September 15, 2025 • 52 mins
An anti-Islamic video sparks protests in the Middle East, and the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi comes under attack.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Pushkin. Hey Leon here, Before we get to this episode,
I want to let you know that you can binge
the entire season of Fiasco Benghazi right now, add free
by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Sign up for Pushkin
Plus on the Fiasco Apple podcast show page, or visit
Pushkin dot fm slash Plus Now onto the show. Please
(00:41):
note this episode contains descriptions of violence some listeners may
find disturbing. Previously on Fiasco.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
The Arab Spring had arrived in Libya.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
They were saying, wake up, wake up, Benghazi.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is the day.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
If you are waiting.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Forward, It's not usual to send in a diplomat and
basically say make your way.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
I was very worried about it. Secure it eight.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Six months after the uprising, Olivia is flooded with weapons
and faces a potential power vacuum. The country is now
at risk of being taken over by extremists.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You Americans need to watch out because the people who
you're dealing with are not your friends.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Man plus X equals Islamic terrorist.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
Islamic terrorist minus X.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Equals man.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
But what is X?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You're listening to a scene from a low budget movie
called Innocence of Muslims. It's not even really a movie technically,
it's a fourteen minute trailer for a movie that was
never released. The trailer was posted on YouTube in July
of twenty twelve.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Muhammed is all a messenger and the Kuwan is a constitution.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
The Innocence of Muslims video is a crude piece of
anti Islamic propaganda. In it, the Islamic prophet Mohammad is
played by a boyish white actor, and he's depicted as
a charlatan, a womanizer, and a bloodthirsty tyrant.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
He kills men, captures women, and chills men, and what's more,
he does this all in the.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Name of God.
Speaker 7 (02:39):
What God is this?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
The video was produced in California by an Egyptian American
man named Nicula Basselli. Nicula he said he made the
film in protest of violence perpetrated around the world by
Islamic extremists. It was an amateurish production. Nicula used his
own house as a sound stage. He hired the actors
through backstage dot Com and told them they were shooting
(03:04):
an epic called Desert Warriors. According to the script he
gave them, the film wasn't about Mohammed at all, but
just some guy named George. It was only in post
production that the name Mohammad was dubbed. In raised him
as one of your slaves.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
If you must, what shall I call you?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
His name is Mohammed the father unknown.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Nikola had his twenty one year old son post the
video online and for a while it went virtually unseen.
Then about two months later, in September of twenty twelve,
a new version of the video appeared on YouTube, this
time translated into Arabic.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
A mis alhand.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Soon miss when clips from the video aired an Egyptian
television with heated commentary from a pundit who called it
unspeakable and asked how long will I be called a
terrorist for growing my beard? The video exploded in Egypt.
(04:07):
Political leaders and preachers publicly denounced it, and popular Facebook
groups called for protests. As tensions continued to rise, the
American Embassy in Cairo decided to address the video. Around
noon on September eleventh, they released a written statement.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
Saying quote the Embassy of the United States and Cairo
condemns the continuing efforts misguided individuals to hurt the religious
feelings of Muslims. As we condemn efforts to offend believers
of all religions.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
The statement did little to quell the outrage in Cairo.
Within a matter of hours, hundreds of protesters had gathered
outside the American embassy.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Developing story out of Cairo, Egypt. I understand that protesters
are outside the US embassy. They are there are about
a thousand of them, and protesters have, from what we understand,
storm the walls of the embassy and pull down US flags.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Some of the protesters scaled the walls, tearing down an
American flag and setting it on fire.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
Egyptian riot police are on the scene and they are
trying to protect the walls.
Speaker 8 (05:11):
They are protesting a video they say the fames the
prophet Muhammad Egyptian.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The Cairo protest was only the latest flare up in
a long running conflict over the depiction of Mohammad.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Muslim protesters directed more violent anger today against newspapers in
Denmark and other European countries that have printed cartoons of
Mohammad from Cairo day.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
In most Islamic practices, it's considered blasphemists to create any
visual representation of Mohammed. Over the years, some self described
secularists have made a point of violating that rule in
the name of free speech.
Speaker 8 (05:45):
Against cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed as violent womanizing, first
published in Denmark and since in seventeen other countries.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
One of the most dramatic examples occurred back in two
thousand and six, after a Danish newspaper published several cartoons
of Mohamed and protests broke out across the Arab world.
They were Muslim protests in at least a dozen countries today,
now in Cairo. In twenty twelve, it looked like the
(06:15):
same thing again, with Egyptians rising up against the deliberate
provocation that had originated in the West. And it was
happening on the anniversary of the September eleventh attacks, when
American embassies across the region were on high alert.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Anyway, the embassy was closed for business that day as
a security measure, and we were working from our compound
for the most part.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
This is Gregory Hicks. In twenty twelve, he was the
deputy Chief of the American Mission in Libya, Chris Stevens's
number two at the embassy in Tripoli. On September eleventh,
Hicks had been left in charge while Stevens took a
short trip to Benghazi.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And I remember texting Chris in Benghazi and asking him,
are you watching what's going on in Cairo?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Stevens told Hicks he had been unaware of the protests
for all the tensions erupting in Egypt over the Innocence
Muslims video.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Libya was quiet, and then when the sun went down,
we were kind of relieved, wiping the sweat off our brows,
that we had not been targeted in Tripoli and they
had not been targeted in Benghazi.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It seemed like the day had passed without incident. Hicks
was relieved.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I had basically said, Okay, we're good, We're through the day.
Nine to eleven is going to be over. And the
only thing that happened was in Cairo. And so I
went to watch a television program and about nine forty
five or thereabouts, John Martinick, the RSO, ran up to
(07:50):
my room. He's yelling Greg, Greg the consulates under attack.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hicks checked his phone and saw missed calls from both
Ambassador Stevens and a number he didn't recognize. He tried
to call back, but no one picked up. Then Hicks
got through to Stevens by dialing the unknown number and he.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Said, Greg, we're under attack. I think I said okay,
and before I could say anything else, he cut the line.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I'm Leon Navak from Prologued Projects and Pushkin Industries. This
is fiasco Benghazi.
Speaker 7 (08:20):
I could hear these shots. I can heard the greenades.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
I turned to the ambassador and said, I'm going to
start shooting, and when I die I want you to
pick up my rifle and keep on fighting.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
It's taken to a hospital and the government won't tell
us where it is.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
We already got the buddy, we got the remains.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
I thought I was alone. I thought everybody else was dead.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Episode three, Barefoot, The Attack in Benghazi. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Chris arrived to Bengazi Airport Monday morning, Monday. This is
the day, was September tenth, So I was there at
the airport to we'll come here.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
This is Baker Habib, born and raised in Libya. He
started working with the State Department when the US reconciled
with the Gadafi regime after the Libyan Revolution. Habib became
especially close with Chris Stevens. When Stevens was posted in
Benghazi as an envoy to the anti Gaddafi opposition. Now
with Gaddafi gone, Stephens was coming back to Benghazi to
(09:31):
check in with his local contacts.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And I remember when I told him was came back,
and he said, I'm pretty glad to be back home.
So he considered Bengazi as home.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Why exactly Stephens decided to make his trip to Benghazi
when he did has never been firmly established, but the
general reason was that he understood the city's importance as
one of Libya's cultural and political centers. Benghazi was the
seat of the revolution that had toppled Gadafi. If Tripoli
was Libya's Washington d C. Benghazi was New York or LA.
(10:03):
Stephens believed that the US needed a strong presence there
Island Town, Stevens was going to preside over the opening
of a kind of study center at a local school
that was owned and operated by Baker Habib. It would
be called the American Corner. The idea was that Libyans
could take English classes there, find information on college admissions
(10:25):
in the US, and so on. It would be an
engine of what some might call American soft power. When
Stevens arrived in Benghazi. He and Habib set about finalizing
the details for the opening.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I spent all day long with him on Monday and Tuesday.
Speaker 7 (10:42):
I went out a little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I'm back again. Last time I saw him it was
about fiveish. He had an appointment with the Turkish councilor
at that time, so I would say the last time
I saw Chris Stevens, I walked with him, it was
about five five ten something like that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
After Habib left, Stevens took his last meeting of the
day with a Turkish diplomat at the American Compound.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Our compound was in a residential neighborhood and it didn't
look unlike any of the other houses in the area,
so about as long as one of their blocks, like
a city block almost. It had cement walls all the
way around it.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
This is Scott Wickland, trained in the Navy as a
specialist in conducting rescue missions. In twenty twelve, he was
working for the State Department as a DS agent DS
short for Diplomatic Security. On September eleventh, Wickland was on
day forty one of a seventy day posting at the
compound in Benghazi.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
We had four buildings on it a little orchard on it.
We had a pool. We had a soccer field where
the guards would play soccer, and sometimes we would go
play with them.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
As you heard in episode two, the American compound in
Benghazi had been leased by the State Department after the
Libyan Revolution. The four structures on the grounds included a
barracks for local Libyan guards, a canteen, and a building
known as Villas, where Stevens slept and met with visitors.
After Stevens's final meeting of the night, business at the
(12:16):
compound began to wind down, Stevens retired to his residence
in Villa C. One of his State Department colleagues, an
IT specialist named Sean Smith, was in his bedroom in
the same building, playing a video game called Evonline and
chatting with other gamers. One DS agent was in the
compound security center. Scott Wickland and two other agents were outside.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
At the end of the evening. We were sitting by
the pool and talking. You know, I was wearing flip flops,
just kind of relaxing.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Then a little after nine thirty pm, Wickland heard a
sound in the distance.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
It sounded like chanting to me, you know, like a
crowd chanting something. I didn't know what it was, and
then the sound kind of came nearer and nearer, approaching
the compound, and when I made out alahu Akbar. With
our current risk profile, we need to do something.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Wickland and the other DS agents snapped into action.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We're already stressed out because the ambassadors here. It's a
dangerous location at September eleventh, we're on this kind of
high alert. We don't know if they're armed, we don't
know if they're peaceful. We just don't know. And the
automatic response from my end was I need to go
get ready in case. So I turned to the other
guys and I said, go get your stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
The DS agents who were with Wickland by the pool
ran to get their weapons. Wickland already had some of
his gear with him, so he took the role of
securing Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, the IT specialist. Both
of them were in the living quarters of Villa C,
which were separated from the main area by what Wickland
describes as a metal jail cell door.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
I ran into Phili C and the building ran over
into kind of our living area, and I locked this
jail cell door. You could like stick your arm through
the door, but a person could not crawl through.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
As Wickland secured the villa's living quarters, he could tell
that the group he had heard approaching the compound was
breaching the main gate outside. It appeared that most of
the Libyan guards on duty had scattered, allowing the attackers
to rush in effectively unopposed. Sean Smith tapped out a
message to the people he was playing video games with.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
Fuck.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
He wrote, gunfire. Wickland ran into his bedroom and put
on body armor and a helmet.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
And as soon as I came out of my bedroom,
Investor Stevens was standing kind of in this common area.
He was ready for bed, you know. He was wearing
shorts and like a white T shirt. He had his
body armor with him in his helmet and he was
kind of finishing putting that on, and right away I
told him that we needed to get him in the
(15:13):
safe haven. Seawn Smith came out shortly after that, and
I put Shawn Smith in the safe haven and we sat.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The safe haven was essentially a big closet surrounded by
cement walls. Wickland turned off the lights as he ushered
Stevens and Smith inside.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
There was a sliding door on it that I had opened.
And I was kind of kneeling in the entryway of
the save haven, and I had a shotgun, a pistol
and an M four And I think that this is
actually where I kicked off my sandals, because crouching down
on sandals it just wasn't comfortable.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Now barefoot, Wickland steadied his M four rifle in the
darkness of the safe haven and waited. Around nine pm,
Chris Stevens's friend, Baker Habib got a call from one
(16:14):
of the DS agents in the compound. He addressed Habibe
by the nickname Stevens had given him Bo.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
The diplomatic security agents. One of them he called me
and tell me, hey, Bo aranda attack. So for me,
I couldn't possess my reaction. Oh and there is sand
at that time. What he meant by attack, it cannot be.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Habib didn't want to believe that the compound was under attack,
but he knew what he was hearing.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
I could hear these shots. I can heard the grenades.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Habib jumped in his car and headed to the compound
where he had been with Chris Stevens four hours earlier.
From his position in the safe haven, Scott Wickland could
hear the gunfire too. He could also hear the attackers
begin to hit the main doors of villas trying to
break in. Then suddenly he could see them.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
I could see through the jail cell door into this
entryway into Villa C, which is where I saw all
the attackers rush in when they finally blew open the doors.
I saw him come in the building and I saw,
you know that they were carrying weapons. I saw AK
(17:34):
forty seven's the RPG, I saw grenades. I knew that
we were in trouble. I was immediately on the radio saying,
where is everybody? Where's my backup? Where are you guys?
And I had to whisper because people were in the building,
(17:56):
and I said, they're in the building. I need immediate assistance.
And I said this over and over, and I didn't
hear a response.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
There were four other DS agents in the compound, but
none of them were answering Wicklan's calls.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
I was scared, wondering if, like the other guys, okay,
were they killed, you know, were they captured? You know?
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
As the attackers rushed into the villa, Wickland could hear
the commotion they were causing. It sounded like they were
breaking glass, ripping paintings off the walls, and destroying furniture.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
As people started to flood into the building, I start thinking, well,
this is it. I mean, it's only a matter of
time before they come over and find us. And sure enough,
two individuals came over to the jail cell door. One
of the individuals started fumbling with one of his grenades,
and I thought, you know, he's going to blow the
(18:58):
locks up with his grenades. And that's when I turned
to the ambassador and said, if they blow the locks,
I'm going to start shooting, and when I die, I
want you to pick got my rifle and keep on fighting.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Wickland trained the site of his rifle on the chest
of one of the men standing at the jail cell door,
but he held his fire, figuring that as soon as
he pulled the trigger, he would reveal his location to
all the other attackers.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Instead of using the grenades, one of the guys uses
the butt of his rifle and just kind of bangs
on the door a little bit, but nothing happened. After that,
they turned and walked away. That was a massive sigh
of relief for me. I thought, my gosh, maybe we're
going to survive. Maybe we're going to be in the clear.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Shortly after that, Wicklan saw the attackers start to leave
the building and he breathed the tentative sigh of relief.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
What I didn't realize was that they had taken some
fuel cans and started pouring it on all those broken
frames and the furniture, and they lit it on fire.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The compound had recently acquired a new generator. It was
stored near the main gate, next to big jugs of
diesel fuel. It seemed that before leaving the villa, the
attackers had poured the fuel all over the premises.
Speaker 5 (20:27):
I got a hint of that smell, and it was smoke,
and I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't know,
you know, I couldn't see any fire. I couldn't tell it,
but I could smell it. And then I knew, well,
now we have a different problem on our hands.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
From his post in Tripoli, four hundred miles away, Deputy
Chief of Mission Greg Hicks was trying to get a
handle on what was happening in ben Ghazi. He had
spoken to Stevens just after nine forty five PM when
Stevens told him the mission was under attack. Now Hicks
had to figure out how to help.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
The first thing I'm doing is, Okay, track down all
of our embassy leadership people, get them to the operations center,
and say get on the horn with everybody you know
and find out what exactly is going on.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Hicks and his colleagues in Tripoli developed a kind of
phone tree. Some were trying to reach the DS agents
of the compound. Meanwhile, Hicks was communicating with Libyan government
officials in hopes of mobilizing some kind of rescue.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I was calling senior officials in the government in Tripoli
because they are the individuals who have the responsibility to react.
I mean, this was a criminal attack on a diplomatic
facility in Libyan territory.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
But the process was hampered by the reality of telecommunication
in Libya. Service inside the embassy was so unreliable that
Hicks and his team had to go outside to their courtyard.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
We're all walking around. It's dead dark except for the
stars overhead and the like that are on in our compound,
and we're all walking around dousing for telephone signals. When
we got the signal, we would immediately start dialing on
our phones frantically to try to make the next phone call.
(22:24):
And then we would ammeble like kind of come together
and we would share the information that we had gathered,
and then we would all spread out again, dousing for signal,
and then we would be on the phone again.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
He was through these phone calls that Hicks and his
State Department colleagues formed a rough understanding of how the
attack in Benghazi was playing out.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
We heard, you know. It was dozens of armed individuals
had entered the compound, rocket pelt grenades and rifle fire
and automatic fire and was taking place.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
As Hicks dialed out, he tried Ambassador Stevens again and again.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I was trying to call him every few minutes and
getting no answer. He probably had his phone on silence
to not attract attention to their presence. I don't know,
but he'd never answered the phone again.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
When he wasn't calling Stevens's phone or his contacts in
the Libyan government, Deputy Chief of Mission Greg Hicks was
calling the CIA. Specifically, he was calling the station chief
at the CIA outpost in Benghazi, a facility known internally
as the CIA Annex. It was located less than a
mile from the State Department compound.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I was in touch with the Annex chief, so I
was talking to him about the security team from the
Annex in Benghazi moving expeditiously to rescue our people at
our facility.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
The annex was home base for about two dozen Americans,
including some CIA agents and the team of private security contractors.
In an agreement between the CIA and the State Department,
those contractors could be tapped to respond to an emergency
at the diplomatic nearby. That was why Greg Hicks wanted
to talk to the station chief.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
And I asked him quite pointedly, are you going to
be able to meet your obligations under our agreement?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Separately, the contractors at the CIA annex heard distress calls
from the compound. They pulled on their gear, grabbed their weapons,
and loaded up into armored cars. But before they could leave,
they were held up by the annex chief. He was
in charge of directing the contractors, and for reasons that
would later be litigated and re litigated in the media
and by Congress, he told the contractors to wait.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I know the Gazi Annex chief personally, and he's a
decent man. He was put in an awful position that
night where he had to make choices to risk the
people under his authority in his compound to save our
(25:06):
people and the consulate.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
If the station chief were to send the contractors to
the compound, he would be leaving the CIA annex largely defenseless.
So instead of sending his own people out, he tried
to reach the leaders of friendly local militias to ask
for their help. The contractors got frustrated. They knew that
the passing minutes were only giving the attackers an edge. Eventually,
(25:30):
a call came on the radio from one of the
DS agents at the compound. If you guys don't get
here soon, we're going to die. With that, the CIA
contractors broke protocol. Twenty minutes after they had first heard
about the attack. They left for the compound without the
station chiefs go ahead. At the compound, Scott Wickland was
(25:56):
adjusting to a new threat.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Fire. Yeah. I turned to the Ambassador and John Smith
and I was like, hey, we got to get to
the bathroom now.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The idea behind moving to the bathroom was that Wickland,
Stevens and Smith would have access to water.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
There.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
They could wet a towel and shove it under the
base of the door, then open the small window vent
and wait out the fire. Wicklin figured the villa was
made of concrete. The stuff inside of it might catch fire,
but the structure itself would not.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
I mean, outside there are attackers, inside, there's fire. I'm
more likely to survive fire if I'm in the bathroom
than i am to survive attackers who were outside. I
knew that going outside was not an option at all,
and so we started crawling.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
It was eight meters from the safe haven to the bathroom,
about the length of two cars. Wicklin strapped his rifle
across his chest and began to guide Stevens in a
crawl with his left hand holding the body armor on
Stevens's back. Sean Smith followed behind them.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
By the time we reached the corner, so two meters,
the smoke was super thick. I mean, that's how quickly
it filled up with smoke. And it wasn't smoke like
a campfire. This was smoke like it just it entered
your eyeballs, it went in your mouth, and it was
just putrid. It was black, thick smoke that's a mixture
(27:22):
of burning rubber and plastic and caustic fumes that just
choke you.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Could you see it all?
Speaker 5 (27:31):
No, nothing, There was no breathable air from like the
ceiling all the way down to you know, the floor,
and so I was like kind of cupping my hands
on the floor and breathing, you know, the last inch
(27:54):
of air that was left. And that's how I was
still talking. And so I was still saying follow me,
follow me, and I was hitting the floor so it
would make like a popping noise, and so they could
hear me where I was is where to go? And
I was just saying, come on, we can make it.
(28:14):
Come on, we can make it. Come on. You know.
I went at a slow pace and I could feel
Ambassador Stevens on my left side, and then I didn't,
you know, I thought, well, he's right there, he's right
behind me. Anyway, no big deal, Like he can still
hear my voice, he can hear my hands. And I
(28:38):
was still saying, come on, we can make it, come on,
follow me, follow this on in my voice, follow me,
follow me. And I made it to the bathroom and
they didn't show up. So I started feeling out into
the hallway that led to the bathroom to see if
(29:00):
I could feel them and pull them in, and I
didn't feel anything. I searched until I was like about
to pass out, Like I could feel the lightheadedness and
like my body like losing motor skills, and I was
(29:20):
really getting scared. At that point, I realized, well, it's
either I'd die here or I go outside.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Wickland knew he could get outside through his bedroom window.
He just had to get there in the darkness. Wicklan's
rifle had somehow gotten tangled or stuck in the bathroom sink,
so he left it behind, stood upright, and ran to
his room. Once inside, he felt his way to the
window and cranked it open.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
And I kind of collapsed onto this little patio area
that I have and shortly after it was just gunfire.
I mean I believed, you know, it was right on
my position.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Wickland took cover behind a knee high wall that surrounded
the patio area outside his bedroom. He could feel shards
of cement hitting his face from where bullets were making
contact around him.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
It was just like getting blast in the face by
a shotgun. And so I turned around and went back
into the building to search for Ambassador Stevens and Shawn Smith.
I went back in the window, and I was just
yelling and screaming, hoping that one of the two of
them could hear me and keep fighting, Like keep crawling
(30:37):
towards my bedroom. I was yelling, I'm in my bedroom.
I'm in my bedroom. Follow my voice. Follow me. There
was like a desk right by my doorway, and I
was slamming that thing, hitting it, like follow me, come
to this noise, Come to my voice.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Wicklan stayed inside until once again he felt like he
was going to pass out. Then he turned around, climbed
out the window, caught his breath, and went back in
to try again.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
I thought, if I turned my lamp on, maybe they'll
be able to see it, and so I went over
by feel on my lamp on the side of my bed,
turned it on, and I held it up to my
face because I couldn't see it, and I remember feeling
the heat from the light bulb and I could just
(31:24):
barely make out a light. That's how thick the smoke was.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Wicklan says that each time he went back into the villa,
he could only stay for about a minute. Eventually he
knew he couldn't go back in at all. He was
also certain that By this point, after spending so much
time inside the burning building, Chris Stevens and Sean Smith
had to be dead.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
My body didn't have any energy left, and I had
been breathing in that smoke. Oh man, it just makes
me sick thinking about it. I knew that if I
went in one more time, that would have been it.
I wouldn't have been coming back out. I wouldn't be
able to help out anybody if I was another casualty.
(32:09):
So I made the decision to climb up the ladder
from the patio up to the roof.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
It's worth underscoring that, in that moment, climbing up onto
the roof of a burning building felt like Wickland's best option.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
It was like a frying pan, it was so hot.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Wickland pulled the aluminum ladder up behind him and took
stock of his surroundings. Perched up on the roof, he
now had a slightly better sense of what was going
on around him. He tried again to reach the other
DS agents who had been in the compound with him
when the attack started.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
The first thing that I did was I got on
the radio and I was like, where the fuck is everybody?
And I said Ambassador Stephens and Sean Smith are still
in the burning building. I need immediate assistance. And there
wasn't a response. Nobody got over the radio and said, yeah,
we're coming to help you out. It was just silence.
(33:11):
I thought I was alone. I thought everybody else was dead.
I thought the other agents were dead. And I had
blisters in my throat and in my mouth. My feet
were pretty messed up, my breathing was pretty bad. And
(33:35):
so I developed a plan. And my plan was that
I was going to jump off the roof without shoes,
and I was going to run to the edge of Benghazi.
I was going to steal a car and drive it
to Egypt. And that was my real plan.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
While Wickland imagined ways of getting away from the compound,
Baker Habib, Chris Stevens's friend and colleague, was desperate to
get in.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
I want to be inside the compound by Jokoba Kroc.
This is my aim at that time. I just want
to be there.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
As Habib drew closer to the front gates, he was
stopped by a group of armed men.
Speaker 7 (34:17):
So there I found two cars, two trucks with heavy
machine guns, and I told him he just wanted to
go in. They said, no way, you can't.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Habib didn't know who these men were or whether they
were working with the attackers. Either way, they had closed
off the street, so Habib turned his car around and
drove to the back of the compound, which looked out
onto a lively street where people had been dining when
the attack began. Habib got out of his car and
tried to get a sense of the scene.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I could hear clearly greenades and number of shots, and
the greenades again the comp.
Speaker 7 (34:57):
Between the grenades. I will say one two minutes Maximo.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
As Habib stood near the back of the compound, a
man carrying a missile launcher approached him and asked if
he was a civilian. Habib told him that he was
and said, I need.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
To go to the building.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
I have to be there. He said it's stager. I
said no, let me do it.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Eventually Habib left his car and began to walk back
around to the front of the compound.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
What is so is people with guns, people without guns,
and many people. You cannot imagine. This was alike a flow.
It's like a three people getting.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
In the gate. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
The scene was unbelievable, and no one knows what was
going on at that time.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
The flood of people Habib was seeing had shown up
at the compound. After a word of the attack spread
around Benghazi through text messages, facebook pages, and phone calls.
It was hard to tell who was an attacker and
who was just a rubbernecker trying to see what was
going on at the American mission. Later, this ambiguity would
determine almost everything about how the attack in Benghazi was
(36:01):
initially misunderstood in the United States. Up on the rooft
Wicklan didn't know what time it was or how long
it had been since he gave up on trying to
find Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith. After a while, though,
it seemed like the attackers had moved away from his position,
(36:21):
creating an opportunity for him to escape, and.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
I thought, well, this might be my time pretty soon
to carry out my plan. Then I got a call
over the radio and it was Dave Ouben.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Dave Eben was another DS agent and Wickman's friend from training.
The two of them had been out by the pool
together when the attackers first arrived at the compound. They
hadn't seen each other or spoken since.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
Dave called and basically said, you know, Scott, are you alive.
I called back and I was like, yes, yeah, I'm
still alive. I'm still here. Where are you guys? I
need some help, And they said we're coming.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Wicklin says the other DS agents came to the side
of Villis where he was hiding and signaled to him. Wickland,
still barefoot, climbed down the ladder and told them he
thought Ambassador Stevens and Shawn Smith were still inside the building.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
When I see them, it's like, oh, my gosh, I
might survive. I might survive this because I now have
my teammates. I'm not alone anymore. That was the big
thing for me was I thought I was alone like
this entire time. I thought it was just me. Right away,
they were jumping in the burning building to try and
(37:42):
find ambass Stevens and Shawn Smith.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
As the other DS agents took turns entering the building,
they were joined by the team of private contractors from
the CIA Annex. After a firefight on their way into
the compound, the CIA contractors had managed to scare off
some of the attackers, at least temporarily. Now they joined
in the desperate search for Stevens and Smith, entering the
(38:06):
villa through the windows, Scott Wickland had identified, doing a
lap side as long as they could stand it, and
circling back out again. Finally, one of the DS agents
found Sean Smith. He was dead, apparently of smoke and elation,
and the agent pulled his body out of the villa.
It wasn't long after that it seemed like the fighting
(38:28):
might start up again.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
We start feeling pressure from like attackers again. There's people
who are kind of hiding out at one of the gates,
and so we're starting to feel like, you know, we
have to get moving. We have to get out of
here before there's a second attack.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Though they still hadn't found Stevens, the DS agents and
the contractors decided it was time to evacuate to the
nearby CIA base. The DS agents went first, packing into
one of the armored vehicles that was kept at the compound.
Despite his condition, Wickland got into the driver's seat. He
had been in Benghazi the longest and he knew the
(39:08):
way to the annex. Meanwhile, the CIA contractors loaded Sean
Smith's body into the car they'd arrived in. After beating
back another advance from the attackers. They pulled out of
the compound two. It was eleven seventeen PM, about an
hour and a half after the attack first started. Wherever
Ambassador Stevens was now, it wasn't with the Americans. Baker
(39:32):
Habib worried that his friend had been kidnapped.
Speaker 7 (39:35):
At that time.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
I was in contact with those people who got Sjonah Smith, Buddy.
I thought Chris was out of the compound at that time.
So you say, just came to my mind that Chris
would be a tortured first, then he killed by them,
and everything is just in my mind.
Speaker 7 (39:57):
So at that time was what was suitable.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
At the embassy in Tripoli, Greg Hicks had been trying
to solicit some kind of help from somewhere before another
wave of attacks could hit the Americans. At what point
were you told that basically there wasn't any help coming
from outside of Libya.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
That was AFRICOM telling the Defense attesche that they had
nothing available to send, and that happened at about eleven PM.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
AFRICOM is part of the Department of Defense. It's responsible
for American military activity in Africa. On the night of
the attack, AFRICAM told Hicks. The nearest military resources were
fighter planes stationed in Aviano, Italy that was at least
a two or three hour flight from Benghazi. On top
of that, there were no tankers available for the planes
(40:57):
to refuel.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Essentially, that's why there was no military response, because the
military wasn't ready for any eventuality.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
On nine to eleven, it appeared that the Americans' only
option to launch a rescue mission from Tripoli, so a
team of private security contractors based in the Capitol boarded
a flight to Benghazi. We'll be right back. Even after
(41:31):
the Americans evacuated the Benghazi compound, the large crowd of
Libyans Baker Habib had seen nearby continued to grow.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
So you see many people just coming and keep coming
to the American mission because Biebo was curious to know
what was going on at that time and what happened.
Many of them just was to be there with their
cell phone to just record what was going on.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
What you're hearing is a cell phone video recorded by
a man named fad alba Khush, who later shared his
footage with American news networks. Some people looted the compound,
taking everything from television sets to coils of rope. One
guy even picked up a container of chocolate syrup and
walked through the compound, squirting it into his mouth. Then,
(42:20):
around one o'clock in the morning, someone found a man
in Villa C. He was unresponsive and covered in soot.
In the cell phone video, you can see a group
of people pull the man's body out of the villa.
You can hear them yelling in Arabic, he's alive, He's alive. Later,
(42:45):
some American commentators would say the Libyans dragged the man
through the streets. In reality, they immediately brought him to
the Bengazi Medical Center and within fifteen minutes he was
in a hospital bed. Soon after, the American Embassy in
Tripoli received a call from Scott Wickland's phone. It was
the same number that Greg Hicks had reached Chris Stevens
(43:07):
on earlier in the night, but this time it and
Steven's on the other line. It was a man speaking Arabic,
saying he was at the hospital with someone who looked
like the ambassador. Hicks and his colleagues pressed the man
for something more concrete, but he would not provide a
photograph or any other confirmation.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
We were very, very focused on asking the kinds of
questions that would reveal whether we were talking to a
friend or an enemy.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
The Americans felt like they couldn't take any information at
face value. It was more than possible that Wickland's cell
phone had been stolen from the compound and that the
attackers were now trying to lure them into a trap.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Then this whole confusing conversation begins where we understand he's
taken to a hospital, and the government keeps telling as well,
we know he's safe, and we keep going where is he?
And they won't tell us where he is, So our
view is that he's a prisoner and not in a
(44:11):
safe place.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Baker Habib, who was in touch with State Department officials,
volunteered to go to the hospital and see for himself
if the man was Chris Stevens, but he was told
he couldn't go. It turned out there was intelligence saying
that because of his close association with the Americans, Habib
might be a target too.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
So I told him how about sending someone I trust
and someone in you Christine is very well he could
go there without any problem.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
So that plan was set in motion, and after a
while Habib's friend called him from the hospital.
Speaker 7 (44:47):
So he called me back and.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Told me that I'm next to him. Yes, his christive
is one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Stevens was dead. Habib's friend said someone needed to come
get his body from the hospital, and Habib told him
he was on his way. Chris Stevens was reported killed
in action at four fifteen am. By that time, the
Americans who had gathered at the CIA base, including Scott Wickland,
(45:21):
his fellow DS agents, and the CIA contractors, had all
spent hours bracing themselves for another attack. Though locals didn't
officially know where the CIA annex was, it was possible
that someone had tracked the Americans as they made their
way there from the compound. There had been several moments
while Wickland was driving to the annex when he thought
someone was following him. When he got there, the tail
(45:44):
was gone, but he and the other Americans wanted to
be ready for the worst.
Speaker 5 (45:49):
We prepared by putting people up on the roof and
making sure that they were armed. You know. We had
people monitoring to make sure that we could see these people.
And I stayed inside just trying to kind of recuperate
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Were you able to get medical attention at that point.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
I mean, there wasn't a whole lot that we could
do for me. I got some shoes, which was great.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Soon enough, it turned out Wickland and the others had
been right to worry. Whoever was trying to expel them
from Benghazi had figured out where they were. Aided by
night vision goggles, the Americans prevailed in two brief firefights,
but everyone was dreading the sunrise, when light would give
the attackers a clearer view of the CIA base. At
(46:36):
five am, reinforcements finally arrived from Tripoli. Among them was
a CIA contractor named Glen Doherty, who joined a number
of others, including a contractor named Tyrone Woods, on the
roof of the main building as the sky began to
turn from black to deep blue. The plan was to
get every American out of Benghazi as soon as humanly possible.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
But then, you know, was I expecting mortars?
Speaker 3 (47:02):
No?
Speaker 5 (47:03):
I was not expecting mortars, and I definitely wasn't expecting
the accuracy the mortars.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
In the space of ninety seconds, six mortars hit the
Benghazi CIA base. Three of them exploded on the roof
of the main building, where most of the Americans were hiding.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
You know, I was standing right below the ceiling of
where they're impacting. But I think the heaviest part of
the entire experience was knowing that, you know, I've I
have some friends up on that roof, and I don't
know why they're not answering the radio call. I don't
know how they're doing.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were both killed in the explosions.
Another CIA contractor, Mark Geist, and Scott Wickman's friend Dave
Uben were critically injured. After that, the attackers seemed to
withdraw and the Americans prepared to leave Benghazi. At the airport,
(48:09):
the plane that the trip team had used to get
to Benghazi was still sitting on the tarmac. It was
too small to fit everyone who needed to evacuate, which
meant that those needing immediate medical attention, including Scott Wickland,
were sent ahead. In the meantime, one of Wickland's fellow
DS agents called Baker Habib to update him on the situation.
(48:29):
A group of Libyans the Americans trusted had gone to
the Benghazi Medical Center to retrieve Stevens's body.
Speaker 9 (48:35):
I wasn't my way to the hospital then receive a
qullo from one of the ds and he said, bo,
don't go to a hospital. He said why, he said,
we already got the buddy, We got the remains. Just
come straightforward to the to the airport.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
When Habib arrived at the airport, he said goodbye to
his friend.
Speaker 9 (48:56):
He was there at the airport.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
He's a front of mere lifeless.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
And he was there.
Speaker 7 (49:06):
In the city.
Speaker 9 (49:06):
He loved to support, to back up and to obendge
to the United States.
Speaker 7 (49:18):
So I spoke to him.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
I told him, Chris, what if it takes, I was
doing him best to bring those criminals to justice.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Other Libyans who had known Chris Stevens during his time
in Benghazi came to the tarmac as well. Many of
them were in tears, aware that the American evacuation probably
meant the end of the US presence in Benghazi. Greg
Hicks was aware of it too.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I distinctly remember arguing that if we leave, then we've lost.
They went that was the purpose of the attack, was
the chasers out of the country. So my view was
that we needed to take some time, regroup, rebuild, and
then continue our job.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
The Libyan Air Force provided a cargo plane for the
remaining Americans. The bodies of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods,
and Glen Doherty were loaded in as well. After a
stop in Tripoli, Scott Wickland and the others boarded a
plane for Europe.
Speaker 5 (50:36):
We loaded up on the plane and there were four coffins.
You know, everybody's looking at these coffins and at these
people and silently trying to figure out what just happened.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
On the next episode of Fiasco, the attack in Benghazi
enters the bloodstream of American politics.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
That took the president fourteen days before he called the
attack in Benghazzi an active chair.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
Get the transfer.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
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 Prolog Projects, and it's distributed
by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,
Ulla Kulpa, Sam Lee, and me Leon Mayfock, with editorial
support from Sam Graham Felsen and Matteline Kaplan. Our researcher
(51:41):
was Francis Carr. Our score was composed by Dan English,
Joe Valley, and Noah Hect. Additional music by Nick Sylvester
Joel Saint Julian Billy Libby and Little Cheddar Studios. Our
theme song is by Spatial Relations Audio mixed by Rob Buyers,
Michael Raphael and Johnny Vince Evans. Our artwork is by
(52:02):
Teddy Blanks at Chips and y Copyright Council provided by
Peter Yassi at Yassi Butler PLLC. Thanks to Archive dot Org,
Julianne Himmelstein, Mike Clark, David Kirkpatrick, fad Alba Khush, Angela
Giordani and Mitch Zukoff. Special thanks to Lubernari and thank
(52:24):
you for listening.
Pushkin. Hey Leon here, Before we get to this episode,
I want to let you know that you can binge
the entire season of Fiasco Benghazi right now, add free
by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Sign up for Pushkin
Plus on the Fiasco Apple podcast show page, or visit
Pushkin dot fm slash Plus Now onto the show. Please
(00:41):
note this episode contains descriptions of violence some listeners may
find disturbing. Previously on Fiasco.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
The Arab Spring had arrived in Libya.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
They were saying, wake up, wake up, Benghazi.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is the day.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
If you are waiting.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Forward, It's not usual to send in a diplomat and
basically say make your way.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
I was very worried about it. Secure it eight.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Six months after the uprising, Olivia is flooded with weapons
and faces a potential power vacuum. The country is now
at risk of being taken over by extremists.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You Americans need to watch out because the people who
you're dealing with are not your friends.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Man plus X equals Islamic terrorist.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
Islamic terrorist minus X.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Equals man.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
But what is X?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You're listening to a scene from a low budget movie
called Innocence of Muslims. It's not even really a movie technically,
it's a fourteen minute trailer for a movie that was
never released. The trailer was posted on YouTube in July
of twenty twelve.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Muhammed is all a messenger and the Kuwan is a constitution.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
The Innocence of Muslims video is a crude piece of
anti Islamic propaganda. In it, the Islamic prophet Mohammad is
played by a boyish white actor, and he's depicted as
a charlatan, a womanizer, and a bloodthirsty tyrant.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
He kills men, captures women, and chills men, and what's more,
he does this all in the.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Name of God.
Speaker 7 (02:39):
What God is this?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
The video was produced in California by an Egyptian American
man named Nicula Basselli. Nicula he said he made the
film in protest of violence perpetrated around the world by
Islamic extremists. It was an amateurish production. Nicula used his
own house as a sound stage. He hired the actors
through backstage dot Com and told them they were shooting
(03:04):
an epic called Desert Warriors. According to the script he
gave them, the film wasn't about Mohammed at all, but
just some guy named George. It was only in post
production that the name Mohammad was dubbed. In raised him
as one of your slaves.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
If you must, what shall I call you?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
His name is Mohammed the father unknown.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Nikola had his twenty one year old son post the
video online and for a while it went virtually unseen.
Then about two months later, in September of twenty twelve,
a new version of the video appeared on YouTube, this
time translated into Arabic.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
A mis alhand.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Soon miss when clips from the video aired an Egyptian
television with heated commentary from a pundit who called it
unspeakable and asked how long will I be called a
terrorist for growing my beard? The video exploded in Egypt.
(04:07):
Political leaders and preachers publicly denounced it, and popular Facebook
groups called for protests. As tensions continued to rise, the
American Embassy in Cairo decided to address the video. Around
noon on September eleventh, they released a written statement.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
Saying quote the Embassy of the United States and Cairo
condemns the continuing efforts misguided individuals to hurt the religious
feelings of Muslims. As we condemn efforts to offend believers
of all religions.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
The statement did little to quell the outrage in Cairo.
Within a matter of hours, hundreds of protesters had gathered
outside the American embassy.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Developing story out of Cairo, Egypt. I understand that protesters
are outside the US embassy. They are there are about
a thousand of them, and protesters have, from what we understand,
storm the walls of the embassy and pull down US flags.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Some of the protesters scaled the walls, tearing down an
American flag and setting it on fire.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
Egyptian riot police are on the scene and they are
trying to protect the walls.
Speaker 8 (05:11):
They are protesting a video they say the fames the
prophet Muhammad Egyptian.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The Cairo protest was only the latest flare up in
a long running conflict over the depiction of Mohammad.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Muslim protesters directed more violent anger today against newspapers in
Denmark and other European countries that have printed cartoons of
Mohammad from Cairo day.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
In most Islamic practices, it's considered blasphemists to create any
visual representation of Mohammed. Over the years, some self described
secularists have made a point of violating that rule in
the name of free speech.
Speaker 8 (05:45):
Against cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed as violent womanizing, first
published in Denmark and since in seventeen other countries.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
One of the most dramatic examples occurred back in two
thousand and six, after a Danish newspaper published several cartoons
of Mohamed and protests broke out across the Arab world.
They were Muslim protests in at least a dozen countries today,
now in Cairo. In twenty twelve, it looked like the
(06:15):
same thing again, with Egyptians rising up against the deliberate
provocation that had originated in the West. And it was
happening on the anniversary of the September eleventh attacks, when
American embassies across the region were on high alert.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Anyway, the embassy was closed for business that day as
a security measure, and we were working from our compound
for the most part.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
This is Gregory Hicks. In twenty twelve, he was the
deputy Chief of the American Mission in Libya, Chris Stevens's
number two at the embassy in Tripoli. On September eleventh,
Hicks had been left in charge while Stevens took a
short trip to Benghazi.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And I remember texting Chris in Benghazi and asking him,
are you watching what's going on in Cairo?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Stevens told Hicks he had been unaware of the protests
for all the tensions erupting in Egypt over the Innocence
Muslims video.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Libya was quiet, and then when the sun went down,
we were kind of relieved, wiping the sweat off our brows,
that we had not been targeted in Tripoli and they
had not been targeted in Benghazi.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It seemed like the day had passed without incident. Hicks
was relieved.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I had basically said, Okay, we're good, We're through the day.
Nine to eleven is going to be over. And the
only thing that happened was in Cairo. And so I
went to watch a television program and about nine forty
five or thereabouts, John Martinick, the RSO, ran up to
(07:50):
my room. He's yelling Greg, Greg the consulates under attack.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hicks checked his phone and saw missed calls from both
Ambassador Stevens and a number he didn't recognize. He tried
to call back, but no one picked up. Then Hicks
got through to Stevens by dialing the unknown number and he.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Said, Greg, we're under attack. I think I said okay,
and before I could say anything else, he cut the line.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I'm Leon Navak from Prologued Projects and Pushkin Industries. This
is fiasco Benghazi.
Speaker 7 (08:20):
I could hear these shots. I can heard the greenades.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
I turned to the ambassador and said, I'm going to
start shooting, and when I die I want you to
pick up my rifle and keep on fighting.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
It's taken to a hospital and the government won't tell
us where it is.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
We already got the buddy, we got the remains.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
I thought I was alone. I thought everybody else was dead.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Episode three, Barefoot, The Attack in Benghazi. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Chris arrived to Bengazi Airport Monday morning, Monday. This is
the day, was September tenth, So I was there at
the airport to we'll come here.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
This is Baker Habib, born and raised in Libya. He
started working with the State Department when the US reconciled
with the Gadafi regime after the Libyan Revolution. Habib became
especially close with Chris Stevens. When Stevens was posted in
Benghazi as an envoy to the anti Gaddafi opposition. Now
with Gaddafi gone, Stephens was coming back to Benghazi to
(09:31):
check in with his local contacts.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And I remember when I told him was came back,
and he said, I'm pretty glad to be back home.
So he considered Bengazi as home.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Why exactly Stephens decided to make his trip to Benghazi
when he did has never been firmly established, but the
general reason was that he understood the city's importance as
one of Libya's cultural and political centers. Benghazi was the
seat of the revolution that had toppled Gadafi. If Tripoli
was Libya's Washington d C. Benghazi was New York or LA.
(10:03):
Stephens believed that the US needed a strong presence there
Island Town, Stevens was going to preside over the opening
of a kind of study center at a local school
that was owned and operated by Baker Habib. It would
be called the American Corner. The idea was that Libyans
could take English classes there, find information on college admissions
(10:25):
in the US, and so on. It would be an
engine of what some might call American soft power. When
Stevens arrived in Benghazi. He and Habib set about finalizing
the details for the opening.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I spent all day long with him on Monday and Tuesday.
Speaker 7 (10:42):
I went out a little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I'm back again. Last time I saw him it was
about fiveish. He had an appointment with the Turkish councilor
at that time, so I would say the last time
I saw Chris Stevens, I walked with him, it was
about five five ten something like that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
After Habib left, Stevens took his last meeting of the
day with a Turkish diplomat at the American Compound.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Our compound was in a residential neighborhood and it didn't
look unlike any of the other houses in the area,
so about as long as one of their blocks, like
a city block almost. It had cement walls all the
way around it.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
This is Scott Wickland, trained in the Navy as a
specialist in conducting rescue missions. In twenty twelve, he was
working for the State Department as a DS agent DS
short for Diplomatic Security. On September eleventh, Wickland was on
day forty one of a seventy day posting at the
compound in Benghazi.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
We had four buildings on it a little orchard on it.
We had a pool. We had a soccer field where
the guards would play soccer, and sometimes we would go
play with them.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
As you heard in episode two, the American compound in
Benghazi had been leased by the State Department after the
Libyan Revolution. The four structures on the grounds included a
barracks for local Libyan guards, a canteen, and a building
known as Villas, where Stevens slept and met with visitors.
After Stevens's final meeting of the night, business at the
(12:16):
compound began to wind down, Stevens retired to his residence
in Villa C. One of his State Department colleagues, an
IT specialist named Sean Smith, was in his bedroom in
the same building, playing a video game called Evonline and
chatting with other gamers. One DS agent was in the
compound security center. Scott Wickland and two other agents were outside.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
At the end of the evening. We were sitting by
the pool and talking. You know, I was wearing flip flops,
just kind of relaxing.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Then a little after nine thirty pm, Wickland heard a
sound in the distance.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
It sounded like chanting to me, you know, like a
crowd chanting something. I didn't know what it was, and
then the sound kind of came nearer and nearer, approaching
the compound, and when I made out alahu Akbar. With
our current risk profile, we need to do something.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Wickland and the other DS agents snapped into action.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We're already stressed out because the ambassadors here. It's a
dangerous location at September eleventh, we're on this kind of
high alert. We don't know if they're armed, we don't
know if they're peaceful. We just don't know. And the
automatic response from my end was I need to go
get ready in case. So I turned to the other
guys and I said, go get your stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
The DS agents who were with Wickland by the pool
ran to get their weapons. Wickland already had some of
his gear with him, so he took the role of
securing Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, the IT specialist. Both
of them were in the living quarters of Villa C,
which were separated from the main area by what Wickland
describes as a metal jail cell door.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
I ran into Phili C and the building ran over
into kind of our living area, and I locked this
jail cell door. You could like stick your arm through
the door, but a person could not crawl through.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
As Wickland secured the villa's living quarters, he could tell
that the group he had heard approaching the compound was
breaching the main gate outside. It appeared that most of
the Libyan guards on duty had scattered, allowing the attackers
to rush in effectively unopposed. Sean Smith tapped out a
message to the people he was playing video games with.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
Fuck.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
He wrote, gunfire. Wickland ran into his bedroom and put
on body armor and a helmet.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
And as soon as I came out of my bedroom,
Investor Stevens was standing kind of in this common area.
He was ready for bed, you know. He was wearing
shorts and like a white T shirt. He had his
body armor with him in his helmet and he was
kind of finishing putting that on, and right away I
told him that we needed to get him in the
(15:13):
safe haven. Seawn Smith came out shortly after that, and
I put Shawn Smith in the safe haven and we sat.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The safe haven was essentially a big closet surrounded by
cement walls. Wickland turned off the lights as he ushered
Stevens and Smith inside.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
There was a sliding door on it that I had opened.
And I was kind of kneeling in the entryway of
the save haven, and I had a shotgun, a pistol
and an M four And I think that this is
actually where I kicked off my sandals, because crouching down
on sandals it just wasn't comfortable.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Now barefoot, Wickland steadied his M four rifle in the
darkness of the safe haven and waited. Around nine pm,
Chris Stevens's friend, Baker Habib got a call from one
(16:14):
of the DS agents in the compound. He addressed Habibe
by the nickname Stevens had given him Bo.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
The diplomatic security agents. One of them he called me
and tell me, hey, Bo aranda attack. So for me,
I couldn't possess my reaction. Oh and there is sand
at that time. What he meant by attack, it cannot be.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Habib didn't want to believe that the compound was under attack,
but he knew what he was hearing.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
I could hear these shots. I can heard the grenades.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Habib jumped in his car and headed to the compound
where he had been with Chris Stevens four hours earlier.
From his position in the safe haven, Scott Wickland could
hear the gunfire too. He could also hear the attackers
begin to hit the main doors of villas trying to
break in. Then suddenly he could see them.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
I could see through the jail cell door into this
entryway into Villa C, which is where I saw all
the attackers rush in when they finally blew open the doors.
I saw him come in the building and I saw,
you know that they were carrying weapons. I saw AK
(17:34):
forty seven's the RPG, I saw grenades. I knew that
we were in trouble. I was immediately on the radio saying,
where is everybody? Where's my backup? Where are you guys?
And I had to whisper because people were in the building,
(17:56):
and I said, they're in the building. I need immediate assistance.
And I said this over and over, and I didn't
hear a response.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
There were four other DS agents in the compound, but
none of them were answering Wicklan's calls.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
I was scared, wondering if, like the other guys, okay,
were they killed, you know, were they captured? You know?
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
As the attackers rushed into the villa, Wickland could hear
the commotion they were causing. It sounded like they were
breaking glass, ripping paintings off the walls, and destroying furniture.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
As people started to flood into the building, I start thinking, well,
this is it. I mean, it's only a matter of
time before they come over and find us. And sure enough,
two individuals came over to the jail cell door. One
of the individuals started fumbling with one of his grenades,
and I thought, you know, he's going to blow the
(18:58):
locks up with his grenades. And that's when I turned
to the ambassador and said, if they blow the locks,
I'm going to start shooting, and when I die, I
want you to pick got my rifle and keep on fighting.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Wickland trained the site of his rifle on the chest
of one of the men standing at the jail cell door,
but he held his fire, figuring that as soon as
he pulled the trigger, he would reveal his location to
all the other attackers.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Instead of using the grenades, one of the guys uses
the butt of his rifle and just kind of bangs
on the door a little bit, but nothing happened. After that,
they turned and walked away. That was a massive sigh
of relief for me. I thought, my gosh, maybe we're
going to survive. Maybe we're going to be in the clear.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Shortly after that, Wicklan saw the attackers start to leave
the building and he breathed the tentative sigh of relief.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
What I didn't realize was that they had taken some
fuel cans and started pouring it on all those broken
frames and the furniture, and they lit it on fire.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The compound had recently acquired a new generator. It was
stored near the main gate, next to big jugs of
diesel fuel. It seemed that before leaving the villa, the
attackers had poured the fuel all over the premises.
Speaker 5 (20:27):
I got a hint of that smell, and it was smoke,
and I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't know,
you know, I couldn't see any fire. I couldn't tell it,
but I could smell it. And then I knew, well,
now we have a different problem on our hands.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
From his post in Tripoli, four hundred miles away, Deputy
Chief of Mission Greg Hicks was trying to get a
handle on what was happening in ben Ghazi. He had
spoken to Stevens just after nine forty five PM when
Stevens told him the mission was under attack. Now Hicks
had to figure out how to help.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
The first thing I'm doing is, Okay, track down all
of our embassy leadership people, get them to the operations center,
and say get on the horn with everybody you know
and find out what exactly is going on.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Hicks and his colleagues in Tripoli developed a kind of
phone tree. Some were trying to reach the DS agents
of the compound. Meanwhile, Hicks was communicating with Libyan government
officials in hopes of mobilizing some kind of rescue.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I was calling senior officials in the government in Tripoli
because they are the individuals who have the responsibility to react.
I mean, this was a criminal attack on a diplomatic
facility in Libyan territory.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
But the process was hampered by the reality of telecommunication
in Libya. Service inside the embassy was so unreliable that
Hicks and his team had to go outside to their courtyard.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
We're all walking around. It's dead dark except for the
stars overhead and the like that are on in our compound,
and we're all walking around dousing for telephone signals. When
we got the signal, we would immediately start dialing on
our phones frantically to try to make the next phone call.
(22:24):
And then we would ammeble like kind of come together
and we would share the information that we had gathered,
and then we would all spread out again, dousing for signal,
and then we would be on the phone again.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
He was through these phone calls that Hicks and his
State Department colleagues formed a rough understanding of how the
attack in Benghazi was playing out.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
We heard, you know. It was dozens of armed individuals
had entered the compound, rocket pelt grenades and rifle fire
and automatic fire and was taking place.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
As Hicks dialed out, he tried Ambassador Stevens again and again.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I was trying to call him every few minutes and
getting no answer. He probably had his phone on silence
to not attract attention to their presence. I don't know,
but he'd never answered the phone again.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
When he wasn't calling Stevens's phone or his contacts in
the Libyan government, Deputy Chief of Mission Greg Hicks was
calling the CIA. Specifically, he was calling the station chief
at the CIA outpost in Benghazi, a facility known internally
as the CIA Annex. It was located less than a
mile from the State Department compound.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I was in touch with the Annex chief, so I
was talking to him about the security team from the
Annex in Benghazi moving expeditiously to rescue our people at
our facility.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
The annex was home base for about two dozen Americans,
including some CIA agents and the team of private security contractors.
In an agreement between the CIA and the State Department,
those contractors could be tapped to respond to an emergency
at the diplomatic nearby. That was why Greg Hicks wanted
to talk to the station chief.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
And I asked him quite pointedly, are you going to
be able to meet your obligations under our agreement?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Separately, the contractors at the CIA annex heard distress calls
from the compound. They pulled on their gear, grabbed their weapons,
and loaded up into armored cars. But before they could leave,
they were held up by the annex chief. He was
in charge of directing the contractors, and for reasons that
would later be litigated and re litigated in the media
and by Congress, he told the contractors to wait.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I know the Gazi Annex chief personally, and he's a
decent man. He was put in an awful position that
night where he had to make choices to risk the
people under his authority in his compound to save our
(25:06):
people and the consulate.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
If the station chief were to send the contractors to
the compound, he would be leaving the CIA annex largely defenseless.
So instead of sending his own people out, he tried
to reach the leaders of friendly local militias to ask
for their help. The contractors got frustrated. They knew that
the passing minutes were only giving the attackers an edge. Eventually,
(25:30):
a call came on the radio from one of the
DS agents at the compound. If you guys don't get
here soon, we're going to die. With that, the CIA
contractors broke protocol. Twenty minutes after they had first heard
about the attack. They left for the compound without the
station chiefs go ahead. At the compound, Scott Wickland was
(25:56):
adjusting to a new threat.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Fire. Yeah. I turned to the Ambassador and John Smith
and I was like, hey, we got to get to
the bathroom now.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
The idea behind moving to the bathroom was that Wickland,
Stevens and Smith would have access to water.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
There.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
They could wet a towel and shove it under the
base of the door, then open the small window vent
and wait out the fire. Wicklin figured the villa was
made of concrete. The stuff inside of it might catch fire,
but the structure itself would not.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
I mean, outside there are attackers, inside, there's fire. I'm
more likely to survive fire if I'm in the bathroom
than i am to survive attackers who were outside. I
knew that going outside was not an option at all,
and so we started crawling.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
It was eight meters from the safe haven to the bathroom,
about the length of two cars. Wicklin strapped his rifle
across his chest and began to guide Stevens in a
crawl with his left hand holding the body armor on
Stevens's back. Sean Smith followed behind them.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
By the time we reached the corner, so two meters,
the smoke was super thick. I mean, that's how quickly
it filled up with smoke. And it wasn't smoke like
a campfire. This was smoke like it just it entered
your eyeballs, it went in your mouth, and it was
just putrid. It was black, thick smoke that's a mixture
(27:22):
of burning rubber and plastic and caustic fumes that just
choke you.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Could you see it all?
Speaker 5 (27:31):
No, nothing, There was no breathable air from like the
ceiling all the way down to you know, the floor,
and so I was like kind of cupping my hands
on the floor and breathing, you know, the last inch
(27:54):
of air that was left. And that's how I was
still talking. And so I was still saying follow me,
follow me, and I was hitting the floor so it
would make like a popping noise, and so they could
hear me where I was is where to go? And
I was just saying, come on, we can make it.
(28:14):
Come on, we can make it. Come on. You know.
I went at a slow pace and I could feel
Ambassador Stevens on my left side, and then I didn't,
you know, I thought, well, he's right there, he's right
behind me. Anyway, no big deal, Like he can still
hear my voice, he can hear my hands. And I
(28:38):
was still saying, come on, we can make it, come on,
follow me, follow this on in my voice, follow me,
follow me. And I made it to the bathroom and
they didn't show up. So I started feeling out into
the hallway that led to the bathroom to see if
(29:00):
I could feel them and pull them in, and I
didn't feel anything. I searched until I was like about
to pass out, Like I could feel the lightheadedness and
like my body like losing motor skills, and I was
(29:20):
really getting scared. At that point, I realized, well, it's
either I'd die here or I go outside.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Wickland knew he could get outside through his bedroom window.
He just had to get there in the darkness. Wicklan's
rifle had somehow gotten tangled or stuck in the bathroom sink,
so he left it behind, stood upright, and ran to
his room. Once inside, he felt his way to the
window and cranked it open.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
And I kind of collapsed onto this little patio area
that I have and shortly after it was just gunfire.
I mean I believed, you know, it was right on
my position.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Wickland took cover behind a knee high wall that surrounded
the patio area outside his bedroom. He could feel shards
of cement hitting his face from where bullets were making
contact around him.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
It was just like getting blast in the face by
a shotgun. And so I turned around and went back
into the building to search for Ambassador Stevens and Shawn Smith.
I went back in the window, and I was just
yelling and screaming, hoping that one of the two of
them could hear me and keep fighting, Like keep crawling
(30:37):
towards my bedroom. I was yelling, I'm in my bedroom.
I'm in my bedroom. Follow my voice. Follow me. There
was like a desk right by my doorway, and I
was slamming that thing, hitting it, like follow me, come
to this noise, Come to my voice.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Wicklan stayed inside until once again he felt like he
was going to pass out. Then he turned around, climbed
out the window, caught his breath, and went back in
to try again.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
I thought, if I turned my lamp on, maybe they'll
be able to see it, and so I went over
by feel on my lamp on the side of my bed,
turned it on, and I held it up to my
face because I couldn't see it, and I remember feeling
the heat from the light bulb and I could just
(31:24):
barely make out a light. That's how thick the smoke was.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Wicklan says that each time he went back into the villa,
he could only stay for about a minute. Eventually he
knew he couldn't go back in at all. He was
also certain that By this point, after spending so much
time inside the burning building, Chris Stevens and Sean Smith
had to be dead.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
My body didn't have any energy left, and I had
been breathing in that smoke. Oh man, it just makes
me sick thinking about it. I knew that if I
went in one more time, that would have been it.
I wouldn't have been coming back out. I wouldn't be
able to help out anybody if I was another casualty.
(32:09):
So I made the decision to climb up the ladder
from the patio up to the roof.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
It's worth underscoring that, in that moment, climbing up onto
the roof of a burning building felt like Wickland's best option.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
It was like a frying pan, it was so hot.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Wickland pulled the aluminum ladder up behind him and took
stock of his surroundings. Perched up on the roof, he
now had a slightly better sense of what was going
on around him. He tried again to reach the other
DS agents who had been in the compound with him
when the attack started.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
The first thing that I did was I got on
the radio and I was like, where the fuck is everybody?
And I said Ambassador Stephens and Sean Smith are still
in the burning building. I need immediate assistance. And there
wasn't a response. Nobody got over the radio and said, yeah,
we're coming to help you out. It was just silence.
(33:11):
I thought I was alone. I thought everybody else was dead.
I thought the other agents were dead. And I had
blisters in my throat and in my mouth. My feet
were pretty messed up, my breathing was pretty bad. And
(33:35):
so I developed a plan. And my plan was that
I was going to jump off the roof without shoes,
and I was going to run to the edge of Benghazi.
I was going to steal a car and drive it
to Egypt. And that was my real plan.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
While Wickland imagined ways of getting away from the compound,
Baker Habib, Chris Stevens's friend and colleague, was desperate to
get in.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
I want to be inside the compound by Jokoba Kroc.
This is my aim at that time. I just want
to be there.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
As Habib drew closer to the front gates, he was
stopped by a group of armed men.
Speaker 7 (34:17):
So there I found two cars, two trucks with heavy
machine guns, and I told him he just wanted to
go in. They said, no way, you can't.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Habib didn't know who these men were or whether they
were working with the attackers. Either way, they had closed
off the street, so Habib turned his car around and
drove to the back of the compound, which looked out
onto a lively street where people had been dining when
the attack began. Habib got out of his car and
tried to get a sense of the scene.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I could hear clearly greenades and number of shots, and
the greenades again the comp.
Speaker 7 (34:57):
Between the grenades. I will say one two minutes Maximo.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
As Habib stood near the back of the compound, a
man carrying a missile launcher approached him and asked if
he was a civilian. Habib told him that he was
and said, I need.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
To go to the building.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
I have to be there. He said it's stager. I
said no, let me do it.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Eventually Habib left his car and began to walk back
around to the front of the compound.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
What is so is people with guns, people without guns,
and many people. You cannot imagine. This was alike a flow.
It's like a three people getting.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
In the gate. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
The scene was unbelievable, and no one knows what was
going on at that time.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
The flood of people Habib was seeing had shown up
at the compound. After a word of the attack spread
around Benghazi through text messages, facebook pages, and phone calls.
It was hard to tell who was an attacker and
who was just a rubbernecker trying to see what was
going on at the American mission. Later, this ambiguity would
determine almost everything about how the attack in Benghazi was
(36:01):
initially misunderstood in the United States. Up on the rooft
Wicklan didn't know what time it was or how long
it had been since he gave up on trying to
find Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith. After a while, though,
it seemed like the attackers had moved away from his position,
(36:21):
creating an opportunity for him to escape, and.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
I thought, well, this might be my time pretty soon
to carry out my plan. Then I got a call
over the radio and it was Dave Ouben.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Dave Eben was another DS agent and Wickman's friend from training.
The two of them had been out by the pool
together when the attackers first arrived at the compound. They
hadn't seen each other or spoken since.
Speaker 5 (36:45):
Dave called and basically said, you know, Scott, are you alive.
I called back and I was like, yes, yeah, I'm
still alive. I'm still here. Where are you guys? I
need some help, And they said we're coming.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Wicklin says the other DS agents came to the side
of Villis where he was hiding and signaled to him. Wickland,
still barefoot, climbed down the ladder and told them he
thought Ambassador Stevens and Shawn Smith were still inside the building.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
When I see them, it's like, oh, my gosh, I
might survive. I might survive this because I now have
my teammates. I'm not alone anymore. That was the big
thing for me was I thought I was alone like
this entire time. I thought it was just me. Right away,
they were jumping in the burning building to try and
(37:42):
find ambass Stevens and Shawn Smith.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
As the other DS agents took turns entering the building,
they were joined by the team of private contractors from
the CIA Annex. After a firefight on their way into
the compound, the CIA contractors had managed to scare off
some of the attackers, at least temporarily. Now they joined
in the desperate search for Stevens and Smith, entering the
(38:06):
villa through the windows, Scott Wickland had identified, doing a
lap side as long as they could stand it, and
circling back out again. Finally, one of the DS agents
found Sean Smith. He was dead, apparently of smoke and elation,
and the agent pulled his body out of the villa.
It wasn't long after that it seemed like the fighting
(38:28):
might start up again.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
We start feeling pressure from like attackers again. There's people
who are kind of hiding out at one of the gates,
and so we're starting to feel like, you know, we
have to get moving. We have to get out of
here before there's a second attack.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Though they still hadn't found Stevens, the DS agents and
the contractors decided it was time to evacuate to the
nearby CIA base. The DS agents went first, packing into
one of the armored vehicles that was kept at the compound.
Despite his condition, Wickland got into the driver's seat. He
had been in Benghazi the longest and he knew the
(39:08):
way to the annex. Meanwhile, the CIA contractors loaded Sean
Smith's body into the car they'd arrived in. After beating
back another advance from the attackers. They pulled out of
the compound two. It was eleven seventeen PM, about an
hour and a half after the attack first started. Wherever
Ambassador Stevens was now, it wasn't with the Americans. Baker
(39:32):
Habib worried that his friend had been kidnapped.
Speaker 7 (39:35):
At that time.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
I was in contact with those people who got Sjonah Smith, Buddy.
I thought Chris was out of the compound at that time.
So you say, just came to my mind that Chris
would be a tortured first, then he killed by them,
and everything is just in my mind.
Speaker 7 (39:57):
So at that time was what was suitable.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
At the embassy in Tripoli, Greg Hicks had been trying
to solicit some kind of help from somewhere before another
wave of attacks could hit the Americans. At what point
were you told that basically there wasn't any help coming
from outside of Libya.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
That was AFRICOM telling the Defense attesche that they had
nothing available to send, and that happened at about eleven PM.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
AFRICOM is part of the Department of Defense. It's responsible
for American military activity in Africa. On the night of
the attack, AFRICAM told Hicks. The nearest military resources were
fighter planes stationed in Aviano, Italy that was at least
a two or three hour flight from Benghazi. On top
of that, there were no tankers available for the planes
(40:57):
to refuel.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Essentially, that's why there was no military response, because the
military wasn't ready for any eventuality.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
On nine to eleven, it appeared that the Americans' only
option to launch a rescue mission from Tripoli, so a
team of private security contractors based in the Capitol boarded
a flight to Benghazi. We'll be right back. Even after
(41:31):
the Americans evacuated the Benghazi compound, the large crowd of
Libyans Baker Habib had seen nearby continued to grow.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
So you see many people just coming and keep coming
to the American mission because Biebo was curious to know
what was going on at that time and what happened.
Many of them just was to be there with their
cell phone to just record what was going on.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
What you're hearing is a cell phone video recorded by
a man named fad alba Khush, who later shared his
footage with American news networks. Some people looted the compound,
taking everything from television sets to coils of rope. One
guy even picked up a container of chocolate syrup and
walked through the compound, squirting it into his mouth. Then,
(42:20):
around one o'clock in the morning, someone found a man
in Villa C. He was unresponsive and covered in soot.
In the cell phone video, you can see a group
of people pull the man's body out of the villa.
You can hear them yelling in Arabic, he's alive, He's alive. Later,
(42:45):
some American commentators would say the Libyans dragged the man
through the streets. In reality, they immediately brought him to
the Bengazi Medical Center and within fifteen minutes he was
in a hospital bed. Soon after, the American Embassy in
Tripoli received a call from Scott Wickland's phone. It was
the same number that Greg Hicks had reached Chris Stevens
(43:07):
on earlier in the night, but this time it and
Steven's on the other line. It was a man speaking Arabic,
saying he was at the hospital with someone who looked
like the ambassador. Hicks and his colleagues pressed the man
for something more concrete, but he would not provide a
photograph or any other confirmation.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
We were very, very focused on asking the kinds of
questions that would reveal whether we were talking to a
friend or an enemy.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
The Americans felt like they couldn't take any information at
face value. It was more than possible that Wickland's cell
phone had been stolen from the compound and that the
attackers were now trying to lure them into a trap.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Then this whole confusing conversation begins where we understand he's
taken to a hospital, and the government keeps telling as well,
we know he's safe, and we keep going where is he?
And they won't tell us where he is, So our
view is that he's a prisoner and not in a
(44:11):
safe place.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Baker Habib, who was in touch with State Department officials,
volunteered to go to the hospital and see for himself
if the man was Chris Stevens, but he was told
he couldn't go. It turned out there was intelligence saying
that because of his close association with the Americans, Habib
might be a target too.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
So I told him how about sending someone I trust
and someone in you Christine is very well he could
go there without any problem.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
So that plan was set in motion, and after a
while Habib's friend called him from the hospital.
Speaker 7 (44:47):
So he called me back and.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
Told me that I'm next to him. Yes, his christive
is one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Stevens was dead. Habib's friend said someone needed to come
get his body from the hospital, and Habib told him
he was on his way. Chris Stevens was reported killed
in action at four fifteen am. By that time, the
Americans who had gathered at the CIA base, including Scott Wickland,
(45:21):
his fellow DS agents, and the CIA contractors, had all
spent hours bracing themselves for another attack. Though locals didn't
officially know where the CIA annex was, it was possible
that someone had tracked the Americans as they made their
way there from the compound. There had been several moments
while Wickland was driving to the annex when he thought
someone was following him. When he got there, the tail
(45:44):
was gone, but he and the other Americans wanted to
be ready for the worst.
Speaker 5 (45:49):
We prepared by putting people up on the roof and
making sure that they were armed. You know. We had
people monitoring to make sure that we could see these people.
And I stayed inside just trying to kind of recuperate
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Were you able to get medical attention at that point.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
I mean, there wasn't a whole lot that we could
do for me. I got some shoes, which was great.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Soon enough, it turned out Wickland and the others had
been right to worry. Whoever was trying to expel them
from Benghazi had figured out where they were. Aided by
night vision goggles, the Americans prevailed in two brief firefights,
but everyone was dreading the sunrise, when light would give
the attackers a clearer view of the CIA base. At
(46:36):
five am, reinforcements finally arrived from Tripoli. Among them was
a CIA contractor named Glen Doherty, who joined a number
of others, including a contractor named Tyrone Woods, on the
roof of the main building as the sky began to
turn from black to deep blue. The plan was to
get every American out of Benghazi as soon as humanly possible.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
But then, you know, was I expecting mortars?
Speaker 3 (47:02):
No?
Speaker 5 (47:03):
I was not expecting mortars, and I definitely wasn't expecting
the accuracy the mortars.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
In the space of ninety seconds, six mortars hit the
Benghazi CIA base. Three of them exploded on the roof
of the main building, where most of the Americans were hiding.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
You know, I was standing right below the ceiling of
where they're impacting. But I think the heaviest part of
the entire experience was knowing that, you know, I've I
have some friends up on that roof, and I don't
know why they're not answering the radio call. I don't
know how they're doing.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were both killed in the explosions.
Another CIA contractor, Mark Geist, and Scott Wickman's friend Dave
Uben were critically injured. After that, the attackers seemed to
withdraw and the Americans prepared to leave Benghazi. At the airport,
(48:09):
the plane that the trip team had used to get
to Benghazi was still sitting on the tarmac. It was
too small to fit everyone who needed to evacuate, which
meant that those needing immediate medical attention, including Scott Wickland,
were sent ahead. In the meantime, one of Wickland's fellow
DS agents called Baker Habib to update him on the situation.
(48:29):
A group of Libyans the Americans trusted had gone to
the Benghazi Medical Center to retrieve Stevens's body.
Speaker 9 (48:35):
I wasn't my way to the hospital then receive a
qullo from one of the ds and he said, bo,
don't go to a hospital. He said why, he said,
we already got the buddy, We got the remains. Just
come straightforward to the to the airport.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
When Habib arrived at the airport, he said goodbye to
his friend.
Speaker 9 (48:56):
He was there at the airport.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
He's a front of mere lifeless.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
And he was there.
Speaker 7 (49:06):
In the city.
Speaker 9 (49:06):
He loved to support, to back up and to obendge
to the United States.
Speaker 7 (49:18):
So I spoke to him.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
I told him, Chris, what if it takes, I was
doing him best to bring those criminals to justice.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Other Libyans who had known Chris Stevens during his time
in Benghazi came to the tarmac as well. Many of
them were in tears, aware that the American evacuation probably
meant the end of the US presence in Benghazi. Greg
Hicks was aware of it too.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I distinctly remember arguing that if we leave, then we've lost.
They went that was the purpose of the attack, was
the chasers out of the country. So my view was
that we needed to take some time, regroup, rebuild, and
then continue our job.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
The Libyan Air Force provided a cargo plane for the
remaining Americans. The bodies of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods,
and Glen Doherty were loaded in as well. After a
stop in Tripoli, Scott Wickland and the others boarded a
plane for Europe.
Speaker 5 (50:36):
We loaded up on the plane and there were four coffins.
You know, everybody's looking at these coffins and at these
people and silently trying to figure out what just happened.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
On the next episode of Fiasco, the attack in Benghazi
enters the bloodstream of American politics.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
That took the president fourteen days before he called the
attack in Benghazzi an active chair.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
Get the transfer.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
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 Prolog Projects, and it's distributed
by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,
Ulla Kulpa, Sam Lee, and me Leon Mayfock, with editorial
support from Sam Graham Felsen and Matteline Kaplan. Our researcher
(51:41):
was Francis Carr. Our score was composed by Dan English,
Joe Valley, and Noah Hect. Additional music by Nick Sylvester
Joel Saint Julian Billy Libby and Little Cheddar Studios. Our
theme song is by Spatial Relations Audio mixed by Rob Buyers,
Michael Raphael and Johnny Vince Evans. Our artwork is by
(52:02):
Teddy Blanks at Chips and y Copyright Council provided by
Peter Yassi at Yassi Butler PLLC. Thanks to Archive dot Org,
Julianne Himmelstein, Mike Clark, David Kirkpatrick, fad Alba Khush, Angela
Giordani and Mitch Zukoff. Special thanks to Lubernari and thank
(52:24):
you for listening.
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