transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:20] Previously on Fiasco.
Speaker 2:
[00:22] He's been called the world's number one terrorist, a madman who exports terrorism around the world. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Speaker 3:
[00:29] The first time in almost a quarter century, the US has diplomatic ties with Libya.
Speaker 4:
[00:34] We were sent out there and told just to go find what you can find.
Speaker 5:
[00:38] Chris Stevens was always willing to open a conversation with people from pretty scary Islamist backgrounds.
Speaker 6:
[00:47] Nobody demonstrated or protested in Gaddafi's Libya, but they didn't really care anymore. They'd lost everything.
Speaker 1:
[00:56] Hamis Gaddafi arrived in Houston, Texas on January 20th, 2011. While in town, Hamis, one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons, was scheduled to visit a Nassau facility and the port of Houston. There's a photo from the trip in which Hamis can be seen smiling with the chairman of the Houston Port Commission and 10 other men in suits. Hamis was around 30 at the time. In the photo, he looks sharp, wearing jeans and shiny weather shoes with a sport coat and a simple black necktie. Hamis' visit to Houston was part of a wide-ranging tour of the United States, sponsored by a large American infrastructure firm with business in Libya. According to Hamis' schedule, the trip was to include a VIP tour of Universal Studios and visits to Apple, Google and Intel. Whether he ended up doing all that, we don't know for sure. Because it wasn't reported on at the time, the specifics of what Hamis actually did in the United States are fuzzy. One of the few people who knows some of the details is Colonel Brian Linville.
Speaker 7:
[02:02] Hamis went to the United States not as a part of an official government function, per se. Instead, at that time, he was working on his master's degree at a school in Spain and was really interested in the business management aspects of the United States.
Speaker 1:
[02:25] At the time of Hamis' American safari, Linville was a foreign area officer in the US Army. He was living in Tripoli and serving as a diplomatic liaison to the Libyan military.
Speaker 7:
[02:36] Foreign area officers like myself refer to ourselves hyphenated as soldier diplomats because it really does incorporate the aspects of both and you can't separate the two.
Speaker 1:
[02:47] Linville accompanied Hamis on the part of his trip that was planned in coordination with the Department of Defense. The DOD had agreed to take Hamis on tours of the US Air Force Academy, West Point and the National Defense University. It fell to Linville to escort Hamis to each of those stops.
Speaker 7:
[03:04] I sincerely believe he wanted to go and observe and learn and take back something that might be to the benefit of his country, his military.
Speaker 1:
[03:14] For most of the trip, Hamis tried to keep his identity under wraps.
Speaker 7:
[03:19] He was extremely hesitant to allow himself to be identified as Gaddafi's son. Everywhere we went, he asked that we introduce him as Captain Hamis, not as Captain Gaddafi. He wanted to disassociate himself from any stigmas that might be associated with that name in the United States.
Speaker 8:
[03:39] Officials are saying no to Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Speaker 9:
[03:43] Does anybody think that Muammar Gaddafi is not a terrorist?
Speaker 8:
[03:46] This is a man who simply does not accept a responsibility for Libya's terrorist past.
Speaker 7:
[03:52] Hamis knew that we'd had a rocky past and his purpose wasn't to make waves or to ruffle any feathers.
Speaker 1:
[04:03] Hamis' American hosts didn't want to ruffle his feathers either. He and his brothers were important to the American government because they were widely understood to be the future of Libya. Whatever happened after Muammar Gaddafi eventually died, his sons would be a huge part of it. In the meantime, it was possible they could serve as a positive influence on their father.
Speaker 7:
[04:24] With Hamis, we knew that he had the potential to talk to his dad, and explain what he had seen, and encourage the Libyan government to make some changes.
Speaker 1:
[04:37] Not all of Gaddafi's sons inspired this kind of faith, or enjoyed equal standing in the eyes of the West.
Speaker 7:
[04:44] The Gaddafi boys were a motley assortment.
Speaker 1:
[04:46] Perhaps the most respected of the Gaddafi brothers was Saif al-Islam, whom you heard about in episode one.
Speaker 7:
[04:53] Saif al-Islam, as the heir apparent, took on a much larger role than his other brothers, and much more political role, whereas the other brothers struggled to find their way out.
Speaker 1:
[05:09] Those other brothers included Metossim, who once paid Beyoncé a rumored $2 million to perform at a New Year's Eve concert in St. Barts. And Saadi, who was caught using steroids during a stint as a professional soccer player in Italy. By comparison, Kamis did not attract much attention. While his brothers made headlines in the New York Times and Gawker, Kamis seemed to fly under the radar as he worked towards an MBA in Spain. But back home in Libya, he had another role.
Speaker 7:
[05:40] He was the commander of the regime's most important and probably best equipped, best trained regiment, the 32nd Enhanced Brigade.
Speaker 1:
[05:53] The 32nd Enhanced Brigade was one of the few elite units of the Libyan military, which on the whole was underfunded and poorly organized. This was at least in part because Colonel Gaddafi liked it that way. As he saw it, if a military coup were ever attempted against him, it would be much easier for his loyalists to defeat a weak army than a strong one.
Speaker 7:
[06:15] He focused on developing specific regime protection forces that he knew were loyal and were manned by family members or tribal members that were loyal to him and loyal to the Gaddafi government.
Speaker 1:
[06:28] And so Khamis led the main one of those? Yes, that's correct. While Khamis traveled the United States, the Middle East was experiencing a historic convulsion. A little over a month earlier, in December of 2010, a street vendor in Tunisia had doused himself in paint thinner and lit himself on fire. It was a protest against corrupt local authorities who had harassed him and confiscated the scale he used to weigh his produce.
Speaker 10:
[06:56] His closest friends, anguished by Muhammad's actions, took to the streets and began a popular uprising.
Speaker 1:
[07:03] When words spread about what the produce vendor had done and why, Tunisians poured into the streets in protest.
Speaker 11:
[07:09] Anger erupted onto the streets today. Riot police rushing a crowd carrying banners reading, Yes, we can. It was enough to bring down the government and force the nation's president to flee.
Speaker 1:
[07:23] Before long, the president of Tunisia was forced from power, and the revolutionary mood started spreading to Egypt.
Speaker 12:
[07:30] Just listen to the chants roaring in downtown Cairo. The hundreds of people walking to the streets. It's unprecedented for people to march to the streets this way as an act of protest without security trying to prevent them.
Speaker 1:
[07:43] On January 25th, 2011, protests erupted in Tahrir Square in Cairo, as thousands of Egyptians demanded that President Hosni Mubarak step down. It was the beginning of what would come to be known in the West as the Arab Spring.
Speaker 8:
[07:57] Of course, a wave of protests has swept through the Arab world, and now many are wondering how far that wave will spread, and what it means to the rest of the Middle East, including...
Speaker 1:
[08:06] Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt on February 11th. That same day, Khamis Gaddafi was in Chicago, sitting in on a class at Northwestern University taught by Deepak Chopra. The class was called the Soul of Leadership, and at one point Chopra brought up Mubarak and the Egyptian Revolution, as Khamis took extensive notes. After his visit to Chicago, Khamis flew to DC., where Brian Linville took him to the National Defense University. At a roundtable discussion with American government officials, a US ambassador asked Khamis the question that was on everyone's mind.
Speaker 7:
[08:45] And he said, you know, I can't pass up this opportunity. I want to ask, what are your thoughts on the uprisings that are going on? And I think Khamis shocked the room when he said, I think it's a good thing. I think it's good that the people of the region are finally having an opportunity to express themselves in this way. And you could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Speaker 1:
[09:09] From DC., Khamis traveled to New York City, where he toured the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The next day, he was scheduled to take in a performance of Mamma Mia on Broadway. Brian Linville, who was supposed to meet Khamis in New York, was still at his hotel in Washington when he heard about unsettling reports coming out of Libya.
Speaker 7:
[09:28] On the news, there were reports that there had been some uprisings in Eastern Libya around Benghazi.
Speaker 13:
[09:34] Well, in a rare show of unrest, hundreds of opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi clashed with police overnight.
Speaker 1:
[09:40] Linville was getting ready to travel to New York when he got a phone call.
Speaker 7:
[09:44] My cell phone rings and it's Khamis' handler. Well, the handler says, Hey, Khamis is cutting his trip short and he's flying back to Libya tonight. And that was it. We both knew what was going down. The Arab Spring had arrived in Libya.
Speaker 1:
[10:03] When you say you knew what was going down, like you mean you understood what he was going back there to do?
Speaker 7:
[10:09] Oh, yeah, for sure. Khamis was going to go back to Libya and play a prominent role in putting down the uprisings. I think we were both airborne at the same time, different planes, and we both probably got back to Tripoli at about the same time. And ultimately, we would go on to be on opposite sides of the battlefield.
Speaker 1:
[10:29] I'm Leon Neyfakh. From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi.
Speaker 14:
[10:36] Dramatic showdown between a dictator with a ruthless grip on power and a population demanding freedom.
Speaker 15:
[10:43] My mother knew she might not see us again.
Speaker 16:
[10:45] It's easy for people to say, you take the consequences if something bad happened.
Speaker 17:
[10:50] I just said to him, you've just guaranteed your future as an ambassador.
Speaker 4:
[10:53] He went in to Benghazi in the height of a war. It was pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1:
[10:58] Episode 2, We Will Stay Here, in which Libya revolts and a beloved American diplomat makes his mark in Benghazi. We'll be right back. There was a joke that went around in early 2011 that summed up how a lot of Libyans felt at the beginning of the Arab Spring. It had to do with Libya's geographic position in North Africa, sandwiched between Egypt and Tunisia.
Speaker 15:
[11:30] The Tunisians were joking about us. They say that we asked Libyans to sit down so we can see Egyptians and inspire them to start their revolution.
Speaker 1:
[11:44] This is Iman Bougeghis. In 2011, she was an orthodontist on the teaching staff at the University of Benghazi. The joke she's referring to here basically meant that no one was expecting the Libyan people to join in when the revolutionary wave started sweeping the Arab world.
Speaker 15:
[12:01] Because we were hopeless. They knew the atrocity of Gaddafi. And we thought that also. We thought that we never kick out Gaddafi.
Speaker 1:
[12:14] But sometime in early February, social media posts started circulating, calling for mass protests to take place in Libya on Thursday, February 17th. It was being called a day of rage. Brian Linville, the American army liaison, says the Gaddafi regime started quietly mobilizing for potential unrest.
Speaker 7:
[12:35] It was apparent that the regime was nervous, right? We noticed a definite uptick in security forces in downtown Tripoli, and there was a certain tension in the air because you'd watch on Al Jazeera and every other news agency as these governments started to topple across the region. And everybody was asking, can it happen here?
Speaker 1:
[12:59] On February 15th, the Gaddafi regime arrested a prominent lawyer in Benghazi named Fatih Turbil. It was seemingly a precautionary measure. Turbil was best known as a representative of the families whose loved ones had been killed at Abu Salim prison in 1996. As you heard in episode 1, the Gaddafi regime had been allowing the families to protest every Saturday outside the courthouse in Benghazi. Fatih Turbil, who was helping the families in their fight for restitution, and who had also lost relatives in the massacre, often joined them.
Speaker 15:
[13:33] They were the mothers, the sisters, the wives of political prisoners. And always, they were asking, they were making noise and requesting to know the fate of their relatives and what had happened. They wanted the truth. Because at that time, even at that time, there was no clear admission of the regime of what happened exactly.
Speaker 1:
[14:02] Gaddafi apparently thought that arresting Turbil would silence anyone who might be thinking of revolution. Instead, soon after Turbil's arrest, a group of 15 to 20 women, all family members of Abu Salim prisoners, gathered outside the building where Turbil was being held.
Speaker 15:
[14:19] They came in front of the intelligence headquarter and what they were saying was, wake up, wake up Benghazi. This is the day that you are waiting for. It walked us, that sentence, it walked us. After that, people started gathering. It was very strange to see women protesting And with all of this courage. So the people and the youth started to come, and then they walked till the city center, which was a few kilometers.
Speaker 1:
[15:09] Later that night, Fatih Terbil was allowed to go free. But like the self-immolation of a street vendor in Tunisia, Terbil's arrest had sparked something.
Speaker 18:
[15:19] Unconfirmed video, it's claimed, shows protestors outside a police station in Benghazi on Tuesday. They've come to demonstrate against the arrest of human rights lawyer Fatih Terbil. After dark, the protestors regroup outside the city's security directorate. Their chants turn against the government and the 41-year-long rule of Mauma Gaddafi.
Speaker 1:
[15:44] On February 17th, the day of rage, Iman Bugegas left her home to join a protest on the steps of the Benghazi courthouse. She was joined by her sister Salwa, another lawyer who had been helping the Abu Salim families. As they headed to the courthouse, the sisters didn't know if they would return home alive.
Speaker 15:
[16:04] We left our children with my mother, and my mother knew and we knew that she might not see us again. We didn't talk about it. We thought that it's something we have to do, regardless. So we didn't, what if, what if, no, no, no, nobody thought about that, you know. We have something we have to do. It's our responsibility, the older generation, we have to do something. You know, we have students, we have children who deserve better life. They deserve to live in peace, to have good education.
Speaker 1:
[16:41] Iman joined her sister in front of the courthouse just before 1 p.m. At first, the protesters made relatively modest demands, calling for a constitution and social reforms, not full-on regime change. But as the afternoon wore on, the crowd kept growing, and many of the new arrivals were young people who were less restrained in their ambitions. They didn't just want change. They wanted Gaddafi gone. Iman initially tried to discourage them because she was afraid that Gaddafi would simply kill them all if they called for his ouster. But by 4 o'clock, she could tell the tide had turned. A revolution had started, and there was no going back.
Speaker 15:
[17:23] For 7, 8 hours, we were just chanting about Libya. It was the first time that we say, Libya, Libya, Libya, Libya, Libya. It's our country.
Speaker 19:
[17:35] We love it.
Speaker 15:
[17:36] It was like a love song, you know? All of a sudden, we recognized how much we love our country. This is our country.
Speaker 19:
[17:45] We love it.
Speaker 2:
[17:46] We love you.
Speaker 15:
[17:47] You know? It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:
[17:51] Declaring love for Libya was revolutionary in and of itself. Colonel Gaddafi had only ever encouraged love for Colonel Gaddafi.
Speaker 15:
[18:01] He didn't use the name Libya for anything. So for a long time, he replaced Libya with himself. So at that time, we just moved away that curtain, and Libya returned to us. And we discovered how much we love our country.
Speaker 1:
[18:22] It was a euphoric moment. Even though the revolution was just starting, the mere act of public dissent felt like a victory. On February 18th, a man climbed up a utility pole in Benghazi and hung the old flag of the Kingdom of Libya, red, black and green, with a star and crescent in the center.
Speaker 15:
[18:41] We were screaming, you know, it's our flag. It came back to us.
Speaker 1:
[18:47] Thousands of protesters in Benghazi joined together to sing a protest song called Salfa Napka Hunna. We Will Stay Here.
Speaker 15:
[18:58] For the first time, we were singing for our country, and we were saying that we will stay here. Libya will stay here.
Speaker 1:
[19:13] The unrest wasn't limited to Benghazi. Within a week, protests were occurring throughout Libya. The response from the Gaddafi regime was quick and violent.
Speaker 14:
[19:24] Dramatic showdown between a dictator with a ruthless grip on power and a population demanding freedom.
Speaker 5:
[19:31] Gaddafi is lashing back with force and brutality on a scale not yet seen in the revolutions that have been sweeping across the Arab world.
Speaker 19:
[19:40] Reports of casualties have come from all over the country. Sources suggest Libyan security forces shot and killed demonstrators.
Speaker 5:
[19:48] With borders closed and telephone and internet jammed, it's impossible to get an accurate picture. But there are reports of massacres by the military.
Speaker 1:
[19:59] Army attache Brian Linville returned to Tripoli from his trip with Kamis Gaddafi on February 19th, just two days after the day of rage. By this point, the uprising had reached the Libyan capital as well.
Speaker 7:
[20:12] As soon as the sun went down, we could hear outside, like echoing through the streets, this chanting, this low roar, angry people in the streets. Shortly after that, we started to hear gunfire. And that gunfire developed into machine gunfire. And we started seeing tracers shoot across the sky. And the chanting got worse and worse throughout the night. It was all night long. And looking out across the city and hearing all the gunfire, you knew people were dying. There's no way it could be any other outcome.
Speaker 1:
[20:51] By February 20th, Human Rights Watch had put the countrywide death toll at 173. Two days later, Colonel Gaddafi appeared on state television from his compound in Tripoli. Gaddafi looked like a ghoul, his skin gray and pallid. Ranting for over an hour, he vowed to never relinquish power and called on his supporters to track down protestors and search for them zenga zenga, roughly alley by alley, until the country was clean of dirt.
Speaker 9:
[21:23] Momar Gaddafi is not leaving without a fight. He's trying to extinguish protests like these that keep popping up. The number of people killed ranges anywhere from 300 to 1,000, and residents say militiamen are roaming the streets firing their weapons. Some fear that will trigger a civil war, for they are begging the world to get me out.
Speaker 20:
[21:42] Please, we need the help.
Speaker 9:
[21:44] The US is considering sanctions to put pressure on Gaddafi. In the meantime, protesters say they will continue to march in the streets and won't stop until Gaddafi is no longer in power.
Speaker 21:
[21:56] Good afternoon, everybody.
Speaker 1:
[21:57] On February 23rd, President Barack Obama addressed the nation from the White House with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton standing by his side.
Speaker 21:
[22:05] We strongly condemn the use of violence in Libya. This violence must stop. This is not simply a concern of the United States. The entire world is watching, and we will coordinate our assistance and accountability measures with the international community.
Speaker 1:
[22:24] Obama underscored that the uprisings in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia were organic, not the result of foreign interference. But he made it clear that the protestors had America's support.
Speaker 21:
[22:36] This change doesn't represent the work of the United States or any foreign power. It represents the aspirations of people who are seeking a better life. And throughout this time of transition, the United States will continue to stand up for freedom, stand up for justice and stand up for the dignity of all people. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:
[22:56] Obama's expression of solidarity with the rebels in their fight against Gaddafi masked his reluctance to allow America to be caught in the crossfire. And with violence in Tripoli escalating, the US decided to abandon its embassy and get its diplomats out of Libya. The day after Obama's address, the 19 staffers still working out of the embassy in Tripoli, including Brian Linville, were tasked with destroying everything so that sensitive information didn't wind up in the wrong hands. One of Linville's deputies showed him what to do.
Speaker 7:
[23:27] He's like, all right, sir, take this sledgehammer, take that computer, hit it there, there, there, there, put a hole there, put a hole there, put a hole there, and then come back and see me.
Speaker 1:
[23:36] There was a whole embassy's worth of computers and other equipment that needed destroying.
Speaker 7:
[23:41] The full destruction took all night. I think the sun was coming up when I was able to crawl into my office and lie on the floor for a few hours to catch a little bit of sleep.
Speaker 1:
[23:55] After that, it was time to go. Before leaving, Linville and his deputy brought down the embassy's American flag. They folded it and tucked it away safely. Then they lined up their convoy and drove to the airport. It was shortly after 2 p.m. and Friday prayers were letting out at mosques all over the city.
Speaker 7:
[24:13] That's when the protests started again. This time the violence started right in the middle of the afternoon. And our convoy had to pass right through several of those protests as they were occurring. We had gunfire going off within a few feet of our car as they were engaging these protesters.
Speaker 1:
[24:34] Linville and the embassy staff managed to make it safely to the airport, where they boarded a charter plane to Istanbul. The American diplomatic mission to Libya was coming to an end, for now. By mid-March, less than a month after the Libyan Revolution began, the US had frozen more than $30 billion in assets belonging to Gaddafi and four of his kids, including Kamis. But the Libyan rebels wanted more from the West than just economic sanctions. They wanted firepower. While Colonel Gaddafi publicly insisted that Al-Qaeda was to blame for the unrest and that casualties were at most 200, France, the UK and the Arab League pressured the US to join them in a military intervention. When Secretary of State Clinton arrived in Paris for meetings with the G8, the question of what to do about Libya followed her there.
Speaker 9:
[25:33] The Secretary starts her week in Paris, facing international pressure for a Libyan no-fly zone. Clinton has been skeptical, saying even with international backing, it's the US that takes all the risks.
Speaker 16:
[25:46] It's easy for people to say, do this, do that, and then they turn and say, OK, US go do it. You take the consequences if something bad happened.
Speaker 1:
[25:55] It was decided that while she was in Paris, Clinton would meet with a representative of what the Libyan rebels were calling the Transitional National Council, or the TNC. It was basically a temporary de facto government whose leaders were trying to replace Gaddafi.
Speaker 9:
[26:09] For Secretary Clinton, it's a trip to the great unknown. She will meet the Libyan opposition this week, although what the US might offer and which rebel leaders she should see has the State Department working overtime.
Speaker 16:
[26:22] Because we know that there are some with whom we'd want to be allied and others with whom we would not.
Speaker 17:
[26:28] There was no real appetite on the US part to enter into the Libyan fray at that particular point.
Speaker 1:
[26:35] This is Gene Kretz, the US ambassador to Libya at the time of the revolution. As ambassador, Kretz was responsible for making contact with the leaders of the TNC and sizing them up. As Kretz explains it now, one big fear at the state department was that the rebel coalition would include too many radical Islamists. That in addition to people like Iman Bougeghis, who wanted to build a democracy, there was also a large constituency of ultra-conservative, anti-American Muslims who wanted to impose strict Sharia law in Libya.
Speaker 17:
[27:07] I had been sent to find out exactly who these people were. Was this a real uprising? Or was it, as Gaddafi and as Minions were claiming, a jihadist plot that America would regret? My view after meeting people from the TNC and what they were doing was that it was a legitimate national uprising, which probably included jihadist elements by virtue of the fact that they existed.
Speaker 1:
[27:35] One of Kretz's contacts within the TNC was a man in his late 50s named Mahmoud Jibril, the foreign minister for the transitional government. Jibril had a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, and he spoke English fluently. Here he is speaking in a 2012 documentary.
Speaker 20:
[27:52] We were racing with time with my colleagues all over the place, and the meeting with Madame Clinton was very crucial.
Speaker 1:
[28:01] Ambassador Kretz arranged a meeting between Jibril, Clinton, and one of his colleagues from the State Department, who had just been named special envoy to the transitional government. His name was Christopher Stevens. Clinton, Kretz, and Stevens sat down with Jibril in a hotel suite overlooking the Tuileries Garden. In her memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton writes that she could see the Eiffel Tower from her window as Jibril made the argument for American intervention in Libya.
Speaker 17:
[28:28] He laid out the case for why America, leader of the world's democracies, should look on this situation and see that there were elements that very much coincided with what America's interests in the world were and what American values were.
Speaker 1:
[28:48] The meeting lasted just 45 minutes, but by the end, Clinton seemed convinced that Jibril and his fellow rebels were trustworthy and sincere.
Speaker 17:
[28:57] I think the meeting was one of the first times that the US and the guise of the secretary was able to meet and put a face to the revolution and to see that these were not wild-eyed jihadists. And that in fact, they were really people committed to setting up a democratic country. The meeting with Jibril then was the one that I think that at least helped convince the secretary that our participation in this reaction against Qaddafi was justifiable. And then the president made the decision a few days later, I believe.
Speaker 1:
[29:35] On March 15th, Obama called his national security team together for a meeting in the White House situation room. Clinton, who was conferencing in from Paris, told the president she supported intervention. But Obama wasn't yet convinced.
Speaker 16:
[29:48] American forces are already stretched thin with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 22:
[29:53] If we get preoccupied and bogged down in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, we're not going to have much left.
Speaker 1:
[29:58] Obama was hesitant to put American troops on the ground in yet another far away country.
Speaker 3:
[30:03] It's called war fatigue.
Speaker 14:
[30:05] Afghanistan, that war is very unpopular.
Speaker 4:
[30:07] The American people hate being stuck in another third world country over there. We're stuck in two of them now.
Speaker 5:
[30:14] It's easy to blow the trumpets.
Speaker 2:
[30:15] It's hard to end the war.
Speaker 1:
[30:17] But Iraq and Afghanistan were not the only reference points on people's minds.
Speaker 14:
[30:21] You can't have another Sudan. You can't have another Rwanda.
Speaker 21:
[30:24] You could have another Rwandan genocide on your hands in Libya if you don't do something.
Speaker 1:
[30:30] Susan Rice, Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, had worked in the Clinton administration during the Rwanda crisis. And she was adamant that in the case of Libya, US intervention was necessary to prevent a slaughter.
Speaker 8:
[30:43] Let's remember President Clinton in reflecting on his presidency said his greatest regret was not acting sooner in Rwanda.
Speaker 1:
[30:50] At this point, Khamis Gaddafi's 32nd Brigade had arrived at Misrata, the third largest city in Libya, and the only rebel stronghold in the western part of the country. Rebel commanders in Misrata pleaded for NATO's help as Khamis' troops encircled the city. Meanwhile, in the east, other brigades were marching towards Benghazi. It was clear they outnumbered and outgunned the rebels, most of whom were ordinary citizens with little to no military training. Iman Bougegas again.
Speaker 15:
[31:20] We could see the smoke of Gaddafi's convoy coming. It was obvious that something is coming, death is coming. We welcomed the international intervention. We didn't have any other option. It was a survival.
Speaker 23:
[31:39] Tonight, things are at a turning point, and Colonel Gaddafi could face international intervention. Earlier today, he took to the radio to warn the opposition in Benghazi of a looming offensive. We are coming, he said, we are looking for the traitors and shall have no mercy nor compassion.
Speaker 1:
[31:59] With Gaddafi's forces approaching Benghazi, the US needed to make a decision before it was too late. And so Obama agreed to a kind of compromise. The US would participate in the intervention, but only as part of a collective effort that would be led by other countries, namely the UK and France. Later, one of Obama's advisors would describe the arrangement as leading from behind. The point was that the US would not be responsible for whatever came next in Libya. It would have to be someone else's problem. With that, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice began coordinating with NATO and the UN to authorize military action. On March 17, just three days after Clinton's meeting with Mahmoud Jibril in Paris, the UN passed a resolution allowing for all necessary measures to protect civilians in Libya.
Speaker 23:
[32:52] This evening, the UN. Security Council voted in favor of a resolution that would take all measures necessary to protect civilians.
Speaker 24:
[33:00] For the residents of Ben-Gazi, this military intervention is coming in the nick of time because Gaddafi's forces are already closing in on the city. The people of eastern Libya will be hoping it's not too late.
Speaker 1:
[33:12] On March 19, French jets led the way, bombing Gaddafi forces outside Ben-Gazi. The move effectively saved the revolution and likely prevented significant bloodshed.
Speaker 3:
[33:23] The French have gone in with jets and attacked Muammar Gaddafi's military vehicles.
Speaker 1:
[33:29] American missile strikes followed, the beginning of what the US named Operation Odyssey Dawn.
Speaker 21:
[33:36] Today, I authorize the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians.
Speaker 1:
[33:48] In his televised address announcing the airstrikes against Gaddafi, Obama emphasized that the United States was not acting alone.
Speaker 21:
[33:56] Make no mistake. Today, we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people, and we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:
[34:09] Did you feel relieved when you heard that the intervention had happened? Did it lift the pressure?
Speaker 15:
[34:14] Yes, yes, all of us. You know, he would have destroyed Benghazi. He didn't want Benghazi anymore.
Speaker 1:
[34:23] What did you feel when you heard that it was done, that the convoy was destroyed?
Speaker 15:
[34:28] Big relief. We went after that and we saw the convoy destroyed. Burned tanks, burned military cars, a lot. It was a very long convoy. But also, we knew many people who died. So it was a very, very sad situation.
Speaker 1:
[34:52] Libya was now essentially split in two, with Tripoli in the West under Gaddafi's control and Benghazi in the East serving as the rebels' base of operations. But with American diplomats out of the country and Obama's strict no boots on the ground policy, intelligence on what the rebels were actually doing was hard to come by. Ambassador Kretz and the team from Tripoli were now working out of a makeshift office in DC. The consensus was that someone from the American mission needed to go to Benghazi.
Speaker 17:
[35:22] Some of the other European nations had gone back into Benghazi with representation. There was a strong sense in Washington that we had to be there as well.
Speaker 1:
[35:32] Kretz immediately thought of his colleague Chris Stevens, the man who had joined him and Secretary Clinton for the meeting with Jabril in Paris, and who had served in Libya for two years during the brief and ill-fated reconciliation with Gaddafi. Kretz suggested Stevens to his State Department colleague Jeff Feldman, the Assistant Secretary in charge of the Middle East. Here is Feldman.
Speaker 4:
[35:53] We felt that he had the right personality to play this ambiguous liaison role in Benghazi that was sort of undefined because of his background, because of his personality, because of his ability to connect with people.
Speaker 1:
[36:05] Chris Stevens was about to turn 51. A native of California, he had blonde hair, a tan, and a big bright smile. As you heard in Episode 1, Stevens had helped build the US Embassy in Tripoli that had just been abandoned. Now, he was up for another unusual position in Libya, one that his superiors at the State Department thought he was particularly well-suited to. Jeff Feldman again.
Speaker 4:
[36:30] He also was sort of fearless. It's not usual to send in a diplomat and basically say, make your way. He did not inherit an office or a local staff that could help guide him. He didn't inherit the old proverbial roller vex from his predecessors.
Speaker 1:
[36:51] Chris Stevens arrived in Benghazi on April 5, 2011, aboard a Greek cargo ship.
Speaker 4:
[36:56] He went in by water into Benghazi in the height of a war. It was pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1:
[37:01] At first, Stevens set up his operation in a suite at the Tibesti Hotel, a 15-story building in the city center.
Speaker 4:
[37:08] When Chris went to Benghazi, there was essentially nothing. He and his immediate staff were essentially inventing a diplomatic facility out of whole cloth. It was a high-risk venture, but one that was extremely rewarding for Chris, and obviously beneficial for us as we're trying to understand more about what's happening in the most opaque country in the Arab world.
Speaker 1:
[37:35] Even though the US was now supporting the rebels in their fight against Gaddafi, the State Department still had very little knowledge about who they were, what they believed, and what their goals were for Libya. The TNC desperately wanted the United States to recognize them as Libya's legitimate government, but the Obama administration was guarded. They wanted more information.
Speaker 4:
[37:56] Chris's responsibilities were to figure out who were these guys? What did they stand for? If Gaddafi would leave, what would they put in his place? Was there a chance for them to have a unified government? What was happening with the sort of very nascent Islamist movements that were coming up? These were questions we did not know the answers for.
Speaker 1:
[38:19] It's worth reiterating that the administration's big fear was that radical anti-American Islamists would take over the Libyan Revolution. The leaders of the TNC said they were building a democracy. But did they have the power and popular support to follow through? In a country where the population was more than 90% Muslim, religion would inevitably influence the workings of the government. But different people had different ideas about the degree to which Islam should dictate the law of the land. The US feared inadvertently aiding extremists who had no intention of establishing democracy once Gaddafi fell. It was against this backdrop that Chris Stevens launched himself into the work of diplomacy in Benghazi. He was known for taking jogs around town and chatting up regular citizens on the street no matter what their politics were.
Speaker 4:
[39:09] There were people who said, Chris, you shouldn't meet with person X. Person X is an Islamist. You're giving this Islamist status by meeting with this Islamist, don't do it. Chris would push back and insist on meeting with anyone who might have the ability to influence the direction Libya moves in the future. So I don't think he was naïve, but he did try to embrace a very wide spectrum of Libyan contacts.
Speaker 1:
[39:37] The people of Benghazi embraced Stevens as well. When the US killed Osama bin Laden in May of 2011, locals stopped Stevens in the street to congratulate him and said they hoped Gaddafi would be next. Still, when Jeff Feldman from the State Department visited Benghazi that spring, he was shaken by the precarious conditions in which Stevens and his team were working.
Speaker 4:
[39:59] I was very worried about his security. The doors to his suite were plate glass, so you had these two big glass doors with handles, and the way you closed that suite at night when Chris and his team would go to bed was you put a chain with a key lock on it. That horrified me.
Speaker 1:
[40:18] Near the end of the summer, the State Department leased a compound of villas in Benghazi and moved the American mission out of the Tibesti Hotel. Guards were hired and vehicle screenings were arranged in an effort to secure the property, but the Americans were not allowed to do much to physically fortify it. Because it was a temporary facility, not an official embassy or consulate, it didn't have to meet the State Department's typical security standards. Chris Stevens didn't want to stay holed up in a bunker anyway. He wanted to be out meeting people where they lived. Again, former Libya Ambassador Gene Kretz.
Speaker 17:
[40:52] We both believed that we needed some flexibility in terms of the way we were allowed to operate. We were not cowboys, believe me, but we wanted to do our job, and we thought that we had the ground knowledge to determine what was an acceptable risk for us and what was not. And so we designed a program to allow us to meet people that we needed to meet. And I think Chris certainly shared that view and certainly practiced it to the extent that he could while he was in Benghazi.
Speaker 1:
[41:25] Hello, good afternoon.
Speaker 17:
[41:26] I'm Chris Stevens. I got in from Benghazi a couple of days ago.
Speaker 1:
[41:30] On August 2, 2011, Stevens was briefly back in the US to provide an update on what he had learned about the TNC during his time in Benghazi. By then, it had been almost six months since the revolution started. But as Stevens told reporters, there was no indication that Gaddafi was going to step down or leave Tripoli.
Speaker 16:
[41:49] What is your sense of how much longer the sort of conflict is likely to go on before Gaddafi leaves? I mean, three months, six months, a year?
Speaker 17:
[42:00] I wouldn't want to put a date on it, but all I can say is that, you know, the world has lined up against him and his base is shrinking and the TNC forces are closing in around him.
Speaker 5:
[42:16] And so are sanctions and other things.
Speaker 17:
[42:18] So I think everybody agrees it's a matter of time.
Speaker 1:
[42:22] Later that month, the rebels took Tripoli and Gaddafi had no choice but to flee.
Speaker 11:
[42:27] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's defenses are collapsing and his regime appears to be crumbling fast. According to a rebel leader, the unit in charge of protecting Gaddafi and Tripoli has surrendered and joined the revolt, allowing the opposition force to move into Tripoli.
Speaker 1:
[42:42] In Gaddafi's absence, rebels breached his compound, set fire to his tent and carried off souvenirs, including thick gold jewelry and a green golf cart. They also raided Gaddafi's stash of weapons. The next day, rebels busted the locks of the blue cast-iron doors of the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli and set the remaining inmates free. The rebels went cell to cell breaking the locks with hammers until the prison was an empty shell. After their release, more than a hundred former prisoners found their way back home to Benghazi. Just six months earlier, Colonel Gaddafi's son, Khamis, had been in Chicago sitting in on lectures by Deepak Chopra.
Speaker 25:
[43:29] Now, the senior rebel commander telling CNN Gaddafi's son, Khamis, is dead. The military commander is said to have died during a battle in northwest Libya.
Speaker 1:
[43:39] A man claiming to be one of Khamis' bodyguards told reporters that Gaddafi's son had been killed in a NATO airstrike. Brian Linville, who had accompanied Khamis during his US visit, wasn't sure how to feel about the news.
Speaker 7:
[43:52] Sadness isn't the right term, but maybe disappointment, because when I knew him, up to that point of early February, his unit had not committed atrocities. He didn't have blood on his hands. I had to contrast that in my mind, that, you know, at this one moment in February, it seemed so promising, and then something was lost, not just an opportunity, but something was lost.
Speaker 1:
[44:24] That fall, Hillary Clinton visited Tripoli to make a show of support for the TNC.
Speaker 16:
[44:30] This is Libya's moment. This is Libya's victory, and the future belongs to you.
Speaker 1:
[44:36] During her trip, Clinton toured the new US. Embassy. In her memoir, she wrote that she heard gunshots in the distance and wondered if it was fighting or celebration. The embassy staff seemed quite used to it by now. She wrote, two days later, on October 20th, Clinton was in Kabul, Afghanistan, and during a break from a taped interview, she was handed a Blackberry.
Speaker 16:
[44:58] Wow. Unconfirmed. Unconfirmed. Unconfirmed reports about Gaddafi being captured. Unconfirmed. We've had a bunch of those before. We've had him captured a couple of times.
Speaker 1:
[45:19] Then it became official. Muammar Gaddafi was dead.
Speaker 16:
[45:23] We came, we saw, he died.
Speaker 13:
[45:27] Did it have anything to do with your visit?
Speaker 16:
[45:29] No, I'm sure it did.
Speaker 1:
[45:32] Almost immediately, cell phone footage emerged of Gaddafi being beaten by his captors. Word spread that he had been tortured and sodomized and shot in the head. Afterwards, his body was taken to a meat locker where Libyans took photos of his corpse. Again, the State Department's Jeff Feldman.
Speaker 4:
[45:50] I mean, there was a sense of horror at how he was killed. These were not the sorts of methods that the TNC had said that they would be using to bring to accountability members of the former regime. But there was also a sense of relief that it would probably be harder to have a sustained insurrection against the change in Libya.
Speaker 1:
[46:10] Iman Bougeghis, the Libyan orthodontist turned revolutionary, had mixed emotions too.
Speaker 15:
[46:16] It was a relief that, okay, that's it. Our country is liberated and it was a heavy price. But what happened after that to him? It was sad, but what he was doing and what he was implanting of hate and revenge, it happened to him. There was no other way, you know, he forced that. He didn't want to surrender. He didn't want to leave the country.
Speaker 1:
[46:44] What did you think would happen next?
Speaker 15:
[46:46] We were hoping that with the elections, then a democratic government will come and things will change and for the better. It didn't happen.
Speaker 1:
[47:04] We'll be right back. Six months after the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is flooded with weapons and faces a potential power vacuum. After Gaddafi's death, the political situation in Libya was delicate. The former prime minister who led the fight against the colonel believes the country is now at risk of being taken over by extremists. Mahmoud Jibril also says it's the result of NATO abandoning Libya after the former regime was toppled.
Speaker 20:
[47:35] After the regime fell down, most of the western countries felt that the mission has been accomplished. They neglect the fact that Libya is a stateless society. Any political vacuum can be felt by anybody, you know. And it's a fertile soil, you know, for extremism to grow.
Speaker 1:
[47:56] That was the state of play Chris Stevens inherited in May of 2012, when he was confirmed as the new US ambassador to post-Qaddafi Libya.
Speaker 25:
[48:05] Assalamu alaikum.
Speaker 17:
[48:06] My name is Chris Stevens, and I'm the new US ambassador to Libya.
Speaker 1:
[48:10] In a video posted to the embassy's YouTube account, Stevens expressed hope that the US could help Libya achieve democracy. Standing on a roof with a view of Washington, DC behind him, he invited Libyans to imagine a better future.
Speaker 17:
[48:24] Over my shoulder here, you can see the US.
Speaker 21:
[48:27] Capitol building.
Speaker 17:
[48:28] In that building, 535 elected representatives from every corner of America come together to debate the issues of the day. They are men and women from every religious, ethnic, and family background. I look forward to watching Libya develop equally strong institutions of government.
Speaker 1:
[48:47] Libyans were anxious to get their new government going too, and elections for the new General National Congress were set for July 7, 2012. As the date approached, some Americans, as well as liberal-minded Libyans, feared that strict, ultraconservative Islamists would take a majority in the new government. There was something else on their minds too. Militias. For a year and a half, militia groups had fought together to defeat Gaddafi. Now that their common enemy was gone, they were almost like gangs, each one vying to control their turf. Hospitals, airports, even oil fields fell under the control of various militias. And because the new leadership of Libya needed time to rebuild a formal military and police force, the TNC essentially put the militias in charge of security, even putting them on the public payroll. Here again is former Assistant Secretary of State Jeff Feltman.
Speaker 4:
[49:43] We knew that we did not know enough about the militias. We still thought that with the proper support that the civilian leadership would be able to knit this back together.
Speaker 1:
[49:54] The problem was, the militias all had different interests, different loyalties, different ideologies. And thanks to the TNC, they were all flush with money, as well as guns that had been taken from Gaddafi's armories. For foreigners, it added up to a simmering sense of danger in Benghazi. And on June 6th, 2012, that danger revealed itself, when the American diplomatic compound was targeted with a homemade bomb.
Speaker 7:
[50:21] One evening, somebody placed a bomb outside an exterior wall of the compound and blew probably a man-sized hole in it.
Speaker 1:
[50:29] Colonel Brian Linville again.
Speaker 7:
[50:31] And of course, we took this very seriously. And the embassy team huddled to talk about it.
Speaker 1:
[50:38] Ambassador Stevens, now based in Tripoli, gathered his team for an emergency meeting to discuss the attack. Stevens made it clear he felt strongly that the US needed people in Benghazi, despite the apparent risks.
Speaker 7:
[50:51] You can't understand the story of Libya if you don't know what's going on in Benghazi. And Chris knew that if we shut down operations in Benghazi, we would be blind. We missed the commencement of the Libyan Revolution because we didn't have a presence in Benghazi. We didn't know what was going on there. And I know Chris was loathe to give that up because it would have crippled our ability to understand the Libyan story. If we gave up on Benghazi, we were giving up on Libya. He didn't want to do that.
Speaker 1:
[51:28] Not everyone at the embassy agreed with Stevens.
Speaker 7:
[51:30] There were voices of dissent saying that this is too much, we need to get out. But the prevailing voice was that we would try to stick it out. And as best we could address the security situation, it wasn't like we did nothing.
Speaker 1:
[51:47] Stevens wanted to keep the Benghazi mission open despite the security risks. He knew that in addition to the homemade bomb, there had been an attack on a UN official's convoy and another on a Red Cross building. In fact, Stevens had flagged the increase in violence in his communications with DC. Stevens also took steps to fortify the Benghazi compound. He deployed security officers from Tripoli to figure out ways the mission could be better protected. And he talked with Libyan authorities about increasing the presence of the militia that have been hired to help guard the compound. They were called the February 17th Martyrs' Brigade, named after the day the Libyan Revolution started.
Speaker 7:
[52:26] He didn't ignore the threat by any stretch of the imagination, but he tried to mitigate it instead of avoiding it altogether and pulling out. You know, in retrospect, that would have been our moment to shut down operations in Benghazi.
Speaker 1:
[52:43] The warning signs kept coming. Shortly after the bomb attack at the compound, a parade of trucks drove through Benghazi, flying black flags. It was a rally of at least 15 different militia groups demanding that the new Libyan government be based on Sharia law.
Speaker 14:
[53:00] What are you marching for today?
Speaker 9:
[53:01] What are you protesting for?
Speaker 17:
[53:03] We need Sharia law. To kill the…
Speaker 1:
[53:06] Kuffar.
Speaker 14:
[53:07] To kill the infidels.
Speaker 23:
[53:08] Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:
[53:11] One month after that Islamist rally, Libyans voted in their country's first free election since Gaddafi's death. The State Department considered it a success, with 62% of the eligible population turning out to vote, and the vast majority of polling places reporting no incidents of violence.
Speaker 23:
[53:29] This is what all of the fighting in Libya was about last year. Not just the removal of Gaddafi, but the chance to choose a democratically elected government.
Speaker 1:
[53:37] Despite predictions of an Islamist victory, Mahmoud Jibril's party dramatically outperformed more conservative parties in what was considered a landslide for the moderates.
Speaker 15:
[53:46] It's a turning point in the history of Libya.
Speaker 6:
[53:50] Most people in Libya are savoring their new democratic rights. The many challenges ahead about what exactly they're going to do with them can wait until after the election party.
Speaker 1:
[53:59] It was about two months later, in September of 2012, that Ambassador Chris Stevens decided to leave the US. Embassy in Tripoli and visit Benghazi. Stevens would arrive on Monday, September 10th, and he would have several days of meetings with the Benghazi City Council and various business leaders. Stevens planned the trip despite warnings from the head diplomatic security agent in Tripoli, who was concerned about the escalating violence and tension in Benghazi. Friends who were in touch with Stevens shortly before his trip remember him being excited to return to a place he loved.
Speaker 4:
[54:35] Chris comes across as this really nice, embracing California surfer dude. And I think people can underestimate his intelligence because of just the persona he had. I have to say, I don't want to play blame the victim here, but I do wonder about that 2012 Benghazi trip. I mean, of course we would all think about it given the horror of what happened to my friend Chris.
Speaker 1:
[54:58] Stevens did take precautions, making no advance announcement of the trip and traveling with a larger than usual group of diplomatic security agents. He was supposed to be back in Tripoli by Friday. On the next episode of Fiasco, Chris Stevens' trip to Benghazi is halted by violence and tragedy.
Speaker 3:
[55:26] Scott Wicklum does this several times, you know, to search for his colleagues. And I remember him saying that if he went in one more time, he would die.
Speaker 1:
[55:37] For a list of books, articles, and documentaries we used in our research, follow the link in our show notes. Fiasco is a production of Prologue projects, and it's distributed by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons, Ula Culpa, Sam Lee, and me, Leon Neyfakh, with editorial support from Sam Graham Felsen and Madeleine Kaplan. Our researcher was Francis Carr. Our score was composed by Dan English, Joe Valley, and Noah Hecht. Additional music by Nick Sylvester and Joel St. Julian. Our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Audio mix by Rob Byers, Michael Rayfield, and Johnny Vince Evans. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips and Why. Copyright counsel provided by Peter Yassi at Yassi Butler PLLC. Thanks to archive.org, Nifeen Alba, Peter Bartu, Eya Berweila, Ben Fishman, Baker Habib, Anna Linville, Ian Martin, Ismael Swaya, Marad Idris, and Frederick Warehee. Special thanks to Luminary, and thank you for listening.