Just minutes after 35 jihadists crashed through the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, nearly one year ago, the facility got word to the State Department, FBI and Pentagon that terrorists were attacking, according to a forthcoming book that provides the fullest review of the assault to date.
“Under Fire, the Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi,” reveals that an unidentified security official in the Benghazi compound protecting Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens messaged the U.S. embassy in Tripoli: “Benghazi under fire, terrorist attack.” Stevens and three others died that night.
Twenty-five minutes after the attack began, the State Department’s operation center received an electronic cable announcing the attack, according to authors Fred Burton, a former State Diplomatic Security agent and Samuel Katz, an author and expert on international special operations and counterterrorism.
Their findings in “Under Fire,” based on exclusive interviews with those involved in the battle, further undercut the initial claims by the administration that the attack was sparked by Muslim anger at a U.S.-made anti-Muslim film, and raised new questions about whether U.S. diplomatic posts in the region are properly protected, particularly as President Obama eyes military action in Syria.
The book provides a wealth of information that paints a night-long war at the poorly secured consulate and CIA annex that could not be mistaken for anything but a planned terrorist attack by men in vehicles displaying “the black flag of the jihad” and armed with AK-47s and rocket launchers.
S.E. CUPP TARGETS LIBERALS IN ‘CROSSFIRE’
Head-turning conservative commentator S.E. Cupp has rarely gripped a gun she didn’t like. But instead of scooting off to the woods and fields to hunt deer and birds this fall, the new co-host of CNN’s rejuvenated debate show “Crossfire” is going to aim her fury at liberals.
“The show wants to be where the action is,” she told Secrets. So eager is she and her co-hosts Newt Gingrich, Stephanie Cutter and Van Jones to get going that CNN pushed up the debut to Sept. 9, a week early, to jump on the Syria debate. “We have strong opinions on it and we’re sick of just telling them to each other,” said Cupp.
Cupp — the S.E. is for Sarah Elizabeth — is part of the show’s revival and drive for younger viewers. Also a New York Daily News columnist, she said that when CNN came calling, “it was an offer you don’t refuse.”
A champion political debater, Cupp told Secrets that she also is an accomplished shooter who has hunted with TV’s Duck Dynasty crew, and has the decoy she accidentally shot on that hunt to prove it. “I shot the crap out of that decoy.”
SOLD! PRESIDENTIAL YACHT TRADES HANDS
A nasty legal fight over the ownership of the presidential yacht Sequoia, made famous by former President John F. Kennedy, who used it for his final birthday party in 1963, ended with the ownership of the wooden boat transferring to a Washington-based group with Indian interests.
The new owners told Secrets that they will keep the yacht in the United States.
The $7.8 million sale was ordered by a Delaware judge this month in a court fight between long-time owner and Washington lawyer Gary Silversmith and FE Partners, which invests in historical vessels. FE Partners plans to renovate the 88-year-old yacht used by presidents from Hoover to Carter, who sold it in an austerity move.
NOTES OF NAZI-BRITISH PEACE DEAL FOUND
The fullest accounting ever of Nazi Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess’ secret mission to cut a peace deal with Britain near the start of World War II has been uncovered, a collection of handwritten notes by Hess — including a peace treaty — that’s about to hit the auction block.
Maryland-based Alexander Historical Auctions calls the documents “perhaps the most important wartime archive to ever be offered for private sale.” The notes are expected to sell for as much as $300,000 in the firm’s upcoming in-person and online sale Sept. 10-11.
The notes could put to rest historical questions about Hess’s flight on May 10, 1941. In them, he simply said that he and Adolf Hitler believed England was doomed and that a “rational peace” would give Germany control of Europe while Britain would keep its “empire.”
England has sealed its file on Hess until 2017, prompting Bill Panagopulos, president of Alexander, to declare that Hess’s notes are “a first-person history of the great historic importance.”
Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
