bret: water and to keep your team on the ground, the team that was in place already. my team was only a small part. there was state department. that stands for mobile security detachment team. a lot of those are ex-green beret and ex-navy seals. there were three teams on the ground there. august 25th, state decides not to get keep the sst libya the mst team is reduced, as well. why do you think the request was denied? i don t know. john bolton. i think what was motivating the state department was in f we had security that truly been appropriate it would have been admission conditions on the ground in libya were not safe. that would have violated the world view that this had been an administration success. bret: august 8th, three days
as i could see it, i could they were stronger and we were last on the target list. all told there have been 230 security incidents in libya in the last year. ambassador stevens grows more and more worried. he says so in a series of cables sent to washington like this one on june 25th entitled libya s fragile security deteriorates as tribal arrive risen tense ties. libyan extremists shall targeting international organizations and foreign interests. that is why wood, and eric nordstrom implored the state department to keep woods sst force in the country beyond the scheduled august departure. we weren t requesting additional security. we were requesting to keep the security we had. that was being taken away.
libyan extremists shall targeting international organizations and foreign interests. that is why wood, and eric nordstrom implored the state department to keep woods sst force in the country beyond the scheduled august departure. we weren t requesting additional security. we were requesting to keep the security we had. that was being taken away. bret: water and to keep your team on the ground, the team that was in place already. my team was only a small part. there was state department. that stands for mobile security detachment team. a lot of those are ex-green beret and ex-navy seals. there were three teams on the ground there. august 25th, state decides not to get keep the sst libya
photographs, out of the vehicle. they knew what they were doing and it was an assassination attempt. as i could see it i could see the adversary growing longer. we were the last thing on the target list. in the past year there had been more than 230 security incidents in libya. it was apparent toowood that terrorists are working on increasingly bigger plots. i had seen instances prior to that. i a i saw a series of things building towards additional attacks. that s why wood and eric nordstrom the regional security officer implored the state department to keep woods sst force in libya beyond the scheduled august departure. we weren t requesting additional. we were requesting to keep the security we had. that was being taken away.
we had been training local libyans and arming them for almost a year. let me interrupt. why do you think the request was denied? i don t know. i really don t know. in the case of the s.s.t., that was provided to them by d.o.d. the state department didn t have to pay money. i can t imagine why. i can t fill in the blank. that is part of what was trying to come out of a congressional investigation. were you flabbergasted like what can we do? we couldn t even keep what we had. i think what was motivating the state department was that if we had security that would have truly been appropriate, it would have been an admission that conditions on the ground in libya were not safe. and that would have violated the world view that this had been an administration success. bret: you left libya in august. less than a month before the attack. august 14. bret: how did you feel about the security situation when you left? i didn t like it.