Pentagon decided not to send troops to Benghazi during attack

WASHINGTON -- U.S. military commanders decided against sending a rescue mission to Benghazi during the attack against the American diplomatic mission last month because they didn’t have enough clear intelligence to justify the risk to the troops, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Thursday.

Panetta, in his fullest comments yet on the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, said Pentagon officials were aware of the assault by armed militants soon after it began Sept. 11. But he said they never had more than fragmentary information during the course of the attack.

The “basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s taking place,” Panetta told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. “This happened within a few hours, and it was really over before we had the opportunity to really know what was happening.”

He said he, Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all believed“very strongly that we could not put troops at risk in that situation.”

Panetta’s comments came after House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) released a letter he had sent to President Obama demanding more details of the administration’s handling of the incident, including the military response.

Panetta said there was “a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on.”

The Defense secretary and other senior Pentagon officials were at the White House that afternoon for a previously scheduled meeting. Later that evening, they decided to order two warships to the coast of Libya and send a special operations team from Central Europe to Sicily to be closer to Benghazi.

But because of the lack of precise information, they didn't make that decision until after the attack was over, officials said. A small team of soldiers flew to Benghazi from Tripoli, 400 miles away, and ultimately helped evacuate about two dozen diplomats and other embassy employees.

Republicans have sought to portray the attack as a symbol of a failed administration policy. U.S. officials have said they had no credible intelligence indicating that an attack was being planned in Benghazi.

The incident is under investigation by House and Senate committees, the FBI and a special State Department review panel.

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Photo: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey answer questions at a Pentagon news conference on Oct. 25, 2012, about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images

Suspect in Libya consulate attack killed in Cairo, reports say

CAIRO -- A gunman reportedly linked to the militant attack last month on the U.S. mission in Libya was killed in a shootout with police in Cairo on Wednesday, according Egyptian state TV and independent news media.  

The Egypt Independent newspaper reported that the man, whom security officials identified only as Hazem, was described as a terrorist. The newspaper and the state TV website said the heavily armed suspect was killed after a long gun battle with police in the Nasr City section of Cairo.

The reports could not be independently confirmed, and there were conflicting reports over the incident.

“Security authorities said they had acquired information implicating the man of involvement in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi,” the newspaper reported. The attack on the consulate in September killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

State TV and the Egypt Independent reported that the suspect died in an apartment during the gunfight and a fire. Police reportedly seized bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition from the scene.

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Rights group: Libya didn't investigate deaths of Kadafi loyalists

Despite promises to do so, Libya has failed to investigate the deaths of scores of people loyal to late strongman Moammar Kadafi, who appear to have been executed after his capture last year in “a bloody revenge,” Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday.

The report sheds new light on the downfall of Kadafi in October 2011 and its aftermath. Though exactly how the Libyan leader was killed remains murky, the rights group argues that videos and other evidence indicate vengeful militias from the city of Misurata captured, disarmed and executed at least 66 people from his convoy at a hotel in Surt that same day.

Many of the corpses had their hands tied behind their backs, it reported. Videos of Kadafi's son Mutassim suggest he was taken to Misurata and killed, Human Rights Watch said. Footage of Moammar Kadafi himself calls into question whether he was killed in crossfire, showing militia fighters stabbing his buttocks with a bayonet.

“We understood there needed to be a trial, but we couldn’t control everyone,” Eastern Coast militia brigade commander Khalid Ahmed Raid told the rights group. “Some acted beyond our control.”

Swiss freeze $1 billion tied to leaders targeted in Arab Spring

Switzerland has frozen more than $1 billion connected to leaders who were toppled or are still being battled in Arab Spring uprisings, a top Swiss official told reporters Tuesday.

The bulk of the money -- more than $750 million -- was stashed away by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his associates, Valentin Zellweger said at a briefing in Geneva. The rest is tied to Syrian President Bashar Assad, former Tunisian leader Zine el Abidine ben Ali and the late Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi, according to news reports.

Zellweger, who heads the international law department at the Swiss Foreign Ministry, told reporters that the money "is blocked in the framework of Arab Spring," the Associated Press reported. The government reportedly began freezing the funds in early 2011, as protests began to sweep the Middle East.

In times of political upheaval, the Swiss government can freeze the assets of political leaders and their entourages in order to stop money deposited in Switzerland from being shunted elsewhere, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The ultimate goal is to return any pilfered funds to their countries.

Switzerland has sought to shake off its image as the banker to scofflaws. "The Swiss government has made it very clear that funds of illegal origin are not welcome in Switzerland," Zellweger told Reuters television.

Turning the money over to Arab Spring countries could take years, as Swiss authorities pore over evidence that the money was illegally acquired before attempting to return it.

In the past, Switzerland has sent back money from the late leaders Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, among other cases.

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Photo: Valentin Zellweger, head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry's international law department, speaks at a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. Credit: Salvatore Di Nolfi / Keystone / Associated Press

Secretary of State Clinton takes responsibility for deadly attack in Libya

 
WASHINGTON -- As criticism mounted on the Obama administration, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acted Monday to shield the president from blame for the deadly September attack on a U.S. mission in Libya, saying that any fault lies with her as America’s top diplomat.

“I take responsibility,” Clinton told a CNN interviewer during a trip to Peru.

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed Sept. 11 when dozens of heavily armed men drove up in a convoy and attacked and burned the thinly protected U.S. diplomatic mission and a nearby annex in Benghazi, Libya. 

Two State Department security officers who served in Libya this year told a House oversight hearing last week that they had requested an extension of a 16-member military team at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, several hundred miles away from Benghazi, but that mid-level State Department officers in Washington had rejected the request.

In addition to the congressional probe, the State Department has convened a formal review of the assault, and the FBI has sent agents to Libya to conduct a criminal investigation.

Libyan lawmakers choose ex-diplomat as prime minister

TRIPOLI, Libya -- Libyan lawmakers selected Ali Zidan as prime minister Sunday night, giving the former human rights lawyer and diplomat responsibility for forming the volatile nation’s first government since the revolution that toppled Moammar Kadafi.

The selection of Zidan came a week after the parliament fired the previous prime minister, Mustafa Abushagur, whose cabinet nominees were met with protests and illustrated Libya’s regional and tribal divisions.

Zidan is expected to move quickly to name a cabinet to deal with Libya’s many pressing challenges, including the investigation of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in the eastern city of Benghazi, which killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The attack highlighted the security troubles plaguing Libya, where former revolutionary militias are serving as the de facto army and police until national security forces can be rebuilt following Kadafi’s four-decade rule.

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Photo: A Syrian rebel during fighting against Syrian government forces in Aleppo on Thursday. Credit: Zac Baillie / AFP/Getty Images

International court weighs whether Libya can try Kadafi son

The International Criminal Court opened a hearing Tuesday over the fate of the son of the late Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, who stands accused of crimes against humanity. Yet the question before the international court was not his guilt or innocence –- but where to try him.

The international court is supposed to be a court of last resort, used only when countries are unwilling or unable to fairly try the alleged perpetrators of grave crimes themselves. Libya wants to try Seif Islam Kadafi in its own courts, rather than handing him over to be tried in The Hague.

Where he is tried could mean the difference between life and death. If Kadafi is tried in Libya, he is widely expected to face the death penalty, a punishment that isn't handed down by the international court.

Government attorneys have argued the case represents a "historical opportunity to eradicate the long-standing culture of impunity" in Libya after the rule of his father, the Libyan strongman who was toppled and killed last year. The country should be allowed to handle the case itself to further that quest, they say.

"Libya is fully committed to continuing to treat Mr. Kadafi humanely and with full respect to his right to a fair trial," the attorneys wrote in a court submission in September.

Outside experts and court attorneys have questioned in the past whether Libya would be able to do so, worried that the case could be colored by the quest for revenge rather than justice. That question was thrown into even sharper focus this summer when an attorney chosen to defend Seif Islam Kadafi was accused of espionage and detained more than three weeks along with three other court staffers.

After being freed, attorney Melinda Taylor said it was impossible for her client to get a fair trial in Libya, saying his rights had been "irrevocably prejudiced during my visit." Libyan authorities deliberately misled the defense team about whether their visit with Kadafi would be monitored and illegally seized documents that should have been protected, Taylor asserted.

More Americans want to cut aid to Egypt after embassy attack

Nearly 3 out of 4 Americans surveyed think the United States should reduce its aid to Egypt or cut it off entirely after angry protesters pulled down the American flag at its Cairo embassy last month.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes poll found most Americans did not think that the majority of Egyptians backed the assault on the Cairo embassy, where protesters scaled a wall and pulled down the flag after furious protests over a film mocking the Islamic prophet. Almost two-thirds of Americans surveyed said “the violent actions were only supported by extremist minorities,” it found.

However, Americans were also deeply dissatisfied with how Egyptian authorities handled the assault. Less than one-third of Americans surveyed said the Egyptian government had tried to find and arrest the perpetrators, and less than half believed it had criticized the attack.

The Egyptian government did say the riot was unacceptable, but President Mohamed Morsi was criticized for his delayed remarks on the attack. The belief that Egypt has done too little to protect the embassy, in turn, appears to have soured many Americans on providing aid to Egypt.

The U.S. government provides the Egyptian military with more than $1 billion in assistance annually, despite restrictions on political rights that would ordinarily block such aid. Most Egyptians oppose the outside support, fearful it gives the U.S. undue influence on Egyptian sovereignty, a Gallup poll found this year.

Libyan lawmakers remove prime minister from post

BENGHAZI, Libya — Lawmakers removed Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur from his post Sunday after rejecting his choice of cabinet ministers in the latest setback to Libya’s first elected government since the fall of Moammar Kadafi.

The parliament decisively voted down Abushagur’s proposal for a 10-member emergency cabinet to run the country for six months, three days after protesters stormed the national assembly to oppose his choice for a full cabinet because they claimed their cities were underrepresented.

Lawmakers will have to select a new prime minister, a process that could take several weeks while the country continues to suffer from lawlessness and drift after the eight-month civil war that toppled Kadafi last October. One potential candidate could be Mahmoud Jibril, the former transitional prime minister whom Abushagur edged out in winning the post.

The deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in eastern Libya underscored the country’s security vacuum, with heavily armed militants easily overrunning the compound and then disappeared into the night. Libyan authorities did not name any suspects, though an undisclosed number reportedly have been detained, and U.S. investigators visited the site for the first time last week after lengthy delays in obtaining approval from authorities in the capital, Tripoli.