[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12739]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   TENTH UNANSWERED BENGHAZI QUESTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, over the last 2 weeks, I raised a series of 
questions focusing on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, as 
well as Washington's response, or lack thereof.
  To date, little is known why Ambassador Stevens was in the U.S. 
consulate in the days leading up to the anniversary of 9/11. Even less 
known is about the other American facility in Benghazi: the CIA annex. 
When was the annex established? How many people worked at the annex? Of 
these, how many were direct agency employees and how many were 
contractors? What was the ratio of CIA staff to security contractors? 
Why was there a facility operated by the CIA in Benghazi? Perhaps it 
was established to assist in U.S. efforts to secure weapons in the wake 
of the Libyan revolution.
  As early as 2011, National Journal reported:

       The U.S. is also planning to ramp up spending to help 
     Libya's interim government secure and destroy the shoulder-
     fired surface-to-air missiles and weapons looted from 
     Qadhafi's stockpiles. A senior State Department official said 
     Clinton will tell Libyan leaders that the U.S. contribution 
     to these efforts will go up to $40 million.

  The same article noted:

       The U.S. has already spent nearly $6 million on its 
     conventional weapons disposal efforts, sending a quick 
     reaction force of weapons experts to Libya by October 2011.

  If, indeed, the facility in Benghazi was involved in the collection 
of these weapons, where are they? The $40 million promised by Secretary 
Clinton would buy a very large quantity of weapons. Were they shipped 
out of Benghazi? Are they in warehouses on U.S. soil? Are they in other 
allied countries? Or did they end up elsewhere?
  There has been speculation that some of these weapons may have ended 
up in Syria.
  It is particularly noteworthy that during the same time period that 
the U.S. engaged in collecting weapons in Libya, respected national 
security reporter Mark Hosenball wrote on August 1, 2012:

       President Barack Obama has signed a secret order 
     authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian 
     President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources 
     familiar with the matter said. Obama's order, approved 
     earlier this year and known as an intelligence ``finding,'' 
     broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide 
     support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

  The article continued:

       The White House is for now apparently stopping short of 
     giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do 
     just that, and precisely when Obama signed the secret 
     intelligence authorization, an action not previously 
     reported, could not be determined.

  However, Hosenball also reported this important information:

       A U.S. Government source acknowledged that under provisions 
     of the Presidential finding, the United States was 
     collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey 
     and its allies, and NBC said the shoulder-fired missiles, 
     also known as MANPADS, had been delivered to the rebels via 
     Turkey.

  Is it possible that the President's intelligence finding included an 
authorization for the weapons collected in Libya to be transferred to 
Syrian rebels? Was the CIA annex being used to facilitate these 
transfers? If so, how did the weapons physically move from Libya to 
Syria? By plane? By ship?
  And, again, I ask, if these weapons were not being transferred to 
other countries like Syria, where exactly did they end up? Was the CIA 
annex being used as a logistics center to track and transfer these 
weapons? Was Ambassador Stevens' visit to the CIA annex on September 10 
associated with these operations? And if these activities were taking 
place, was this consistent with the President's intelligence finding? 
Was the Congress notified?
  Mr. Speaker, I raise these questions knowing that CIA operations 
anywhere are sensitive and there is an appropriate time and place for 
the discussions. However, I don't think the American people will ever 
learn the truth about what happened that night and why--including the 
questionable U.S. response--unless they understand what exactly was 
taking place at the annex.
  That is why I continue to believe that a House select committee is 
the most appropriate path forward to investigate this and many other 
unanswered questions about Benghazi.

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