In the hectic hours during last year’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty and six others used $30,000 in cash bribes to get a small commercial jet to fly them from Tripoli and Benghazi to help embattled Americans there.
That was the only plane to depart in time to make a difference during the Benghazi siege. This week, a State Department official is expected to testify to Congress that a Libyan C-130 with other U.S. Special Forces troops was later ordered to stand down for unknown reasons.
Doherty’s bold move got him to the battle, but it also led to the Encinitas man’s death along with three other Americans killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
As Congress again sifts through the details of Benghazi Wednesday and Thursday, a book by a San Diego former Navy SEAL offers a virtually minute-to-minute description of the attacks that killed Doherty.
Also killed were U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, CIA security contractor Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach and State Department official Sean Smith, a San Diego native.
The account, by former SEAL Brandon Webb and Army Ranger Jack Murphy, lays partial blame for the attack on poor communication between the Pentagon, CIA and State Department about each other’s missions in post-civil war Libya.
U.S. special-operations military hits against al-Qaeda in Libya probably sparked resentment that was taken out on the poorly guarded, makeshift consulate in Benghazi, they concluded.
But no one told Stevens about the military missions. Nor did they alert the CIA, which was searching Libyan black markets for dirty bombs after the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, affording to the account, called “Benghazi: The Definitive Report.”
“They had no idea that Special Operations missions would be kicking the hornets’ nest in Libya and therefore could not prepare for the fallout that would result,” according to the 80-page ebook, published in February by William Morrow. A hardcover edition is scheduled for later this year, Webb said this week.
Continue reading the review by Jeanette Steele at U-T San Diego.
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