to Sweden.

LeadBolt wrote:

Ibanez wrote: I don't see how anyone can seriously deny that something is rotten with this attack.

Watch MSNBC. They have found goo gobs of people who deny something was rotten and are indoctrinating many more.

I was in college during Watergate. My room mate subscribed to the Washington Post who broke the story and pushed it. I subscribed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch where James J. Kilpatrick was the editor. you would have never known that they were reporting the same story.

I still hold that Obama is the most arrogant, lawless President since Nixon, and the founding of the Republic.

Grizalltheway wrote:

LeadBolt wrote:
Watch MSNBC. They have found goo gobs of people who deny something was rotten and are indoctrinating many more.

I was in college during Watergate. My room mate subscribed to the Washington Post who broke the story and pushed it. I subscribed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch where James J. Kilpatrick was the editor. you would have never known that they were reporting the same story.

I still hold that Obama is the most arrogant, lawless President since Nixon, and the founding of the Republic.

Were you around for the Bush administration, or just watching Faux News the whole time?

CID1990 wrote:

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

So in other words, what difference at this point does it make? Right?

Our diplomats and our military have always worked under the assumption that when you get in a tight spot, the US Government has their backs. We all know the risks, but if Benghazi does in fact represent an instance of people being left to die out of political expediency then that goes WAY beyond the pale.


Sent from the center of the universe.

andy7171 wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:
Were you around for the Bush administration, or just watching Faux News the whole time?

Love him or hate for it. This shit wouldn't have happened under Bush. We would have extracted them or tried to. And if we failed to rescue, there would be no more Bengazi.

polsongrizz wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
So in other words, what difference at this point does it make? Right?

Our diplomats and our military have always worked under the assumption that when you get in a tight spot, the US Government has their backs. We all know the risks, but if Benghazi does in fact represent an instance of people being left to die out of political expediency then that goes WAY beyond the pale.


Sent from the center of the universe.

I never assumed that while in at anytime.

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.

houndawg wrote:All administrations have lost diplomats for the past 50 years and all administrations first instinct is to lie. If we're going to get all worked up over losing a few diplomats who knew the risks maybe we should just stay home and knit.