As Security in Libya Deteriorates, US Moves Marine Force Closer
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Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Defense Department spokesman George Little confirmed Monday that an element of the U.S. Marine unit in Spain moved over the weekend to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy. Little said the unit is still on standby, but the move puts it closer to Libya if suddenly needed in Tripoli.
A unit of about 50 Marines has already been providing security at the embassy in Libya since January. Meanwhile, another unit, an elite response team based in Germany and assigned to AFRICOM, was put on alert last week.
As the situation in Libya grew more troublesome last week, the State Department ordered the departure of a handful of U.S. personnel at the embassy in Tripoli due to the deteriorating security situation there.
The situation arises just as whistleblowers were testifying on Capitol Hill about the lack of security before, inaction during, and the controversy following the deadly September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
According to White House emails obtained by ABC News, State Department insiders scrubbed CIA messages warning about the attack from administration talking points about the attack, and then deleted any references to Ansar al-Sharia, the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorist group behind it. Instead, the Obama administration — and even the president himself — repeatedly claimed that the assault was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islamic YouTube video.
Some of the president’s critics say the Obama administration was eager to hide the link to terror because the president at the time was running for re-election, and in the eyes of potential voters, Al Qaeda mounting a deadly attack could have countered Obama’s campaign claims he had the terror group “on its heels.”
One of the whistleblowers, Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Libya, testified that while the attack that killed his superior Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was underway, U.S. special forces were told to “stand down” instead of mounting a rescue mission to save those in the facility.
The Obama administration had claimed no help could have reached the stranded diplomats in time to help them during the eight hour-long attack.
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