Who Was At Fault For The Benghazi Incident

Katelyn Kennedy
Professor Tiede
English 1101
14 November 2015
The Benghazi Incident In 2012, on September 11th, a group of militants attacked on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This resulted in four deaths that may have been preventable. Many will argue that this is the fault of Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state at that time. Hillary Clinton is not at fault for the Benghazi incident because Ambassador Stevens did not want increased security, Clinton was not aware of the CIA safe house, and the tragedy could not have been foreseen. First of all, one of the men killed was Ambassador Chris Stevens who did not want more security on the compound. Ambassador Chris Stevens was in a safe room and died of smoke inhalation after the compound

A major argument that the other side will take is that there was a CIA annex near the consulate that included former special ops personnel that consular officials including Stevens saw as the “cavalry.” That group of operatives did play an important role in getting the remaining 55 consular personnel out of Benghazi but in the end could not protect Stevens. (Whitehouse.gov) Many will argue that Clinton should have had better security arrangements. However, CIA safe houses are extremely covert. The Senate report makes clear that neither the US military nor Secretary Clinton were aware of its existence. Since Clinton was not told the details of what security arrangements were in place she had no basis for questioning them. It is clear that there was something covert about the entire US operation in Benghazi, which means that the CIA director David Petraeus, who had the knowledge and connections to broaden security measures, was probably more at fault than Hillary was. (Zuckoff) Lastly, while the Senate felt that the tragedy was preventable, it was impossible for Clinton to have foreseen the event. There was not any reason for Ambassador Stevens or Secretary Clinton to fear that the revolutionaries, whom they had aided, would betray them. However, a small radical group with old grievances against the US attacked Stevens for his heroic role in the Libyan Revolution, and that could not have been foreseen. This small group was