US commandos who tried to save Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans during the 2012 Benghazi attack write in a new book that the CIA station chief held up the rescue attempt, the New York Times reports.
Five commandos — who were former Special Operations forces and hired by the CIA as private contractors — say the station chief ordered them to wait 20 minutes before heading to the US diplomatic mission.
In the book “13 Hours,” obtained by the Times, the commandos say they eventually disregarded the station chief’s order after a plea for help.
“If you guys do not get here, we are going to die!” a diplomatic security agent shouted to them over the radio, the commandos write, and they left the base despite the order to “stand down.”
The book is scheduled for release next week, two years after the attack that left Stevens and three other Americans dead.
The station chief likely issued the “stand down” order on his own authority, the Times said.
The report also notes the book’s story matches previous narratives and statements about the timeline of the attack. US officials, for instance, previously said the CIA security team was told to wait for support from Libyan militia allies.
“Hey, we gotta go now! We’re losing the initiative!” one commando says he objected to the station chief, who he says replied, “No, stand down, you need to wait.”
“We are going to have the local militia handle it,” the chief said later, according to the commandos.
A journalism professor from Boston University wrote the book. Three of the commandos are named — Mark Geist, John Tiegen and Kris Paronto — and the two others used pseudonyms. The Hill
What better way to rid yourself prime mover and material witness to more American perfidy? It seems that Stevens was the party that planned and executed the sending of Libyan heavy weapons to Syria and into the hands of the Syrian rebels (now of course in the hands of ISIS). This was an illegal transaction and the US knew it but did it anyway. The CIA were probably looking to silence whoever was involved in the matter and this attack on the US consulate just fell right into place. Lucky huh?