this morning were only about the number of diplomatic security personnel. you re talking about physical barriers, physical additions to the compound. there were quite a few of those that were undertaken. how is it that mr. stevens did not know in december whether or not the compound was going to remain open? or do you think that was a joke he was making? well, i think if it were not an example of his sense of humor, it was also as part of the ongoing discussion about mission benghazi s future, which he went to great lengths to describe what he thought should be done. a lot of it was trying to decide could we afford it? could we maintain it? so there was an ongoing discussion and i think he knew he was going to be in line to go to tripoli, and he wanted to
discussions you had as it related to how long the benghazi mission itself was going it to last. i m putting up a map just because most of us really don t know much about libya. don t know much about the geography of libya. as we talked about these various communities, i don t think most people really realized. i want to share with you that wi know from my last round that chris stevens went into benghazi in april of 2011. i want to talk to you about what happened the rest of that year. just because there was a lot going on i thought it would be helpful to have this map. by mid-july our government formally reck newsed the tnc replacing the gadhafi regime. tnc was based in benghazi at that time. and then in august after the gadhafi government fell, gadhafi left tripoli where gadhafi had been head quartered and went into hiding in sirte.
conversations among his friends and associates that this guy is, as i once called him, an amateur, over his head, he s incompetent, and his by constitutional unable to really manage things. you explain in the book there was a deal, that the reason that bill went so heavily for him in 2012 is because they agreed during a golf game that bill would go all out for obama in 2012 even though he didn t like him and didn t think he deserved re-election, and he said so, if in return obama would promise to back hillary in 2016. that was the deal. and there was a big battle you chronicle in the book about how obama wanted hillary to take the fall on benghazi and bill was adamant, no way. what s never been report sed that after the president called hillary on that night when our benghazi mission was being attacked, and told her that he wanted hillary to put out this
iran, which is likely to be the big story of 2014, that he has tried a diplomatic initiative that has borne a little bit of fruit, and maybe the only way we can avoid another war in the middle east. and that on syria, there are some really ugly choices. there is nothing that is particularly attractive. and the story on benghazi this morning illustrates because some of the people who are responsible for the attack on the benghazi mission were those who have benefited from the u.s. nato strikes on libya. so our intervention in syria doesn t necessarily mean that those we like are going to win, and frankly, there aren t that many to like in syria on either side anymore. in syria, the main criticism you hear on multiple sides, not just from elliott abrams, is we waited too long to decide who to back, and now that vacuum is filled by islamists and the people we want to train have fled. you can t make a statement assad
iran, which is likely to be the big story of 2014, that he has tried a diplomatic initiative that has borne a little bit of fruit, and maybe the only way we can avoid another war in the middle east. and that on syria, there are some really ugly choices. there is nothing that is particularly attractive. and the story on benghazi this morning illustrates because some of the people who are responsible for the attack on the benghazi mission were those who have benefited from the u.s. nato strikes on libya. so our intervention in syria doesn t necessarily mean that those we like are going to win, and frankly, there aren t that many to like in syria on either side anymore. in syria, the main criticism you hear on multiple sides, not just from elliott abrams, is we waited too long to decide who to back, and now that vacuum is filled by islamists and the people we want to train have fled. you can t make a statement assad