13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff Page B
Authors: Mitchell Zuckoff
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the Diplomatic Security Service, to safeguard the Secretary of State and visiting dignitaries, everyone from Yasser Arafat to the Dalai Lama. On US soil, those DS agents also issued security clearances, conducted cybersecurity investigations, and battled passport and visa fraud. The larger and usually dicier role for Diplomatic Security agents fell beyond American borders.
Globally, some eight hundred DS staff agents, supplemented by more than thirty thousand security contractors, oversaw the safe conduct of American foreign policy. Their job was to protect personnel and sensitive information at roughly 275 diplomatic outposts in 157 countries. The job was endless. Between 1998 and 2012, one governmentstudy found, US diplomatic facilities and personnel came under “significant” attack 273 times, not including almost constant assaults on the US Embassy in Baghdad since 2004.
DS agents assigned a threat level to every diplomatic outpost, based on six categories: international terrorism, indigenous terrorism, political violence, crime, human intelligence, and technical threat. The threat levels were low, medium, high, or critical. The last two were defined as having “serious” or “grave” impact on American diplomats. During 2012, more than half of all American diplomatic posts around the world were considered “critical” or “high” for the threat of terrorism. However, only fourteen were considered dangerous enough for the DS to deem the threat level “critical” or “high” in every category. Two of those were in Libya: Tripoli and Benghazi.
For the DS agents in Libya, one of the biggest events in the summer of 2012 was a five-day visit to Benghazi, starting September 10, being planned by Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who normally was based at the embassy in Tripoli.
To help the DS agents in advance of Stevens’s visit, the Annex’s GRS operators conducted a security assessment at the Special Mission Compound, where Stevens would stay. During the review, Tanto asked the DS agents how many security team members they’d have on hand when the ambassador visited, not including local militiamen or other Libyans hired as guards. Five, they told him, each armed with an M4 assault rifle, a mainstay weapon of the US military. Tanto learned that the DS agents collectively had about a dozen years of military experience. He knewthat the Annex operators had closer to one hundred years of collective military and contracting experience, much of it on elite security teams. The GRS team also had larger and more powerful weapons.
“If you guys get attacked by any big element,” Tanto told them, “you’re going to die.” Realizing that he’d come across stronger than intended, Tanto reassured the DS agents: “If you need assistance, we’re going to help you.”
During the first week of September, with the ambassador’s visit just days away, Rone put his nursing and paramedic training to use by offering a refresher medical course for all Annex staffers. He walked them through the proper field response to gunshot wounds, explosion injuries, and other traumas. After a classroom session in Building D, Rone set up a practical exercise outside, using Jack as the “victim” in a scenario in which he supposedly was hit by a grenade. Ketchup substituted for blood on Jack’s bare leg. Rone instructed everyone how to properly use a tourniquet and to safely evacuate a victim.
Another day, Rone and Jack drove to the diplomatic Compound with Bob, the Annex base chief. While Bob attended a meeting, Jack and Rone sat at an outdoor table under a covered patio with two DS agents, David Ubben and Scott Wickland. Ubben was a big guy, about six foot four and 250 pounds, with dark hair and a handlebar mustache that he was growing as part of a competition among the State Department security agents. Wickland stood about five foot ten, with a medium build, sandy-brown hair, and light eyes. The wispy fuzz on his upper lip
Globally, some eight hundred DS staff agents, supplemented by more than thirty thousand security contractors, oversaw the safe conduct of American foreign policy. Their job was to protect personnel and sensitive information at roughly 275 diplomatic outposts in 157 countries. The job was endless. Between 1998 and 2012, one governmentstudy found, US diplomatic facilities and personnel came under “significant” attack 273 times, not including almost constant assaults on the US Embassy in Baghdad since 2004.
DS agents assigned a threat level to every diplomatic outpost, based on six categories: international terrorism, indigenous terrorism, political violence, crime, human intelligence, and technical threat. The threat levels were low, medium, high, or critical. The last two were defined as having “serious” or “grave” impact on American diplomats. During 2012, more than half of all American diplomatic posts around the world were considered “critical” or “high” for the threat of terrorism. However, only fourteen were considered dangerous enough for the DS to deem the threat level “critical” or “high” in every category. Two of those were in Libya: Tripoli and Benghazi.
For the DS agents in Libya, one of the biggest events in the summer of 2012 was a five-day visit to Benghazi, starting September 10, being planned by Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who normally was based at the embassy in Tripoli.
To help the DS agents in advance of Stevens’s visit, the Annex’s GRS operators conducted a security assessment at the Special Mission Compound, where Stevens would stay. During the review, Tanto asked the DS agents how many security team members they’d have on hand when the ambassador visited, not including local militiamen or other Libyans hired as guards. Five, they told him, each armed with an M4 assault rifle, a mainstay weapon of the US military. Tanto learned that the DS agents collectively had about a dozen years of military experience. He knewthat the Annex operators had closer to one hundred years of collective military and contracting experience, much of it on elite security teams. The GRS team also had larger and more powerful weapons.
“If you guys get attacked by any big element,” Tanto told them, “you’re going to die.” Realizing that he’d come across stronger than intended, Tanto reassured the DS agents: “If you need assistance, we’re going to help you.”
During the first week of September, with the ambassador’s visit just days away, Rone put his nursing and paramedic training to use by offering a refresher medical course for all Annex staffers. He walked them through the proper field response to gunshot wounds, explosion injuries, and other traumas. After a classroom session in Building D, Rone set up a practical exercise outside, using Jack as the “victim” in a scenario in which he supposedly was hit by a grenade. Ketchup substituted for blood on Jack’s bare leg. Rone instructed everyone how to properly use a tourniquet and to safely evacuate a victim.
Another day, Rone and Jack drove to the diplomatic Compound with Bob, the Annex base chief. While Bob attended a meeting, Jack and Rone sat at an outdoor table under a covered patio with two DS agents, David Ubben and Scott Wickland. Ubben was a big guy, about six foot four and 250 pounds, with dark hair and a handlebar mustache that he was growing as part of a competition among the State Department security agents. Wickland stood about five foot ten, with a medium build, sandy-brown hair, and light eyes. The wispy fuzz on his upper lip
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