Exceptional (20 page)

• The attacks were preplanned, well organized, and carried out by the same al Qaeda affiliate that had launched previous attacks on U.S. and Western interests in Benghazi in the months immediately preceding September 11, 2012.

• There had been
at least twenty attacks in Benghazi in 2012, in the midst of a rising wave of violence.

• The American facilities had been the target of al Qaeda–affiliated surveillance.

• 
Ambassador Chris Stevens had asked for additional security and been turned down. Secretary Clinton's State Department
cut U.S. security staff in Libya prior to the attacks.

• 
The Libyan government had asked for additional security assistance just two months before the attacks, and the Obama administration had failed to provide anything meaningful.

• Al Qaeda's number two issued a video on September 10 calling on his followers to avenge the death of his number two, a Libyan operative, by attacking America.

• There were no demonstrations and no evidence that an anti-Muslim Internet video had anything to do with these attacks.

The steady drumbeat of evidence indicating that the president and the secretary had misled the American people came to a head when Secretary Clinton testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2013. As the senators tried to determine what Secretary Clinton knew and when she knew it, she responded angrily:

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?

This response was stunning because the alternative scenarios Secretary Clinton offered did not include what actually happened—the American facilities in Benghazi were the target of an al Qaeda–affiliated terrorist attack. Equally remarkable was her assertion (posed as a rhetorical question) that what caused the American deaths makes no difference—when, of course, it does. It is the difference between dismissing what happened as a one-off event and understanding it as part of an ongoing threat that we must guard against. Understanding what happened affects everything from how we assess what went wrong in the past to how we conduct ourselves to defeat the terrorists, to how we protect our people in the future.

At the most fundamental level, though, it is the difference between being honest about what happened in Benghazi on September
11, 2012, and adopting a false narrative because it serves political purposes. It is the difference between lying to the American people and dealing with them truthfully—which is what we deserve.

In March 2014, the authors of this book visited with a number of key leaders in the Middle East. One Arab head of state unfolded a map in front of us on his conference table and drew an arc with his finger from Raqqa in Syria to Anbar Province in Iraq. “The terrorists will control this entire territory if America doesn't act,” he said. “Why won't your president act?” We could not answer the question. Not only was President Obama doing nothing consequential to stop the spread of ISIS across the Middle East, the rise of this most dangerous terrorist group was a direct result of his policies in Iraq and Syria.

When President Obama withdrew from Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq had largely been defeated. The Shi'a militias had also been routed. President Obama's decision not to leave any U.S. forces behind created the space and the conditions for the rebirth of al Qaeda in Iraq, as well as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS.

Even before the Obama withdrawal was complete, President Obama's administration made clear that they had as little interest in maintaining political ties with Iraq as they did in maintaining a military presence there. A delegation of Iraqi government officials who visited Washington in early 2009 met with Obama administration officials and attempted to thank them for all America had done to liberate their country. The Iraqis reported that it was as though they were thanking representatives of a government that had nothing to do with their liberation. The officials had no interest in their gratitude, nor, apparently, any interest in their country.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has served as U.S. ambassador
to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, describes the severing of the U.S. relationship with Iraq this way:

We disengaged not only militarily at the end of 2011, we disengaged politically. The war was over. We were out. Let the chips fall where they may. Well, I don't think we thought through exactly how many chips were going to fall and what the consequences of that were going to be.

Senior level phone calls, senior level regular visits basically ceased. There was exactly one visit to Iraq since the end of 2011 until mid-2014 by a cabinet level official. Given that we were hard-wired into their political system, they wouldn't be able to function effectively with each other, among communities, without us. I think that disengagement brought them all back to
zero sum thinking.

The day after the last American troops left Iraq in December 2011, the Shi'ite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, issued an arrest warrant for his Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi. Maliki also began to purge Sunni officers from the military, and he targeted the Sons of Iraq, the Sunni fighters who had fought alongside the United States during the surge. Although they had been given promises that they would be absorbed into the Iraqi Army, Maliki initially stopped paying them and then a number of them were arrested and killed.

Throughout this period, violence was rising in Iraq.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had become the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq in May 2010. As America withdrew, he orchestrated waves of car bombs and suicide attacks across the country.

Soon Baghdadi turned his attention to Syria, where, in early 2011, protests began against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Launched first in Da'ara, a town near the Jordanian border, the demonstrations
quickly spread. Protesters chanted the familiar refrain heard in Tahrir Square in Cairo: “The people want the regime to go.”

The Obama administration sent mixed messages. Secretary of State Clinton appeared on CBS's
Face the Nation
on March 27, 2011. Host Bob Schieffer asked her whether the United States would use force to defend the Syrian people from attacks by the regime, as we had done in Libya. Pointing to the reign of terror of the Assad family, Schieffer suggested it was at least as bad as the brutality of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. In her answer, Secretary Clinton defended Syrian president Assad:

There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they
believe he is a reformer.

At the same time, U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who was under no illusions about the nature of the Assad regime and its leader, was traveling to sites of the anti-regime protests to show solidarity with the demonstrators. He was also urging Washington to act to provide support for the uprisings, which were at this point largely composed of secular, peaceful groups.

As Assad began ordering violent crackdowns, killing protesters in an attempt to end the demonstrations, the Obama administration imposed sanctions on some Syrian officials. President Obama announced on May 19, 2011, that if Assad was unwilling to lead the movement for reform, an unlikely possibility given that his forces were slaughtering protesters, then it was time for him to go:

The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way. The Syrian government
must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests. It must release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests. It must allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara'a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a
democratic transition.

Assad stepped up his attacks on the demonstrators, and at dawn on July 31, 2011, he sent tanks into Hama, the city that had been the site of a horrific massacre ordered by Assad's father in 1982. The Obama administration imposed more sanctions and the president issued another stern instruction for Assad to step down:

The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. . . . We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad
to step aside.

The president was still unwilling, however, to take any action. It should have been clear that stern words were not enough to force Assad from office. It should also have been clear that America's credibility was diminished when the president instructed Assad to leave and he didn't.

The question of just what behavior from Assad might spark the use of American military force came up in a press conference on August 20, 2012. President Obama drew his red line:

I have at this point not ordered military engagement in the situation. . . . We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would
change my equation.

On August 21, 2013, Assad launched a sarin gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus where rebel groups were operating. The death toll was over 1,400 civilians. President Obama had drawn a red line. Assad had crossed it. Obviously, the United States would have to act.

Military preparations began. But then, according to Leon Panetta, who was secretary of defense at the time, “President Obama vacillated, first indicating he was prepared to order some strikes, then retreating and agreeing to submit the matter to Congress. The latter was, as he well knew, an almost certain way to
scotch any action.”

President Obama had blinked. The consequences were devastating. First, as Panetta explained:

When the president as commander in chief draws a red line, it is critical that he act if the line is crossed. The power of the United States rests on its word, and clear signals are important both to deter adventurism and to reassure allies that we can be counted on. Assad's action clearly defied President Obama's warning; by failing to respond, it sent the wrong message
to the world.

Amr al-Azm, a member of the Syrian opposition, described it this way:

I think it was a terrible, terrible error on the part of this administration. I mean, it's not just a red line. This is the president of the United States, this is the White House, and a tinpot dictator challenges that and gets away with it? Who's going to
believe you next time?

Inside Syria, the president's failure to act was a propaganda victory for ISIS, one that they used to convince Syrians that they couldn't count on the United States. Oubai Shahbandar, a member of the Syrian opposition, described what happened:

Immediately after
[
Obama's failure to attack
]
, extremists and what eventually came to be ISIS were sending the message to the locals that, “Look, you have been betrayed by the world. Do not trust those nationalist rebel forces,” that at this point were receiving nominal support from the United States and its
regional allies.

As President Obama vacillated about whether to take action, the Russians sensed an opening. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov offered to get the Assad regime to turn over its chemical weapons and agree to have them moved out of Syria. The Obama administration has claimed this as a diplomatic success. On July 20, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “We struck a deal where we got
one hundred percent of their chemical weapons out.” This claim is undoubtedly somewhat surprising to the Syrian civilians who were the victims of the thirty-five
chlorine gas attacks that occurred between March 16 and May 26, 2015.

While the president was making threats and delivering ultimatums, the situation in Syria and Iraq continued to deteriorate. Baghdadi's influence and effectiveness spread as ISIS forces conducted an increasing number of operations in both countries. In July 2013, ISIS forces attacked Iraqi prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad and freed at least five hundred prisoners. In August 2013, ISIS took control in Raqqa, Syria, and made the city its headquarters. In October 2013, the situation in Iraq had gotten so bad that Prime Minister Maliki visited Washington to seek assistance.

Maliki's warnings to the Obama administration—that ISIS posed an existential threat to Iraq and that Iraq did not have control of its own borders—were echoed by
intelligence reports the administration was receiving. President Obama's response was to provide a minimal
amount of assistance to the Iraqis. Obama officials fundamentally viewed what was happening inside Syria and Iraq as not their problem. The constant refrain was “This is up to the Iraqis to sort out,” “This isn't our fight,” “We can't do it for them.” All of which ignored the direct, clear, and present danger of ISIS to the security of the United States.

In 2014, after establishing a base of operations in Syria, and gathering strength and followers, ISIS spread full force back into Iraq. They bulldozed border crossings and began taking Iraqi cities. In January 2014, they took Fallujah. The Obama administration still failed to recognize the magnitude of the threat. In an interview published the same month ISIS took Fallujah, President Obama explained his view of the terrorist group: “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think it is accurate, is if a
jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant.” The terrorists President Obama described as the “jayvee team” would soon control more resources and territory than any other terrorist group in history.