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Speaker 1: on Fiasco.
Speaker 2: He's been called the world's number one terrorist, a madman
Speaker 2: who exports terrorism around the world, Colonel Murima Coduti.
Speaker 3: The first time in almost a quarter century, the US
Speaker 3: has diplomatic ties with Libya.
Speaker 4: We were sent out there and told just to go
Speaker 4: find what you can find.
Speaker 5: Chris Stevens was always willing to open a conversation with
Speaker 5: people from pretty scary Islamist backgrounds.
Speaker 4: Nobody demonstrated or protested in Goddafi's Libya.
Speaker 6: But they didn't really care anymore.
Speaker 4: They'd lost everything.
Speaker 1: Hamis Gadaffi arrived in Houston, Texas on January twentieth, twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: While in town, Hamis, one of Mumar Gadaffi's sons, was
Speaker 1: scheduled to visit a NASA facility and the Port of Houston.
Speaker 1: There's a photo from the trip in which Camise can
Speaker 1: be seen smiling with the chairman of the Houston Port
Speaker 1: Commission and ten other men in suits. Camise was around
Speaker 1: thirty at the time, and in the photo he looks sharp,
Speaker 1: wearing jeans and shiny other shoes, with a sport coat
Speaker 1: and a simple black necktie. Camisa's visit to Houston was
Speaker 1: part of a wide ranging tour of the United States
Speaker 1: sponsored by a large American infrastructure firm with business in Libya.
Speaker 1: According to Camisa's schedule, the trip was to inclclude a
Speaker 1: VIP tour of Universal studios and visits to Apple, Google
Speaker 1: and Intel. Whether he ended up doing all that we
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, because it wasn't reported on at
Speaker 1: the time. The specifics of what Camise actually did in
Speaker 1: the United States are fuzzy. One of the few people
Speaker 1: who knows some of the details is Colonel Brian Linville.
Speaker 7: Hamis went to the United States not as a part
Speaker 7: of an official government function per se. Instead, at that
Speaker 7: time he was working on his master's degree at a
Speaker 7: school in Spain and was really interested in the business
Speaker 7: management aspects of the United States.
Speaker 1: At the time of Camise's American safari, Lynnville was a
Speaker 1: Foreign Area officer in the US Army. He was living
Speaker 1: in Tripoli and serving as a diplomatic liaison to the
Speaker 1: Libyan military.
Speaker 7: Foreign area officers like myself refer to ourselves hyphenated as
Speaker 7: soldier diplomats because it really does incorporate the aspects of both,
Speaker 7: and you can't separate the two.
Speaker 1: Linnville accompanied camise on the part of his trip that
Speaker 1: was planned in coordination with the Department of Defense. The
Speaker 1: DoD had agreed to take camise on tours of the
Speaker 1: US Air Force Academy West Point and the National Defense University.
Speaker 1: It fell to Linnville's escort Camiste to each of those stops.
Speaker 7: I sincerely believe he wanted to go and observe and
Speaker 7: learn and take back something that might be to the
Speaker 7: benefit of his country, his military.
Speaker 1: For most of the trip, Camisee tried to keep his
Speaker 1: identity under wraps.
Speaker 7: He was extremely hesitant to allow himself to be identified
Speaker 7: as Kaddafi's son. Everywhere we went. He asked that we
Speaker 7: introduce him as Captain Camise not as Captain Kadafi. He
Speaker 7: wanted to disassociate himself from any stigmas that might be
Speaker 7: associated with that name.
Speaker 4: In the United States officials are saying no to being
Speaker 4: leader Momar Kadafi.
Speaker 8: Does anybody think that Momarkadafi is not a terrorist?
Speaker 9: This is a man who simply does not accept a
Speaker 9: responsibility for Libya's a terrorist past.
Speaker 7: Camis knew that we'd had Araqi past, and his purpose
Speaker 7: wasn't to make waves or to ruffle any feathers.
Speaker 1: Camis's American hosts didn't want to ruffle his feathers either.
Speaker 1: He and his brothers were important to the American government
Speaker 1: because they were widely understood to be the future of Libya.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened after Muamar Gadaffi eventually died, his sons would
Speaker 1: be a huge part of it. In the meantime, it
Speaker 1: was possible they could serve as a positive influence on
Speaker 1: their father.
Speaker 7: With Camis, we knew that he had the potential to
Speaker 7: talked to his dad and explain what he'd seen and
Speaker 7: encouraged the Libyan government to make some changes.
Speaker 1: Not all of Gadafi's sons inspired this kind of faith
Speaker 1: or enjoyed equal standar in the eyes of the West.
Speaker 7: The Kadafi boys were a motley assortment.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most respected of the Gaddafi brothers was Saif
Speaker 1: al Islam, whom you heard about in episode one Scyphal.
Speaker 7: Islam, as the heir apparent, took on a much larger
Speaker 7: role than his other brothers, and much more political role,
Speaker 7: whereas the other brothers struggled to find.
Speaker 4: Their way up.
Speaker 1: Those other brothers included Matassim, who once paid Beyonce a
Speaker 1: rumored two million dollars to perform at a New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve concert in Saint Bart's and Sadi, who was caught
Speaker 1: using steroids during a stint as a professional soccer player
Speaker 1: in Italy. By comparison, Camisee did not attract much attention
Speaker 1: while his brothers made headlines in The New York Times.
Speaker 1: In Gawker, Camis seemed to fly under the radar as
Speaker 1: he worked towards an MBA in Spain. But back home
Speaker 1: in Libya he had another role.
Speaker 7: He was the commander of the regime's most important and
Speaker 7: probably best equipped, best trained regiment, of the thirty second
Speaker 7: Enhanced Brigade.
Speaker 1: The thirty second Enhanced Brigade was one of the few
Speaker 1: elite units of the Libyan military, which on the whole
Speaker 1: was underfunded and poorly organized. This was at least in
Speaker 1: part because Colonel Gaddafi liked it that way. As he
Speaker 1: saw it, if a military coups were ever attempted against him,
Speaker 1: it would be much easier for his loyalists to defeat
Speaker 1: a weak army than a strong one.
Speaker 7: He focused on developing specific regime protection forces that he
Speaker 7: knew were loyal and were manned by family members or
Speaker 7: tribal members that were loyal to him and loyal to
Speaker 7: the Kadafi government.
Speaker 1: And so camisse led the main one of those.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 1: While Camisee traveled the United States, the Middle East was
Speaker 1: experiencing a historic convulsion. A little over a month earlier,
Speaker 1: in December of twenty ten, a street vendor in Tunisia
Speaker 1: had doused himself in paint dinner and lit himself on fire.
Speaker 1: It was a protest against corrupt local authorities who had
Speaker 1: harassed him and confiscated the scale he used to weigh
Speaker 1: his produce.
Speaker 7: His closest friends, anguished by Mohamlet's actions, took to the
Speaker 7: streets and began a popular uprising.
Speaker 1: When words spread about what the produce vendor had done
Speaker 1: and why Tunisians poured into the streets in protest.
Speaker 6: Anger erupted onto the streets. Today, while police rushing a
Speaker 6: crowd carrying banners reading yes we can. It was enough
Speaker 6: to bring down the government and force the nation's president
Speaker 6: to flee.
Speaker 1: Before long, the president of Tunisia was forced from power,
Speaker 1: and the revolutionary mood started spreading to Egypt.
Speaker 10: Just listen to the chance roaring in downtown Cairol, the
Speaker 10: hundreds of people walking to the streets.
Speaker 1: It's unprecedented for people to.
Speaker 11: March to the streets this way as an act of
Speaker 11: protests without security is he's trying to prevent them.
Speaker 1: On January twenty fifth, twenty eleven, protests erupted in Tariar
Speaker 1: Square in Cairo as thousands of Egyptians demanded that President
Speaker 1: Hosni Mubarik stepped down. It was the beginning of what
Speaker 1: would come to be known in the West as the
Speaker 1: Arab Spring.
Speaker 11: Of course, a wave of protests has swept through the
Speaker 11: Arab world, and now many are wondering how far that
Speaker 11: wave will spread and what it means to the rest
Speaker 11: of the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Including Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt on February eleventh.
Speaker 1: That same day, Kamiska Dafi was in Chicago sitting in
Speaker 1: on a class at Northwestern University taught by Deepak Chopra.
Speaker 1: The class was called the Soul of Leadership, and at
Speaker 1: one point Chopra brought up Mubarik and the Egyptian Revolution
Speaker 1: as Camise took extensive notes. After his visit to Chicago,
Speaker 1: Camise flew to DC, where Brian Linville took him to
Speaker 1: the National Defense University. At a roundtable discussion with American
Speaker 1: government officials, a US ambassador asked Camise the question that
Speaker 1: was on everyone's mind.
Speaker 7: And he said, you know, I can't pass up this opportunity.
Speaker 7: I want to ask what are your thoughts on and
Speaker 7: the uprisings that are going on? And I think Camise
Speaker 7: shocked the room when he said, I think it's a
Speaker 7: good thing. I think it's good that the people of
Speaker 7: the region are finally having an opportunity to express themselves
Speaker 7: in this way. And you could have heard a pin
Speaker 7: drop in the room.
Speaker 1: From DC, Camise traveled to New York City, where he
Speaker 1: toured the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The
Speaker 1: next day, he was scheduled to take in a performance
Speaker 1: of Mamma Mia on Broadway. Brian Linnville, who was supposed
Speaker 1: to meet Camise in New York. Was still at his
Speaker 1: hotel in Washington when he heard about unsettling reports coming
Speaker 1: out of Libya.
Speaker 7: On the news. There were reports that there been some
Speaker 7: uprisings in eastern Libya around Benghazi.
Speaker 12: Well, in a rare show of unrest, hundreds of opponents
Speaker 12: of Libyan leader.
Speaker 13: Moammar Gadaffi clashed with police overnight.
Speaker 1: Lynnville was getting ready to travel to New York when
Speaker 1: he got a phone call.
Speaker 7: My cell phone rings and it's Camisi's handler. Well that
Speaker 7: the handler says, Hey, Camisi is cutting his trip short
Speaker 7: and he's flying back.
Speaker 4: To Libya tonight.
Speaker 7: And that was it. We both knew what was going down.
Speaker 7: The Arab spring had arrived in Libya.
Speaker 1: When you say you knew what was going down, like
Speaker 1: you mean you understood what he was going back there
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, for sure, Hamis was going to go back
Speaker 7: to Libya and play a prominent role in putting down
Speaker 7: the uprisings. I think we were both airborne at the
Speaker 7: same time, different planes, and we both probably got back
Speaker 7: to Triple Hit about the same time. Then ultimately we
Speaker 7: would go on to be on the opposite sides of
Speaker 7: the battlefield.
Speaker 1: I'm Leon Nafok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This
Speaker 1: is Fiasco Benghazi.
Speaker 14: Dramatic showdown between a dictator with a ruthless grip on
Speaker 14: power and a population demanding freedom.
Speaker 10: My mother knew she might not see us again.
Speaker 15: It's easy for people to say you take the consequences
Speaker 15: if something bad happened.
Speaker 16: And I just said to him, you've just guaranteed your
Speaker 16: future as an ambassador.
Speaker 4: He went in into Benghazi in the height of a war.
Speaker 4: It was pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: Episode two, We Will Stay Here, in which Libya revolts
Speaker 1: and a beloved American diplomat makes his mark in Benghazi.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. There was a joke that went
Speaker 1: around in early twenty eleven that summed up how a
Speaker 1: lot of Libyans felt at the beginning of the Arab Spring.
Speaker 1: It had to do with Libya's geographic position in North Africa,
Speaker 1: sandwiched between Egypt and Tunisia.
Speaker 10: The Tunisians were joking about us. They say that we
Speaker 10: asked Libyans to sit down so we can't see Egyptians
Speaker 10: and in spite of them, to start their revolution.
Speaker 1: This is Iman Bugagis in twenty eleven. She was an
Speaker 1: orthodonist on the teaching staff at the University of Benghazi.
Speaker 1: The joke she's referring to here basically meant that no
Speaker 1: one was expecting the Libyan people to join in when
Speaker 1: the revolutionary wave started sweeping the Arab world, because we
Speaker 1: were hopeless.
Speaker 10: They knew the autrocity of Gavefi and we felt that also.
Speaker 10: We felt that we never kick out Gembefi.
Speaker 1: But sometime in early February, social media posts started circulating
Speaker 1: calling for mass protests to take place in Libya. On Thursday,
Speaker 1: February seventeenth. It was being called a day of rage.
Speaker 1: Brian Linnville, the American Army Liaison, says the Gadafi regime
Speaker 1: started quietly mobilizing for potential unrest.
Speaker 7: It was apparent that the regime was nervous.
Speaker 16: Right.
Speaker 7: We noticed a definite uptick in security forces in downtown Tripoli,
Speaker 7: and there was a certain tension in the air because
Speaker 7: you'd watch on Al Jazer and every other news agency
Speaker 7: as these governments started to topple across the region and everybody
Speaker 7: was asking can it happen here?
Speaker 1: On February fifteenth, the Kadafi regime arrested a prominent lawyer
Speaker 1: in Benghazi named Fati Turbil. It was seemingly a precautionary measure.
Speaker 1: Turbil was best known as a representative of the families
Speaker 1: whose loved ones had been killed at Abu Salim prison
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six. As you heard in episode one,
Speaker 1: the Kadafi regime had been allowing the families to protest
Speaker 1: every Saturday outside the courthouse in Benghazi. Fati Turbil, who
Speaker 1: was helping the families in their fight for restitution and
Speaker 1: who had also lost relatives in the massacre, often joined them.
Speaker 10: They were the mothers, the sisters.
Speaker 17: The wives of political prisoners, and always they were They
Speaker 17: were asking, They were making noise and requesting to know
Speaker 17: the fate of their relatives and what had happened.
Speaker 10: They wanted the truth because at that time, even at
Speaker 10: that time, there was no clear admission of the regime
Speaker 10: of what happened exactly.
Speaker 1: Gaddafi apparently thought that arresting Turbil would silence anyone who
Speaker 1: might be thinking of revolution. Instead, soon after Turbil's arrest,
Speaker 1: a group of fifteen to twenty women, all family members
Speaker 1: of abously imprisoners, gathered outside the building where Turbil was
Speaker 1: being held.
Speaker 10: They came in front of the intelligence headquarter, and what
Speaker 10: they were saying was wake up, wake up, being Ghazzi.
Speaker 10: This is the day that you were waiting for Knu
Speaker 10: the Nudi Yban Ghazzi had Yomtrai. It walked up at
Speaker 10: the sentence, they walked us. After that people started gathering.
Speaker 10: It was very strange to see women protesting and with
Speaker 10: all of this courage. So the people and the youth
Speaker 10: started to come and then they walked till the city center,
Speaker 10: which was a few kilometers.
Speaker 1: Later that night, Fati Turbil was allowed to go free.
Speaker 1: But like the self immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia,
Speaker 1: Turbill's arrest had sparked something unconfirmed.
Speaker 18: Video it's claimed, shows protesters outside a police station in
Speaker 18: Benghazi on Tuesday. They've come to demonstrate against the arrest
Speaker 18: of human rights lawyer Fati Turbill. After dark, the protesters
Speaker 18: regroup outside the city's security directorate, their chance turn against
Speaker 18: the government and the forty one year long rule of
Speaker 18: Mama Gaddafi.
Speaker 1: On February seventeenth, the day of Rage, Iman and Bugegis
Speaker 1: left her home to join a protest on the steps
Speaker 1: of the Bengazi courthouse. She was joined by her sister, Salwah,
Speaker 1: another lawyer who've been helping the Abu Sulim families. As
Speaker 1: they headed to the courthouse, the sisters didn't know if
Speaker 1: they were to return home alive.
Speaker 10: We left our children with my mother, and my mother
Speaker 10: knew and we knew that she might.
Speaker 16: Not see us again.
Speaker 10: We didn't talk about it. We thought that it's something
Speaker 10: we have to do regardless, So we didn't what if,
Speaker 10: what if? No, no, no no, But they thought about that.
Speaker 10: You know, we have something we have to do. It's
Speaker 10: our responsibility, the older generation. We have to do something.
Speaker 10: You know, we have a students, We have children who
Speaker 10: deserves better life. They deserve to live in peace, to
Speaker 10: have good education.
Speaker 1: Iman joined her sister in front of the courthouse just
Speaker 1: before one pm. At first, the protesters made relatively modest demands,
Speaker 1: calling for a constitution and social reforms, not full on
Speaker 1: regime change. But as the afternoon wore on, the crowd
Speaker 1: kept growing and many of the new arrivals were young
Speaker 1: people who were less restrained in their ambitions. They didn't
Speaker 1: just want change, they wanted Gaddafi gone. Imman initially tried
Speaker 1: to discourage them because she was afraid that Gaddafi would
Speaker 1: simply kill them all if they called for his ouster.
Speaker 1: But by four o'clock she could tell the tide had turned.
Speaker 1: A revolution that started and there was no going back.
Speaker 10: For seven eight hours, we were just chanting about Libya.
Speaker 10: It was the first time that we say it's our country,
Speaker 10: we love it. It was like a love song, you know.
Speaker 10: All of a sudden we recognized how much we love
Speaker 10: our country. This is our country, we love it, We
Speaker 10: love you, you know.
Speaker 19: It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Declaring love for Libya was revolutionary in and of itself.
Speaker 1: Colonel Gaddafi had only ever encouraged love for Colonel Gaddafi.
Speaker 10: He didn't use the name Libya for anything, so for
Speaker 10: a long time he replaced Libya with himself. So at
Speaker 10: that time, we just moved away that curtain and Libya
Speaker 10: returned to us, and we discovered how much we love
Speaker 10: our country.
Speaker 1: It was a euphoric moment. Even though the revolution was
Speaker 1: just starting, the mere act of public descent felt like
Speaker 1: a victory. On February eighteenth, a man climbed up a
Speaker 1: utility pole in Benghazi and hung the old flag of
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Libya, red, black and green with a
Speaker 1: star and crescent in the center.
Speaker 10: Are screaming, you know it's ourn flag. It came back
Speaker 10: to us.
Speaker 1: Thousands of protesters in Benghazi joined together to sing a
Speaker 1: protest song called Salfa Napka Hunah we will stay here.
Speaker 10: For the first time, we were singing for our country
Speaker 10: and we were saying that we will stay here. Libya
Speaker 10: will stay here.
Speaker 1: The unrest wasn't limited to Benghazi. Within a week, protests
Speaker 1: were occurring throughout Libya. The response from the Gadafi regime
Speaker 1: was quick and violent.
Speaker 14: Dramatics showdown between a dictator with a ruthless grip on
Speaker 14: power and a population demanding freedom.
Speaker 5: Kaddafi is lashing back with force and brutality on a
Speaker 5: scale not yet seen in the revolutions that have been
Speaker 5: sweeping across the Arab world.
Speaker 18: Reports of casualties have come from all over the country.
Speaker 18: Sources suggest Libyan security forces shot and killed demonstrators.
Speaker 5: With borders closed and telephone and internet jam, it's impossible
Speaker 5: to get an accurate picture, but there are reports of
Speaker 5: massacres by the military.
Speaker 1: Army attache Brian Linnville returned to Tripoli from his trip
Speaker 1: with Kamiska Dathi on February nineteenth, just two days after
Speaker 1: the Day of Rage. By this point the uprising had
Speaker 1: reached the Libyan capital as well.
Speaker 7: As soon as the sun went down, we could hear
Speaker 7: outside like echoing through the streets, this chanting, this low roar,
Speaker 7: angry people in the streets. Shortly after that, we started
Speaker 7: hearing gunfire, and that gunfire developed into machine gun fire,
Speaker 7: and we started seeing tracers shoot across the sky, and
Speaker 7: the chanting got worse and worse throughout the night. It
Speaker 7: was all night long, and looking out across the city
Speaker 7: and hearing all the gunfire, you knew people were dying.
Speaker 7: There's no way it could be any other outcome.
Speaker 1: Like February twentieth, Human Rights Watch had put the country
Speaker 1: wide death toll at one hundred and seventy three. Two
Speaker 1: days later, Colonel Gaddafi appeared on state television from his
Speaker 1: compound in Tripoli. Gaddafi looked like a ghoul, his skin
Speaker 1: gray and pallid, ranting for over an hour. He vowed
Speaker 1: to never relinquish power and called in his supporters to
Speaker 1: track down protesters and search for them Zengazenga roughly Ali
Speaker 1: by Ali, until the country was clean of dirt.
Speaker 2: Momar Gaddafi is not leaving without a fight. He's trying
Speaker 2: to extinguish protests like these that keep popping up. A
Speaker 2: number of people killed ranges anywhere from three hundred two
Speaker 2: one thousand, and residents say militiamen are roaming the streets
Speaker 2: firing their weapons. Some fear that will trigger a civil war,
Speaker 2: and they were begging.
Speaker 4: The war to get Please, we need to help.
Speaker 2: The US is considering sanctions to put pressure on Gadaffi.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, protesters say they will continue to march
Speaker 2: in the streets and won't stop until Gaddafi is no
Speaker 2: longer in power.
Speaker 12: Good out, noon, everybody.
Speaker 1: On February twenty third, President Barack Obama addressed the nation
Speaker 1: from the White House, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: standing by his side.
Speaker 12: We strongly condemned the use of violence in Libya. This
Speaker 12: violence must stop. This is not simply a concern of
Speaker 12: the United States. The entire world is watching, and we
Speaker 12: will coordinate our assistance and accountability measures with the international community.
Speaker 1: Obama underscored the uprisings in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia were organic,
Speaker 1: not the result of foreign interference region, but he made
Speaker 1: it clear that the protesters had America's support.
Speaker 12: This change doesn't represent the work of the United States
Speaker 12: or any foreign power, presents the aspirations of people who
Speaker 12: are seeking a better life, and throughout this time of transition,
Speaker 12: the United States will continue to stand up for freedom,
Speaker 12: stand up for justice, and stand up for the dignity
Speaker 12: of all people. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Obama's expression of solidarity with the rebels in their fight
Speaker 1: against Gaddafi masked his reluctance to allow America to be
Speaker 1: caught in the crossfire, and with violence in triplely escalating,
Speaker 1: the US decided to abandon its embassy and get its
Speaker 1: diplomats out of Libya. The day after Obama's address, The
Speaker 1: nineteen staffers still working out of the embassy in Tripoli,
Speaker 1: including Brian Linnville, were tasked with destroying everything so that
Speaker 1: sensitive information didn't wind up in the wrong hands. One
Speaker 1: of Lynnville's deputies showed him what to do.
Speaker 7: He's like, all right, sir, take this sledgehammer, take that computer,
Speaker 7: hit it there and there, put a hole there, put
Speaker 7: a hole there, put a hole there, and then come
Speaker 7: back and see me.
Speaker 1: There was a whole embassy's worth of computers and other
Speaker 1: equipment that needed destroying.
Speaker 7: The destruction took all night. I think the sun was
Speaker 7: coming up when I was able to crawl into my
Speaker 7: office and line on the floor for a few hours
Speaker 7: to catch a little bit of sleep.
Speaker 1: After that it was time to go. Before leaving, Linnville
Speaker 1: and his deputy brought down the embassy's American flag. They
Speaker 1: folded it and tucked it away safely. Then they lined
Speaker 1: up their convoy and drove to the airport. It was
Speaker 1: shortly after two PM, and Friday prayers were letting out
Speaker 1: at mosques all over the city.
Speaker 7: That's when the protests started again. This time, the violence
Speaker 7: started right in the middle of the afternoon, and our
Speaker 7: convoy had to pass right through several of those protests
Speaker 7: as they were occurring. We had gunfire going off within
Speaker 7: a few feet of our car as they were engaging
Speaker 7: these protesters.
Speaker 1: Linnville and the embassy staff managed to make it safely
Speaker 1: to the airport, where they boarded a charter plane to Istanbul.
Speaker 1: American diplomatic mission to Libya was coming to an end
Speaker 1: for now. By mid March, less than a month after
Speaker 1: the Libyan revolution began, the US had frozen more than
Speaker 1: thirty billion dollars in assets belonging to Gaddafi and four
Speaker 1: of his kids, including Camise. But the Libyan rebels wanted
Speaker 1: more from the West than just economic sanctions. They wanted firepower.
Speaker 1: While Colonel Gaddafi publicly insisted that al Qaida was to
Speaker 1: blame for the unrest and that casualties were at most
Speaker 1: two hundred, France, the UK, and the Arab League pressured
Speaker 1: the US to join them in a military intervention. When
Speaker 1: Secretary of State Clinton arrived in Paris for meetings with
Speaker 1: the g Eight, the question of what to do about
Speaker 1: Libya followed her there.
Speaker 8: The Secretary starts her week in Paris facing international pressure
Speaker 8: for a Libyan no fly zone. Clinton has been skeptical, saying,
Speaker 8: even with international backing, it's the US that takes all
Speaker 8: the risks.
Speaker 15: It's easy for people to say do this, do that,
Speaker 15: and then they turn and say, okay, us go do it.
Speaker 15: You take the consequences if something bad happen.
Speaker 1: He was decided that while she was in Paris, Clinton
Speaker 1: would meet with a representative of what the Libyan rebels
Speaker 1: were calling the Transitional National Council or the TNC, who's
Speaker 1: basically a temporary de facto government whose leaders were trying
Speaker 1: to replace Goaddafi.
Speaker 8: For Secretary Clinton, it's a trip to the great unknown.
Speaker 8: She will meet the Libyan opposition this week, although what
Speaker 8: the US might offer and which rebel leaders she should
Speaker 8: see has the State Department working overtime.
Speaker 15: Because we know that there are some with whom we'd
Speaker 15: want to be allied and others with whom we would not.
Speaker 16: There was no real appetite on the US part to
Speaker 16: enter into the Libyan frey at that particular point.
Speaker 1: This is Gene krets the US ambassador to Libya at
Speaker 1: the time of the revolution. As Ambassador, Kretz was responsible
Speaker 1: for making contact with the leaders of the TNC and
Speaker 1: sizing them up. As Kretz explains it now, one big
Speaker 1: fear at the State Department was that the rebel coalition
Speaker 1: would include too many radical Islamists, that in addition to
Speaker 1: people like Iman Bugegis who wanted to build a democracy,
Speaker 1: there was also a large constituency of ultra conservative, anti
Speaker 1: American Muslims who wanted to impose strict Sharia law in Libya.
Speaker 16: I had been sent to find out exactly who these
Speaker 16: people were. Was this a real uprising or was it?
Speaker 16: As Kadafi and as minions were claiming a jihadist plot
Speaker 16: that America would regret. My view after meeting people from
Speaker 16: the TNC, and what they were doing was that it
Speaker 16: was a legitimate national uprising which probably included jihadist elements
Speaker 16: by virtue of the fact that they existed.
Speaker 1: One of Kretz's contacts within the TNC was a man
Speaker 1: in his late fifties named Mahmoud Jabriel, the Foreign Minister
Speaker 1: for the Transitional Government. Jabriel had a PhD in political
Speaker 1: science from the University of Pittsburgh and he spoke English fluently.
Speaker 1: Here he is speaking in a twenty twelve documentary Who.
Speaker 20: Were Racing with time with Mike Police all over the
Speaker 20: place and the meeting with the Madame Clinton was Philip Cruscher.
Speaker 1: Ambassador Crets arranged a meeting between Gabriel, Clinton and one
Speaker 1: of his colleagues from the State Department who had just
Speaker 1: been named Special Envoy to the Transitional Government. His name
Speaker 1: was Christopher Stevens. Clinton, Kretz and Stephens sat down with
Speaker 1: Gabriel in a hotel suite overlooking the Tuilerie Garden. In
Speaker 1: her memoir Hard Choices, Clinton writes that she could see
Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower from her window as Jabriel made the
Speaker 1: argument for American intervention in Libya.
Speaker 16: He laid out the case for why America, leader of
Speaker 16: the world's democracies, should look on this situation and see
Speaker 16: that there were elements that very much coincided with what
Speaker 16: America's interests in the world were and what American values were.
Speaker 1: The meeting lasted just forty five minutes, but by the
Speaker 1: end Clinton seemed convinced that Jabriel and his fellow rebels
Speaker 1: were trustworthy and sincere.
Speaker 16: I think the meeting was one of the first times
Speaker 16: that the US and the guys of the Secretary was
Speaker 16: able to meet and put a face to the revolution,
Speaker 16: to see that these were not wild eyed jihadists and
Speaker 16: that in fact, they were really people committed to setting
Speaker 16: up a democratic country. And the meeting with Jabriel then
Speaker 16: was the one that I think that at least helped
Speaker 16: convince the Secretary that our participation in this reaction against
Speaker 16: Kadafi was justifiable. And then the President made the decision
Speaker 16: a few days later, I.
Speaker 1: Believe, on March fifteenth, Obama called his national security team
Speaker 1: together for a meeting in the White House Situation Room.
Speaker 1: Who was conferencing in from Paris told the President She
Speaker 1: supported intervention, but Obama wasn't yet convinced.
Speaker 14: American forces are already stretched thin with the conflicts in
Speaker 14: Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 10: If we get preoccupied and bogged down in Afghanistan, I
Speaker 10: Rock and now Libya, We're not going to.
Speaker 16: Have much left.
Speaker 1: Obama was hesitant to put American troops on the ground
Speaker 1: and yet another far away country.
Speaker 7: It's called war fatigue Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: That war's very unpopular.
Speaker 5: The American people hate being stuck in another third World
Speaker 5: country over there.
Speaker 4: We're stuck in two of them now. It's easy to
Speaker 4: blow the trumpets, it's hard to end the war.
Speaker 1: But Iraq and Afghanistan were not the only reference points
Speaker 1: on people's minds.
Speaker 7: You can have another Sudan.
Speaker 4: You can't have another Rwanda.
Speaker 12: You could have another Rwandan genocide on your hands in
Speaker 12: Libya if you don't do something.
Speaker 1: Susan Rice, Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, had worked
Speaker 1: in the Clinton administration during the Rwanda crisis, and she
Speaker 1: was adamant that in the case of Libya, US intervention
Speaker 1: was necessary to prevent a slaughter.
Speaker 6: Let's remember President Clinton, and reflecting on his presidency, said
Speaker 6: his greatest regret was not acting sooner in Rwanda.
Speaker 1: At this point, Camis Gadaffi's thirty second brigade had arrived
Speaker 1: at Misrata, the third largest city in Libya and the
Speaker 1: only rebel stronghold in the western part of the country.
Speaker 1: Rebel commanders in Misrada pleaded for NATO's help as Camisa's
Speaker 1: troops encircled the city. Meanwhile, in the east, other brigades
Speaker 1: were marching towards Benghazi. It was clear they outnumbered and
Speaker 1: outgunned the rebels, most of whom were ordinary citizens with
Speaker 1: little to no military training. Iman bugegis again, we could.
Speaker 10: See the smoke of Gerethi's convoy coming. It was obvious
Speaker 10: that something is coming. Death is coming. We welcomed the
Speaker 10: international intervention. We didn't have any other option. It was
Speaker 10: a survival.
Speaker 19: Tonight, things are at a turning point and Colonel Kaddaffi
Speaker 19: could face international intervention. Earlier today, he took to the
Speaker 19: radio to warn the opposition in Benghazi of a looming offensive.
Speaker 19: We are coming, he said. We are looking for the
Speaker 19: traitors and shall have no mercy nor compassion.
Speaker 1: With Gaddafi's forces approaching Benghazi, the US needed to make
Speaker 1: a decision before it was too late, and so Obama
Speaker 1: agreed to a kind of compromise. The US would participate
Speaker 1: in the intervention, but only as part of a collective
Speaker 1: effort that would be led by other countries, namely the
Speaker 1: UK and France. Later, one of Obama's advisers would describe
Speaker 1: the arrangement as leading from behind. The point was that
Speaker 1: the US would not be responsible for whatever came next
Speaker 1: in Libya. It would have to be someone else's problem.
Speaker 1: With that, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice began coordinating with
Speaker 1: NATO and the UN to authorize military action. On March seventeen,
Speaker 1: just three days after Clinton's meeting with Mahmud Jabriel in Paris,
Speaker 1: the UN passed a resolution allowing for all necessary measures
Speaker 1: to protect civilians in Libya.
Speaker 19: This evening, the UN Security Council voted in favor of
Speaker 19: a resolution that would take all measures necessary to protect civilians.
Speaker 21: For the residents of Ben Razzi, this military intervention is
Speaker 21: coming in the nick of time, because Gaddafi's forces are
Speaker 21: already closing in on the city. The people of eastern
Speaker 21: Libya will be hoping it's not too late.
Speaker 1: On March nineteenth, French jets led the Way bombing Gaddafi
Speaker 1: forces outside Benghazi. The move effectively saved the revolution and
Speaker 1: likely prevented significant bloodshed.
Speaker 15: The French have gone in with jets and attacked Momarket offees,
Speaker 15: military vehicles.
Speaker 1: American missile strikes followed the beginning of what the US
Speaker 1: named Operation Odyssey Dawn.
Speaker 22: Today, I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States
Speaker 22: to begin a limited military in Libya in support of
Speaker 22: an international effort to protect Libyan civilians.
Speaker 1: In his televised address announcing the airstrikes against Kadafi, Obama
Speaker 1: emphasized that the United States was not acting alone.
Speaker 12: Make no mistake today, we are part of a broad coalition.
Speaker 12: We are answering the calls of a threatened people, and
Speaker 12: we are acting in the interests of the United States
Speaker 12: and the world. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Did you feel relieved when you heard that the intervention
Speaker 1: had happened?
Speaker 4: Did it lift the pressure?
Speaker 17: Yes, all of us.
Speaker 10: You know he would have destroyed Binghassi. He didn't want
Speaker 10: Binghazzi anymore.
Speaker 1: What did you feel when you heard that it was done,
Speaker 1: that the convoy was destroyed.
Speaker 10: Big relief. We went after that and we saw the
Speaker 10: convoy destroyed, burned tanks, burned military cars a lot. It
Speaker 10: was very long convoy, but also we knew many people
Speaker 10: who died, so it was very, very sad destituation.
Speaker 1: Libya was now essentially split in two, with Tripoli in
Speaker 1: the west under Gadafi's control and Benghazi in the east
Speaker 1: serving as the rebels base of operations, but with American
Speaker 1: diplomats out of the country and Obama strict no boots
Speaker 1: on the ground policy, intelligence on what the rebels were
Speaker 1: actually doing was hard to come by. Ambassador krets and
Speaker 1: the team from Tripoli were now working out of a
Speaker 1: makeshift office in DC. The consensus was that someone from
Speaker 1: the American mission needed to go to Benghazi.
Speaker 16: Some of the other European nations had gone back into
Speaker 16: Benghazi with representation. There was a strong sense in Washington
Speaker 16: that we had to be there as well.
Speaker 1: Kretz immediately thought of his colleague Chris Stevens, the man
Speaker 1: who had joined him in Secretary Clinton for the meeting
Speaker 1: with Jabriel in Paris and who had served in Libya
Speaker 1: for two years during the brief and ill fated reconciliation
Speaker 1: with Gaddafi. Kret suggested Stevens to his State Department colleague
Speaker 1: Jeff Feltman, the Assistant Secretary in charge of the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Here is Feltman.
Speaker 4: We felt that he had the right personality to play
Speaker 4: this ambiguous liaison role in Benghazi that was sort of
Speaker 4: undefined because of his background, because of his personality, because
Speaker 4: of his ability to connect with people.
Speaker 1: Chris Stevens was about to turn fifty one. A native
Speaker 1: of California, he had blonde hair, a tan and a big,
Speaker 1: bright smile. As you heard in episode one, Stevens had
Speaker 1: helped build the US embassy in Tripoli that had just
Speaker 1: been abandoned. Now he was up for another unusual position
Speaker 1: in Libya, one that his superiors at the State Department
Speaker 1: thought he was particularly well suited to Jeff Veltman.
Speaker 4: Again, he also was sort of fearless. It's not usual
Speaker 4: to send in a diplomat and basically say make your way.
Speaker 4: He did not inherit an office or a local staff
Speaker 4: that could help guide him. He didn't inherit the old
Speaker 4: proverbial rollerdecks from his predecessors.
Speaker 1: Chris Stevens arrived in Benghazi on April fifth, twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: aboard a Greek cargo ship.
Speaker 4: He went in by water into Benghazi in the height
Speaker 4: of a war. It was pretty.
Speaker 1: Remarkable at first. Stevens set up his operation in a
Speaker 1: suite at the Tabestie Hotel, fifteen story building in the
Speaker 1: city center.
Speaker 4: When Chris went to Benghazi, there was essentially nothing. He
Speaker 4: and his immediate staff were essentially inventing a diplomatic facility
Speaker 4: out of whole cloth. It was a high risk venture,
Speaker 4: but one that was extremely rewarding for Chris and obviously
Speaker 4: beneficial for US as we're trying to understand more about
Speaker 4: what's happening in the most opaque country in the Arab world.
Speaker 1: Even though the US was now supporting the rebels in
Speaker 1: their fight against Ghadafi, the State Department still had very
Speaker 1: little knowledge about who they were, what they believed, and
Speaker 1: what their goals were for Libya. The TNC desperately wanted
Speaker 1: the United States to recognize them as Libya's legitimate government,
Speaker 1: but the Obama administration was guarded. They wanted more information.
Speaker 4: Chris's responsibilities were to figure out who were these guys,
Speaker 4: what did they stand for? If Kadafi would leave, what
Speaker 4: would they put in his place? Was there a chance
Speaker 4: for them to have a unified government? What was happening
Speaker 4: with the sort of very nascent Islamist movements that were
Speaker 4: coming up. These were questions we did not know the
Speaker 4: answers for.
Speaker 1: It's worth reiterating that the administration's big fear was that
Speaker 1: radical anti American Islamists would take over the Libyan Revolution.
Speaker 1: The leaders of the tnc said they were building a democracy,
Speaker 1: but did they have the power and popular support to
Speaker 1: follow through In a country where the population was more
Speaker 1: than ninety percent Muslim religion would inevitably influence the workings
Speaker 1: of the government, but different people had different ideas about
Speaker 1: the degree to which Islam should dictate the law of
Speaker 1: the land. The US feared inadvertently aiding extremists who had
Speaker 1: no intention of establishing democracy once Gaddafi fell. It was
Speaker 1: against this backdrop that Chris Stevens launched himself into the
Speaker 1: work of diplomacy in Benghazi. He was known for taking
Speaker 1: jogs around town and chatting up regular citizens on the street,
Speaker 1: no matter what their politics were.
Speaker 4: You know, there were people who said, Chris, you shouldn't
Speaker 4: meet with person X, person XES and Islamis. You're giving
Speaker 4: the Islamis status by meeting with the Islamist. Don't do it.
Speaker 4: Chris would push back and insist on meeting with anyone
Speaker 4: who might have the ability to influence the direction in
Speaker 4: Libya moves in the future. So I don't think he
Speaker 4: was naive, but he did try to embrace a very
Speaker 4: wide spectrum of Libyan contacts.
Speaker 1: The people of Benghazi embraced Stephens as well. When the
Speaker 1: US killed us Laden in May of twenty eleven, locals
Speaker 1: stopped Stevens in the street to congratulate him and said
Speaker 1: they hoped Kaddafi would be next. Still, when Jeff Feltman
Speaker 1: from the State Department visited Benghazi that spring, he was
Speaker 1: shaken by the precarious conditions in which Stevens and his
Speaker 1: team were working.
Speaker 4: I was very worried about his security. The doors to
Speaker 4: his suite were plate glass, so you had these two
Speaker 4: big glass doors with handles. And the way you closed
Speaker 4: that suite at night when Chris and his team would
Speaker 4: go to bed was you put a chain with a
Speaker 4: key lock on it. That horrified me.
Speaker 1: Near the end of the summer, the State Department leased
Speaker 1: a compound of villas in Benghazi and moved the American
Speaker 1: mission out of the Tabesti Hotel. Guards were hired and
Speaker 1: vehicle screenings were arranged in an effort to secure the property.
Speaker 1: But the Americans were not allowed to do much to
Speaker 1: physically fortify it, and because it was a temporary facility,
Speaker 1: not an official embassy or consulate, it didn't have to
Speaker 1: meet the State Department's typical security stand Chris Stevens didn't
Speaker 1: want to stay hold up in a bunker anyway. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be out meeting people where they lived. Again,
Speaker 1: former Libya Ambassador Gen Kratz.
Speaker 16: We both believed that we needed some flexibility in terms
Speaker 16: of the way we were allowed to operate. We were
Speaker 16: not cowboys, believe me, but we wanted to do our job,
Speaker 16: and we thought that we had the ground knowledge to
Speaker 16: determine what was an acceptable risk for us and what
Speaker 16: was not, and so we designed a program to allow
Speaker 16: us to meet people that we needed to meet. And
Speaker 16: I think Chris certainly shared that view and certainly practiced
Speaker 16: it to the extent that he could while he was
Speaker 16: in Benghazi.
Speaker 23: Hello, good afternoon, Chris Stevens. I got in from Benghazi
Speaker 23: a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1: On August second, twenty eleven, Stevens was briefly back in
Speaker 1: the US to provide an update on what he had
Speaker 1: learned about the TNC during his time in Benghazi. By then,
Speaker 1: it had been almost six months since the started, but
Speaker 1: as Stevens told reporters, there was no indication that Gaddafi
Speaker 1: was going to step down or leave Tripley.
Speaker 15: What is your.
Speaker 5: Sense of how much longer the sort of conflict is
Speaker 5: likely to go on before Kadafi leaves? I mean three months,
Speaker 5: six months, a year.
Speaker 23: I wouldn't want to put a date on it, but
Speaker 23: all I can say is that, you know, the world
Speaker 23: has lined up against him, and his bas is shrinking,
Speaker 23: and the tnc forces are closing in around him, and
Speaker 23: so are sanctions and other things. So I think everybody
Speaker 23: agrees it's a matter of time.
Speaker 1: Later that month, the rebels took Tripli, and Gaddafi had
Speaker 1: no choice but to flee.
Speaker 11: Libby and leader Momark. Adafi's defenses are collapsing and his
Speaker 11: regime appears to be crumbling fast. According to a rebel leader,
Speaker 11: the unit in charge of protecting Dadafi and Tripoli has
Speaker 11: surrendered and joined the revolt, allowing the opposition force to
Speaker 11: move into TRIPLEI.
Speaker 1: In Gaddafi's absence, rebels breached his compound, set fire to
Speaker 1: his tent, and carried off souvenirs, including thick gold jewelry
Speaker 1: and a green golf cart. They also raided Gaddafi's stash
Speaker 1: of weapons. The next day, rebels busted the locks of
Speaker 1: the blue cast iron doors of the Abu Salim prison
Speaker 1: in Tripoli and set the remaining inmates free. The rebels
Speaker 1: went cell to sell, breaking the locks with hammers until
Speaker 1: the prison was an empty shell. After their release, more
Speaker 1: than one hundred former prisoners found their way back home
Speaker 1: to Benghazi. Just six months earlier, Colonel Gaddafi's son, Camise,
Speaker 1: had been in Chicago sitting on lectures by Deepak Chopra,
Speaker 1: now the senior rebel commander, telling cn in Gaddafi's son
Speaker 1: Kamis is dead.
Speaker 16: The military commander is said to have died during a
Speaker 16: battle in northwest Libya.
Speaker 1: A man claiming to be one of Camisa's bodyguards told
Speaker 1: reporters that Gaddafi's son had been killed in a NATO airstrike.
Speaker 1: Brian Linville, who had accompanied Camis during his US visit,
Speaker 1: wasn't sure how to feel about the news.
Speaker 7: Sadness isn't the right term, but maybe disappointment because when
Speaker 7: I knew him, up to that point of early February,
Speaker 7: his unit had not committed atrocities. He didn't have blood
Speaker 7: on his hands. I had to contrast that in my
Speaker 7: mind that, you know, at this one moment in February,
Speaker 7: it seems so promising, and then something was lost, not
Speaker 7: just an opportunity, but something was lost.
Speaker 1: That fall, Hillary Clinton visited Tripoli to make a show
Speaker 1: of support for the TNC.
Speaker 15: This is Libya's moment, this is Libya's victory, and the
Speaker 15: future belongs to you.
Speaker 1: During her trip, Clinton toured the new US embassy. In
Speaker 1: her memoir, she wrote that she heard gunshot in the
Speaker 1: distance and wondered if it was fighting or celebration. The
Speaker 1: embassy staff seemed quite used to it by now.
Speaker 4: She wrote.
Speaker 1: Two days later, on October twentieth, Clinton was in Cobble, Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and during a break from a taped interview, she was
Speaker 1: handed a BlackBerry.
Speaker 13: Wow confirmed unconfirmed NC now unconfirmed reports about Kadafi being
Speaker 13: captured unconfirmed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had too many.
Speaker 13: We've we've had a bunch of those before. We've had,
Speaker 13: you know, have him, have had him captured a couple
Speaker 13: of times.
Speaker 1: Then it became official, Mummar Gaddafi was dead. We came, we.
Speaker 15: Saw he died. Didn't have anything to do with your
Speaker 15: visit now I'm sure did.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately, cell phone footage emerged of Kadafi being beaten
Speaker 1: by his captors. Words spread that he had been tortured
Speaker 1: and sodomized and shot in the head. Afterwards, his body
Speaker 1: was taken to a meat locker where Libyans took photos
Speaker 1: of his corpse. Again, the State Department's Jeff Feltman.
Speaker 4: I mean, there was a sense of horror how he
Speaker 4: was killed. These were not the sorts of methods that
Speaker 4: the TNC had said that they would be using to
Speaker 4: bring to accountability members of the former regime. But there
Speaker 4: was also a sense of relief that it would probably
Speaker 4: be harder to have a sustained insurrection against the change
Speaker 4: in Libya.
Speaker 1: Emon Bugegis, the Libyan orthodonist turned revolutionary, had mixed emotions too.
Speaker 10: It was a relief that okay, that's it, our country
Speaker 10: is liberated. And it was a heavy price. But what
Speaker 10: happened after that to him, it was said, But what
Speaker 10: he was doing and what he was implanting of hate
Speaker 10: and revenge, and what happened to him, there was no
Speaker 10: other way, you know. He forced that. He didn't want
Speaker 10: to surrender, he didn't want to leave country.
Speaker 1: What did you think would happen next.
Speaker 10: We were hoping that with the elections then a democratic
Speaker 10: government will come and things will change and for the better.
Speaker 10: It didn't happen.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 24: Six months after the uprising against Momar Kadafi, Libya is
Speaker 24: flooded with weapons and faces a potential power vacuum.
Speaker 1: After Kadafi's death, the political situation in Libya was delegate.
Speaker 24: The former prime minister who led the fight against the colonel,
Speaker 24: believes the country is now at risk of being taken
Speaker 24: over by extremists. Mahmud Jabriel also says it's the result
Speaker 24: of NATO abandoning Libya after the former regime was toppled.
Speaker 20: After the regime filled out most of the Western countries,
Speaker 20: that the mission has been accomplished. They neglect the fact
Speaker 20: that Libya is a stateless site. Any political vircuum can
Speaker 20: be filled by anybody, you know, and it's a fertile soil,
Speaker 20: you know, for xumism to grow.
Speaker 1: That was the state of play. Chris Stevens inherited in
Speaker 1: May of twenty twelve when he was confirmed as the
Speaker 1: new US ambassador to post Gaddafi Libya.
Speaker 22: Asala Malikum.
Speaker 9: My name is Chris Stevens, and I'm the new US
Speaker 9: Ambassador to Libya.
Speaker 1: In a video posted to the embassy's YouTube account, Stevens
Speaker 1: expressed hope that the US could help Libya achieve democracy
Speaker 1: Libyan Hospital. Standing on a roof with a view of Washington,
Speaker 1: DC behind him, he invited Libyans to imagine a better future.
Speaker 9: Over my shoulder, here you can see the US Capitol Building.
Speaker 9: In that building, five hundred and thirty five elected representatives
Speaker 9: from every corner of America come together to debate the
Speaker 9: issues of the day. There are men and women from
Speaker 9: every religious, ethnic and family background. I look forward to
Speaker 9: watching Libya develop equally strong institutions of government.
Speaker 1: Libyans were anxious to get their new government going to
Speaker 1: and elections for the new General National Congress were set
Speaker 1: for July seventh, twenty twelve. As the date approached, some Americans,
Speaker 1: as well as liberal minded Libyans, feared that strict ultra
Speaker 1: conservative Islamists would take a majority in the new government.
Speaker 1: There was something else on their minds, too, militias. For
Speaker 1: a year and a half, militia groups had fought together
Speaker 1: to defeat Gadathi. Now that their common enemy was gone,
Speaker 1: they were almost like gangs, each one vuying to control
Speaker 1: their turf. Hospitals, airports, even oil fields fell under the
Speaker 1: control of various militias, and because the new leadership of
Speaker 1: Libya needed time to rebuild a formal military and police force,
Speaker 1: the TNC essentially put the militias in charge of security,
Speaker 1: even putting them on the public payroll. Here again is
Speaker 1: former Resistant Secretary of State Jeff Veltman.
Speaker 4: We knew that we did not know enough about the militias.
Speaker 4: We still thought that with the proper support, that the
Speaker 4: civilian leadership would be able to knit this back together.
Speaker 1: The problem was the militias all had different interests, different loyalties,
Speaker 1: different ideologies, and thanks to the TNC, they were all
Speaker 1: flush with money, as well as guns that had been
Speaker 1: taken from Gaddafi's armories for foreigners. It added up to
Speaker 1: a simmering sense of danger in Benghazi, and on June sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, that danger revealed itself when the American diplomatic
Speaker 1: compound was targeted with a homemade bomb.
Speaker 7: One evening, somebody placed a bomb outside inn exterior wall
Speaker 7: of the compound and blew probably a man sized hole
Speaker 7: in it.
Speaker 1: Colonel Brian Linville again and.
Speaker 7: Of course, we took this very seriously, and the embassy
Speaker 7: team huddled to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Ambassador Stevens, now based in Tripoli, gathered his tea for
Speaker 1: an emergency meeting to discuss the attack. Stevens made it
Speaker 1: clear he felt strongly that the US needed people in
Speaker 1: Benghazi despite the apparent risks.
Speaker 7: You can't understand the story of Libya if you don't
Speaker 7: know what's going on in Benghazi, and Chris knew that
Speaker 7: if we shut down operations in Benghazi, we would be blind.
Speaker 7: We missed the commencement of the Libyan revolution because we
Speaker 7: didn't have a presence in Benghazi. We didn't know what
Speaker 7: was going on there. And I know Chris was loath
Speaker 7: to give that up because it would have crippled our
Speaker 7: ability to understand the Libyan story. If we gave up
Speaker 7: on Benghazi, we were giving up on Libya. He didn't
Speaker 7: want to do that.
Speaker 1: Not everyone at the embassy agreed with Stevens.
Speaker 7: There were voices of descent saying that this is too much,
Speaker 7: we need to get out, But the prevailing voice was
Speaker 7: that we would try to stick it out and as
Speaker 7: best we could address the security situation. It wasn't like
Speaker 7: we did nothing.
Speaker 1: Stevens wanted to keep the Bengazi mission open despite the
Speaker 1: security risks. He knew that in addition to the homemade bomb,
Speaker 1: there had been an attack on a UN officials convoy
Speaker 1: in another on a Red Cross building. In fact, Stevens
Speaker 1: had flagged the increase in violence in his communications with DC.
Speaker 1: Stevens also took steps to fortify the ben Ghazi compound.
Speaker 1: He deployed security officers from Tripoli to figure out ways
Speaker 1: the mission could be better protected, and he talked with
Speaker 1: Libyan authorities about increasing the presence of the militia that
Speaker 1: had been hired to help guard the compound. They were
Speaker 1: called the February seventeenth Martyrs Brigade, named after the day
Speaker 1: the Libyan revolution started.
Speaker 7: He didn't ignore the threat by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 7: but he tried to mitigate it instead of avoiding it
Speaker 7: all together and pulling out. You know, in retrospect, that
Speaker 7: would have been our moment to shut down operation to Benghazi.
Speaker 1: The warning signs kept coming. Shortly after the bomb attack
Speaker 1: at the compound, a parade of trucks drove through Benghazi
Speaker 1: flying black flags. It was a rally of at least
Speaker 1: fifteen different militia groups demanding that the new Libyan government
Speaker 1: be based on Sharia law.
Speaker 12: What are you marching for today?
Speaker 14: What are your protesting?
Speaker 18: We need cherry Alo to kill them, Kufa to kill
Speaker 18: the infidels.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 22: Yes.
Speaker 1: After one month after that Islamist rally, Libyans voted in
Speaker 1: their country's first free elections since Gadafi's death. The State
Speaker 1: Department considered it a success, with sixty two percent of
Speaker 1: the eligible population turning out to vote and the vast
Speaker 1: majority of polling places reporting no incidents of violence.
Speaker 24: This is what all of the fighting in Libya was
Speaker 24: about last year, not just the removal of Ghadafi, but
Speaker 24: the chance to choose a democratically elected government.
Speaker 1: Despite predictions of an Islamist victory, Mahmoud Jabriel's party dramatic
Speaker 1: outperformed more conservative parties in what was considered a landslide
Speaker 1: for the moderates.
Speaker 10: It's a journing point in theory of Lydia.
Speaker 19: Most people in Libya are savoring their new democratic rights.
Speaker 6: The many challenges ahead about what exactly they're going to
Speaker 6: do with them can wait until after the election.
Speaker 1: Party It was about two months later in September of
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, that Ambassador Chris Stevens decided to leave the
Speaker 1: US Embassy in Tripoli and visit Benghazi. Stevens would arrive
Speaker 1: on Monday, September tenth, and he would have several days
Speaker 1: of meetings with the Benghazi City Council and various business leaders.
Speaker 1: Stevens planned the trip despite warnings from the head diplomatic
Speaker 1: security agent in Tripoli, who was concerned about the escalating
Speaker 1: violence and tension in Benghazi. Friends who were in touch
Speaker 1: with Stephens shortly before his trip remember him being excited
Speaker 1: to return to a place he loved.
Speaker 4: Chris comes across as this really nice, embracing California surfer dude.
Speaker 4: People can underestimate his intelligence because of just the persona
Speaker 4: he had. I have to say, I don't want to
Speaker 4: play blame the victim here, but I do wonder about
Speaker 4: that twenty twelve Benghazi trip. I mean, of course we
Speaker 4: would all think about it, given the horror of what
Speaker 4: happened to my friend.
Speaker 16: Chris.
Speaker 1: Stevens did take precautions, making no advanced announcement of a
Speaker 1: trip and traveling with a larger than usual group of
Speaker 1: diplomatic security agents. He was supposed to be back in
Speaker 1: Tripoli by Friday. On the next episode of Fiasco, Chris Stevens'
Speaker 1: trip to Benghazi is halted by violence and tragedy.
Speaker 3: Scott Wicklum does this several times, you know, to search
Speaker 3: for his colleagues, and I remember him saying that if
Speaker 3: he went in one more time, he would die.
Speaker 1: For a list of books, articles and documentaries we used
Speaker 1: in our research, Hello the link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Fiasco is a production of Prolog Projects, and it's distributed
Speaker 1: by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,
Speaker 1: Ulla Kulpa, Sam Lee and me Leon Mayfock, with editorial
Speaker 1: support from Sam Graham Felsen and Madeline Kaplan. Our researcher
Speaker 1: was Francis Carr. Our score was composed by Dan English,
Speaker 1: Joe Valley and Noah Hect. Additional music by Nick se
Speaker 1: Levester and Joel Saint Julian. Our theme song is by
Speaker 1: Spatial Relations audio mixed by Rob Buyers, Michael Raphael and
Speaker 1: Johnny Vince Evans. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at
Speaker 1: Chips and y Copyright Council provided by Peter Yassi at
Speaker 1: Yasi Butler PLLC. Thanks to archive dot Org. Mifen Alba,
Speaker 1: Peter bartu Aa, Buruela Ben Fishman, Baker habib Anna, Lynnville
Speaker 1: Ian Martin Ismaele, Sweya Murad Idris and Frederick Warehe Victual.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Lubinary and thank you for listening.