CIA Requests For Help in Benghazi Attack Denied
Black Hand* – HSBC's long-range drug-hub navigators with a Serco "License to Track, Film and Kill" for the City of London's Honourable Artillery Company 1537; Master Mariners and Air Pilots (formerly GAPAN) 1929, and Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts 1638 – whose alumni include U.S. Presidents James Monroe, Chester Alan Arthur, Calvin Coolidge and John F. Kennedy and – perhaps – Barack 'Choom Gang' Obama.
McConnell notes that Serco banker HSBC's clients in Geneva have financed the Clinton Foundation from its launch in 2001 and financed the State Department's Base One honeypot server in the Bronx, launched on February 15, 1994 by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
McConnell notes that the Clinton administration outsourced the operation of the National Visa Center and the Base One honey-pot server to Serco in 1994 while the Obama administration outsourced the operation of the U.S. Defense Ammunition Center to Serco in 2009.
"The military attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli told Congress the first attack showed some advance planning. The Libyan police officer guarding the diplomatic compound fled as it began.
The defence attaché, whose name wasn't released, suggested the attackers "had something on the shelf" — an outline of a plan based on previously obtained information about the compound and its security measures, so they were ready to strike when the opportunity arose.
"They came in, and they had a sense of purpose, and I think it sometimes gets confused because you had looters and everyone else coming in," he said. "It was less than kind of full, thought-out, methodical."
Ham testified that the second attack, which killed security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex a mile from the diplomatic compound where the assault began the night before, showed clear military training. It was probably the work of a new team of militants, taking advantage after reports of violence at the first site and American vulnerability.
2nd attack showed 'degree of sophistication' "Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer," said Ham, who headed the U.S. command in Africa. The second attack showed "a degree of sophistication and military training that is relatively unusual and certainly, I think, indicates that this was not a pickup team. This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace."
McConnell believes HSBC clients spoofed the Clinton State Department with an "Innocence of Muslims" video, apparently webcast through the Base One server to trigger a mob attack on the Benghazi mission and serve as a decoy for the visa-ammo mortar murders at the CIA annexe.
McConnell believes that HSBC clients used the Base One server to spoof Hillary Clinton and the State Department into expecting a mob attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi on 9/11/12 when the real target was the nearby CIA Annexe, a vital hub in the supply chain used by Black Hand navigators to feed Serco visas and ammo to ISIS crime groups in Syria and Northern Iraq.
McConnell believes that HSBC spoofed the Clinton State Department into outsourcing security in Benghazi to Black Hand navigators with the Blue Mountain Group who allegedly used Serco visas and ammo and Base One drone intelligence to ambush and kill Doherty and Woods.
Prequel 4: #2287: Marine Links Clinton's Blue-Mountain Benghazi E-Mails To Serco's Red-Switch Black-Hand Snuff
CIA Requests For Help in Benghazi Attack Denied
Benghazi: The Truth Behind the Smokescreen.
Breaking: CNN Reports CIA Engaged in Massive Intimidation Campaign to Keep Benghazi a Secret
Serco... Would you like to know more?
SWISSLEAKS - "HSBC developed dangerous clients: arms merchants, drug dealers, terrorism financers"
Clinton: My Email Server Will Remain "Private"
Copy of SERCO GROUP PLC: List of Subsidiaries AND Shareholders! (Mobile Playback Version) [Note that HSBC is Serco's banker and one of Serco's major shareholders with Her Majesty's Government and its funds]
Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.
Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.
At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, though, denied the claims that requests for support were turned down."
"Benghazi attacks likely involved 2 distinct groups, U.S. military chief says
Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American.
The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony released late Wednesday. The assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on reports of violence at the diplomatic mission the night before and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable.
The testimony, which The Associated Press was able to read ahead of its release, could clarify for the first time the events of Sept. 11, 2012, that have stirred bitter recriminations in the U.S., including Republican-led congressional investigations and campaign-season denunciations of the Obama administration, which made inaccurate statements about the Libyan attacks.
1st attack remains mysterious
The U.S. government still has not fully characterized the first attack in which, according to Ham and eight other military officers, men who seemed familiar with the lightly protected diplomatic compound breached it and set it on fire, killing Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith. A disorganized mob of looters then overran the facility.
'Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer ... This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace.'- Gen. Carter Ham, during Congressional testimony
In testimony to two House panels earlier this year, the officers said that commanders didn't have the information they needed to understand the nature of the attack, that they were unaware of the extent of the U.S. presence in Benghazi at the time and they were convinced erroneously for a time that they were facing a hostage crisis without the ability to move military assets into place that would be of any use.
Two House panels — Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform — conducted interviews with the nine officers on separate days from January to April.
1st assault not 'methodical'
In their testimony, military officials expressed some uncertainty about the first attack, describing protests and looting in an assault that lasted about 45 minutes.
The defence attaché, whose name wasn't released, suggested the attackers "had something on the shelf" — an outline of a plan based on previously obtained information about the compound and its security measures, so they were ready to strike when the opportunity arose.
"They came in, and they had a sense of purpose, and I think it sometimes gets confused because you had looters and everyone else coming in," he said. "It was less than kind of full, thought-out, methodical."
Ham testified that the second attack, which killed security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex a mile from the diplomatic compound where the assault began the night before, showed clear military training. It was probably the work of a new team of militants, taking advantage after reports of violence at the first site and American vulnerability.
2nd attack showed 'degree of sophistication'
"Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer," said Ham, who headed the U.S. command in Africa. The second attack showed "a degree of sophistication and military training that is relatively unusual and certainly, I think, indicates that this was not a pickup team. This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace."
"I think it's reasonable that a team came from outside of Benghazi," he said of the second attack in testimony on April 9. Violent extremists saw an opportunity "and said, `Let's get somebody there."' He also acknowledged that the absence of American security personnel on the ground soon enough after the first attack "allowed sufficient time for the second attack to be organized and conducted," he said.
The attacks came as President Barack Obama was in a close re-election battle, campaigning in part on the contention that al-Qaeda no longer posed a significant threat to the United States and that, blending the economy and the fight against terrorism, General Motors was alive but "Osama bin Laden is dead." A terror attack on American assets could have damaged that argument.
Five days after the attack, after feverish email exchanges about her "talking points" among national security staff members and their spokesmen, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice linked the Benghazi attacks to protests in Tunisia and Cairo over an anti-Islam video. Weeks later, U.S. officials retracted that account but never fully articulated a new one.
Republicans seized on the inaccuracies, contending that the Obama administration was covering up a terror attack for political gain.
Several congressional and independent investigations have faulted the State Department for inadequate security, but they have not provided a full reading of who was involved in the violence, what the motives were and how they could pull off such a seemingly complicated, multipronged
People on both sides of the debate tend to link the two incidents as one attack.
Confusion reigned
The congressional testimony that distinguishes the attacks came from military officials in Tripoli or, like Ham, coordinating the response in Washington. Most have never given a public account. But they agreed that confusion reigned from the outset.
"We're under attack," was the first report the military received from Benghazi. That message came from Stevens' entourage to Tripoli in the late afternoon of Sept. 11. Word was relayed to the defence attache, who reported up the chain of command.
That report gave no indication about the size or intensity of the attack.
The defence attache testified that the assault on the diplomatic mission was followed by a mob that complicated and confused the situation.
He said of the original attackers, "I don't think they were on the objective, so to speak, longer than 45 minutes. They kind of got on, did their business, and left." For hours after that, he said, there were looters and "people throwing stuff and you see the graffiti and things like that."
Once the first attack ended around 10 p.m., the military moved to evacuate Americans from Benghazi, while preparing for what it erroneously believed might have been an emerging hostage situation involving Stevens.
Nearly 8 hours between attacks
In fact, Stevens died of smoke inhalation after the diplomatic post was set on fire in the first attack.
The military worked up a response on numerous fronts.
An unarmed Predator drone conducting an operation nearby in eastern Libya had been repositioned over Benghazi, yet offered limited assistance during the nighttime and with no intelligence to guide it. A standby force training in Croatia was ordered to Sicily, while another farther afield was mobilized. Neither was nearly ready in time to intervene during the first 45-minute attack and couldn't predict the quick mortar attack the next morning. An anti-terrorism support team in Spain was deployed, though it, too, was hours away.
American reinforcements of a six-man security team, including two military personnel, were held up at the Benghazi airport for hours by Libyan authorities. Drone images and intelligence hadn't provided indications of a new attack, but word eventually came from two special forces troops who had made it to the annex and reported casualties from the dawn attack up the chain of command.
Ahmed Abu Khattala detained last month
In Tripoli, military and embassy officials were evacuating the embassy there and destroying computer hardware and sensitive information.
The Justice Department maintains in court documents that Abu Khattala was involved in both attacks, and it describes the first breach on the diplomatic post as equally sophisticated. The government said a group of about 20 men, armed with AK-47- rifles, handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, stormed the diplomatic facility in the first attack.
Abu Khattala supervised the looting after Americans fled, the government says, and then returned to the camp of the Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia, where the Justice Department says a large force began assembling for the second attack.
Justice Department tells different tale
The Justice Department provided no supporting documentation for those conclusions. They also reflect the divisions among current and former government officials about the two attacks.
In her book Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote that there were scores of attackers with different motives. "It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well."
Abu Khattala's lawyer says the government has failed to show that he was connected to either attack.
Ham, who happened to be in Washington that week, briefed defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. They informed the president.
Many of the military officials said they didn't even know about the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, let alone the CIA's clandestine installation nearby. Few knew of Stevens visiting the city that day. Given all of the confusion, Ham said there was one thing he clearly would have done differently: "Advise the ambassador to not go to Benghazi."
"Who was Glen Doherty? Details emerge on former SEAL's final actions in Benghazi
"Greg, Greg, we are under attack," were the last words from Ambassador Chris Stevens to his deputy Greg Hicks over the phone from Benghazi shortly after the attack began around 9:30 p.m.
"If you don't get here we are going to die," the radio operator at the tactical operations center in Benghazi pronounced on the radio from the consulate.
Fox News has learned more details about Doherty's actions, as he and others scrambled to try and save the U.S. team after those pleas for help.
Doherty was part of the quick reaction force that left Tripoli to help rescue the ambassador and his team at the consulate, as well as the 21 CIA personnel at the CIA annex one mile from where Stevens' and the others came under attack.
Doherty left Tripoli at about midnight local time, after chartering a local plane for the rescue. There were no U.S. air assets in Tripoli. He and the quick reaction force arrived at the CIA annex at 5:15 a.m. after being delayed for several hours at the Benghazi airport by the Libyans. The CIA annex, a fortress-like compound with several buildings, is where the Americans in Benghazi had retreated and the body of State Department official Sean Smith had been brought after the initial attack. At the time, Stevens was still missing.
Doherty joined Tyrone Woods, another highly trained former SEAL, on the roof of one of the buildings at the CIA annex. Within minutes, mortars were fired. Doherty and Woods were both killed.
Fox News has obtained a video of Doherty before he died that was compiled by his friends from the outtakes of an NBC series that Doherty worked on in 2009. The series, The Wanted, was a reality show that involved looking for war criminals around the world.
Doherty provided security and surveillance for the show's production team as it chased in one case a well-known financier of the 9/11 attacks through the streets of Hamburg. Doherty talks about the car chases and how he managed to stay awake on stake-outs and discusses his impressions of his friends Adam, Roger and Scott, whom he protected on those shoots. The video is being shown with the permission of Doherty's mother, Barbara, to provide insight into who Doherty was and why the nation should honor his service.
Doherty's Libya assignment was supposed to be his last for the CIA. He had been offered a more comfortable job in the private sector that would have allowed him to get out of the line of fire. He told his future employer that he had one last job to do. That job was in Libya. On Sept. 11, his last assignment was in Benghazi.
Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel . She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent."
"Hillary Clinton's E-Mail Was Vulnerable to 'Spoofing'
According to publicly available information, whoever administrated the system didn't enable what’s called a Sender Policy Framework, or SPF, a simple setting that would prevent hackers sending e-mails that appear to be from clintonemail.com. SPF is a basic and highly recommended security precaution for people who set up their own servers. Here is a security evaluation of Clinton's server by SenderScore:
Experts told us that oversight was just one flaw of a security system that would have been relatively easy for foreign intelligence services and others to exploit. "I have no doubt in my mind that this thing was penetrated by multiple foreign powers, to assume otherwise is to put blinders on,” said Bob Gourley, the chief technology officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2005 to 2008 and the founder of Cognitio, a cybersecurity consultancy.
Spoofing a senior official’s e-mail identity is also an easy way to conduct "spear phishing" attacks, where an attacker sends a personally crafted e-mail that appears to come from a trusted source. Once the target opens it, his own system can be compromised. Clinton said she e-mailed with dozens of State Department and White House officials using her server, including President Barack Obama.
Spear phishing has caused problems for the government in the past. In October 2012, the White House confirmed that hackers linked to the Chinese government had penetrated sensitive but unclassified computer systems using the technique. Just last week, the State Department shut down its entire e-mail system after attacks by hackers suspected to be Russian.
There's no evidence that Clinton's e-mail server was linked to those or any other specific attacks. And it's worth noting that the State Department’s e-mail domain does not have SPF enabled. Thus, experts point out, it may also have been vulnerable to hacking during her time as secretary.
The problem with such confidence is that if hackers exploited the SPF vulnerability, Clinton's office would likely never have known her domain name, which has been public information since March of 2013, was being used surreptitiously.
Merrill declined to say who has been in charge of maintaining the server or ensuring its security since 2009 [Base One Technologies, mentored by Serco]. This would be a good question to have answered. It would be important to know, for instance, what sort of security vetting the employees overseeing the server received.
It would be useful to know, too, if the federal agencies that protect sensitive government communications -- the FBI and the NSA -- were aware of the server's existence and helped to provide security. Clinton has refused to clarify this issue, saying only that the server "had numerous safeguards and was on property guarded by the Secret Service In 2008. Chinese hackers penetrated the e-mail systems of both the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns, which were operating on commercial systems. After the hacks were discovered, the FBI lent its assistance and the hacks stopped.
E-mails "that run on commercial services are vulnerable to collection,” said James A. Lewis, who held senior technology posts at the White House and State Department and now directs the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Lewis, who authored “Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency," a report commissioned by a bipartisan House panel in 2007, added: “I don’t think people realize how much of this information is available to foreign intelligence services."
To contact the authors on this story:
Josh Rogin at joshrogin@bloomberg.
Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net
"Contact
After conducting a search for principals and owners of Base One Technologies, Ltd., we were able to find 2 owners and/or executives. Their information is listed below.
"SOURCE: Base One Technologies
About Base One Technologies
Base One Technologies, Inc. is an IT Engineering and Technical Services company certified as an 8(a), Woman Owned, SDB, HUBZone Business. Founded in 1994, Base One has a Top Secret Facilities Clearance and specializes in: Enterprise Architecture, Network Infrastructure Support, Data Security, Software & Database Services, Disaster Recovery & Contingency Planning, and Independent Validation & Verification. Please visit www.base-one.com for more information.
CONTACT INFORMATION
"Serco's Office of Partner Relations (OPR) helps facilitate our aggressive small business utilization and growth strategies. Through the OPR, Serco mentors four local small businesses under formal Mentor Protégé Agreements: Three sponsored by DHS (Base One Technologies, TSymmetry, Inc., and HeiTech Services, Inc.,) and the fourth sponsored by GSA (DKW Communications, Inc.). Serco and HeiTech Services were awarded the 2007 DHS Mentor Protégé Team Award for exceeding our mentoring goals." http://www.dtic.mil/
"Opened in 1994 as the successor to the Transitional Immigrant Visa Processing Center in Rosslyn, Va., the NVC centralizes all immigrant visa preprocessing and appointment scheduling for overseas posts. The NVC collects paperwork and fees before forwarding a case, ready for adjudication, to the responsible post.
The center also handles immigrant and fiancé visa petitions, and while it does not adjudicate visa applications, it provides technical assistance and support to visa-adjudicating consular officials overseas.
Only two Foreign Service officers, the director and deputy director, work at the center, along with just five Civil Service employees. They work with almost 500 contract employees doing preprocessing of visas, making the center one of the largest employers in the Portsmouth area.
The contractor, Serco, Inc., has worked with the NVC since its inception and with the Department for almost 18 years.
The NVC houses more than 2.6 million immigrant visa files, receives almost two million pieces of mail per year and received more than half a million petitions from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) in 2011. Its file rooms’ high-density shelves are stacked floor-to-ceiling with files, each a collection of someone’s hopes and dreams and each requiring proper handling.
….
The NVC also preprocesses the chief of mission (COM) application required for the filing of a petition for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV). Such visas, for foreign nationals who have performed services for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan, require COM concurrence before the applicant can file a petition with USCIS. The NVC collects the requisite documents from such applicants and, when complete, forwards the package to the U.S. embassies in Baghdad or Kabul for COM approval"
"Update on Serco's Strategy Review including the Contract & Balance Sheet Reviews; capital structure and funding; latest trading and outlook
Date : 10 November 2014
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… Strategy Review: Serco's future to be as an international B2G business. A successful, innovative and market-leading provider of services to Governments. Core sectors: Justice & Immigration, Defence, Transport, Citizen Services and Healthcare.
….
In the Americas Division, our work for the US Affordable [Obama] Care Act (ACA) has begun an expanded first option year. Other awards in the period included: career transition services for US soldiers; health outreach services for the US Naval Reserve; deployable medical systems solutions also for the Navy; and two contracts for fleet maintenance services for commercial clients. In total, the ACA and all other awards in the period are valued at over $550m. Meanwhile, our contract supporting the Department of State's National Visa Center and Kentucky Consular Center (NVC/KCC) came to an end during the period, as did some Acquisition and Program Management support work for US intelligence agency customers. C4I2TSR services for the US Air Force and Naval installation task order work under the Sea Enterprise frameworks are also reducing. …
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EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi
attack, sources say
Published October 26,
2012
Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.
Former Navy SEAL
Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile
from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under
attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their
higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested
permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand
down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they
were again told to "stand down."
Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.
At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, though, denied the claims that requests for support were turned down."
"Benghazi attacks likely involved 2 distinct groups, U.S. military chief says
Testimony of Gen.
Carter Ham, former U.S. Africa Command chief, was released Wednesday
The Associated
Press Posted: Jul 09, 2014 11:28 PM ET Last Updated: Jul 09, 2014
11:28 PM ET
Related Stories
Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American.
The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony released late Wednesday. The assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on reports of violence at the diplomatic mission the night before and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable.
The testimony, which The Associated Press was able to read ahead of its release, could clarify for the first time the events of Sept. 11, 2012, that have stirred bitter recriminations in the U.S., including Republican-led congressional investigations and campaign-season denunciations of the Obama administration, which made inaccurate statements about the Libyan attacks.
The testimony
underscores a key detail that sometimes has been lost in the debate: that the
attacks were two distinct events over two days on two different buildings,
perhaps by unrelated groups.
1st attack remains mysterious
The U.S. government still has not fully characterized the first attack in which, according to Ham and eight other military officers, men who seemed familiar with the lightly protected diplomatic compound breached it and set it on fire, killing Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith. A disorganized mob of looters then overran the facility.
'Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer ... This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace.'- Gen. Carter Ham, during Congressional testimony
In testimony to two House panels earlier this year, the officers said that commanders didn't have the information they needed to understand the nature of the attack, that they were unaware of the extent of the U.S. presence in Benghazi at the time and they were convinced erroneously for a time that they were facing a hostage crisis without the ability to move military assets into place that would be of any use.
The testimony reveals
how little information the military had on which to base an urgent response.
Two House panels — Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform — conducted interviews with the nine officers on separate days from January to April.
Four Americans died in
Benghazi, including Stevens. To this day, despite the investigations, it's not
clear if the violence resulted from a
well-planned, multiphase
1st assault not 'methodical'
In their testimony, military officials expressed some uncertainty about the first attack, describing protests and looting in an assault that lasted about 45 minutes.
The military attaché
to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli told Congress the first attack showed some
advance planning. The Libyan police officer guarding the diplomatic compound
fled as it began.
The defence attaché, whose name wasn't released, suggested the attackers "had something on the shelf" — an outline of a plan based on previously obtained information about the compound and its security measures, so they were ready to strike when the opportunity arose.
"They came in, and they had a sense of purpose, and I think it sometimes gets confused because you had looters and everyone else coming in," he said. "It was less than kind of full, thought-out, methodical."
Ham testified that the second attack, which killed security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex a mile from the diplomatic compound where the assault began the night before, showed clear military training. It was probably the work of a new team of militants, taking advantage after reports of violence at the first site and American vulnerability.
2nd attack showed 'degree of sophistication'
"Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer," said Ham, who headed the U.S. command in Africa. The second attack showed "a degree of sophistication and military training that is relatively unusual and certainly, I think, indicates that this was not a pickup team. This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace."
Ham said the nearly
eight-hour time lapse between the two attacks also seemed significant. "If
the team (that launched the second attack) was already there, then why didn't
they shoot sooner?" he asked.
"I think it's reasonable that a team came from outside of Benghazi," he said of the second attack in testimony on April 9. Violent extremists saw an opportunity "and said, `Let's get somebody there."' He also acknowledged that the absence of American security personnel on the ground soon enough after the first attack "allowed sufficient time for the second attack to be organized and conducted," he said.
Stevens had gone to
Benghazi from the embassy in Tripoli to open a cultural centre, State
Department officials said.
Obama, re-election,
and 'talking points'
The attacks came as President Barack Obama was in a close re-election battle, campaigning in part on the contention that al-Qaeda no longer posed a significant threat to the United States and that, blending the economy and the fight against terrorism, General Motors was alive but "Osama bin Laden is dead." A terror attack on American assets could have damaged that argument.
Five days after the attack, after feverish email exchanges about her "talking points" among national security staff members and their spokesmen, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice linked the Benghazi attacks to protests in Tunisia and Cairo over an anti-Islam video. Weeks later, U.S. officials retracted that account but never fully articulated a new one.
Republicans seized on the inaccuracies, contending that the Obama administration was covering up a terror attack for political gain.
Several congressional and independent investigations have faulted the State Department for inadequate security, but they have not provided a full reading of who was involved in the violence, what the motives were and how they could pull off such a seemingly complicated, multipronged
People on both sides of the debate tend to link the two incidents as one attack.
Confusion reigned
The congressional testimony that distinguishes the attacks came from military officials in Tripoli or, like Ham, coordinating the response in Washington. Most have never given a public account. But they agreed that confusion reigned from the outset.
"We're under attack," was the first report the military received from Benghazi. That message came from Stevens' entourage to Tripoli in the late afternoon of Sept. 11. Word was relayed to the defence attache, who reported up the chain of command.
That report gave no indication about the size or intensity of the attack.
The defence attache testified that the assault on the diplomatic mission was followed by a mob that complicated and confused the situation.
He said of the original attackers, "I don't think they were on the objective, so to speak, longer than 45 minutes. They kind of got on, did their business, and left." For hours after that, he said, there were looters and "people throwing stuff and you see the graffiti and things like that."
Once the first attack ended around 10 p.m., the military moved to evacuate Americans from Benghazi, while preparing for what it erroneously believed might have been an emerging hostage situation involving Stevens.
Nearly 8 hours between attacks
In fact, Stevens died of smoke inhalation after the diplomatic post was set on fire in the first attack.
Seven-and-a-half hours
later, at dawn, mortars crashed on a CIA compound that had been unknown to top
military commanders.
The military worked up a response on numerous fronts.
At one point, fewer
than 10 U.S. military personnel in Libya were grappling with the mortar and
rocket-propelled grenade attack on Americans who had taken cover at the CIA
facility and, some 600 miles away, the evacuation of about three dozen people
from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli by a convoy of armoured vehicles.
An unarmed Predator drone conducting an operation nearby in eastern Libya had been repositioned over Benghazi, yet offered limited assistance during the nighttime and with no intelligence to guide it. A standby force training in Croatia was ordered to Sicily, while another farther afield was mobilized. Neither was nearly ready in time to intervene during the first 45-minute attack and couldn't predict the quick mortar attack the next morning. An anti-terrorism support team in Spain was deployed, though it, too, was hours away.
American reinforcements of a six-man security team, including two military personnel, were held up at the Benghazi airport for hours by Libyan authorities. Drone images and intelligence hadn't provided indications of a new attack, but word eventually came from two special forces troops who had made it to the annex and reported casualties from the dawn attack up the chain of command.
Ahmed Abu Khattala detained last month
In Tripoli, military and embassy officials were evacuating the embassy there and destroying computer hardware and sensitive information.
The administration
last month apprehended its first suspect, Ahmed Abu Khattala, and
brought him to the United States to stand trial on terrorism charges.
The Justice Department maintains in court documents that Abu Khattala was involved in both attacks, and it describes the first breach on the diplomatic post as equally sophisticated. The government said a group of about 20 men, armed with AK-47- rifles, handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, stormed the diplomatic facility in the first attack.
Abu Khattala supervised the looting after Americans fled, the government says, and then returned to the camp of the Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia, where the Justice Department says a large force began assembling for the second attack.
Justice Department tells different tale
The Justice Department provided no supporting documentation for those conclusions. They also reflect the divisions among current and former government officials about the two attacks.
In her book Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote that there were scores of attackers with different motives. "It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well."
Abu Khattala's lawyer says the government has failed to show that he was connected to either attack.
Ham, who happened to be in Washington that week, briefed defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. They informed the president.
Many of the military officials said they didn't even know about the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, let alone the CIA's clandestine installation nearby. Few knew of Stevens visiting the city that day. Given all of the confusion, Ham said there was one thing he clearly would have done differently: "Advise the ambassador to not go to Benghazi."
© The Associated
Press, 2014"
"Who was Glen Doherty? Details emerge on former SEAL's final actions in Benghazi
Published July 26,
2013
Exclusive: Obama, This
Benghazi victim is not 'phony'
It was supposed to be
his last assignment working security and surveillance for the CIA. Glen
Doherty, the former Navy SEAL who was working for the CIA's Global Response
staff in Libya on Sept. 11 last year, was in the capital of Tripoli when the
call for help came from the diplomatic mission in Benghazi -- a
"consulate" in name only.
"Greg, Greg, we are under attack," were the last words from Ambassador Chris Stevens to his deputy Greg Hicks over the phone from Benghazi shortly after the attack began around 9:30 p.m.
"If you don't get here we are going to die," the radio operator at the tactical operations center in Benghazi pronounced on the radio from the consulate.
Fox News has learned more details about Doherty's actions, as he and others scrambled to try and save the U.S. team after those pleas for help.
Doherty was part of the quick reaction force that left Tripoli to help rescue the ambassador and his team at the consulate, as well as the 21 CIA personnel at the CIA annex one mile from where Stevens' and the others came under attack.
Doherty left Tripoli at about midnight local time, after chartering a local plane for the rescue. There were no U.S. air assets in Tripoli. He and the quick reaction force arrived at the CIA annex at 5:15 a.m. after being delayed for several hours at the Benghazi airport by the Libyans. The CIA annex, a fortress-like compound with several buildings, is where the Americans in Benghazi had retreated and the body of State Department official Sean Smith had been brought after the initial attack. At the time, Stevens was still missing.
Doherty joined Tyrone Woods, another highly trained former SEAL, on the roof of one of the buildings at the CIA annex. Within minutes, mortars were fired. Doherty and Woods were both killed.
Fox News has obtained a video of Doherty before he died that was compiled by his friends from the outtakes of an NBC series that Doherty worked on in 2009. The series, The Wanted, was a reality show that involved looking for war criminals around the world.
Doherty provided security and surveillance for the show's production team as it chased in one case a well-known financier of the 9/11 attacks through the streets of Hamburg. Doherty talks about the car chases and how he managed to stay awake on stake-outs and discusses his impressions of his friends Adam, Roger and Scott, whom he protected on those shoots. The video is being shown with the permission of Doherty's mother, Barbara, to provide insight into who Doherty was and why the nation should honor his service.
Doherty's Libya assignment was supposed to be his last for the CIA. He had been offered a more comfortable job in the private sector that would have allowed him to get out of the line of fire. He told his future employer that he had one last job to do. That job was in Libya. On Sept. 11, his last assignment was in Benghazi.
Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel . She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent."
"Hillary Clinton's E-Mail Was Vulnerable to 'Spoofing'
59 MAR 18, 2015
12:58 PM EDT
By Josh Rogin & Eli Lake
Hillary Clinton didn't
take a basic precaution with her personal e-mail system to prevent hackers from
impersonating or "spoofing" her identity in messages to close
associates, according to former U.S. officials familiar with her e-mail system
and other cyber-security experts.
This vulnerability put
anyone who was in communication with her clintonemail.com account while she was
secretary of state at risk of being hacked. Clinton said at the United Nations
last week that there were no security breaches of her personal e-mail server,
which she used to send and receive more than 60,000 professional and personal
e-mails. But former cyber-security officials and experts told us that there
were gaps in the system.
According to publicly available information, whoever administrated the system didn't enable what’s called a Sender Policy Framework, or SPF, a simple setting that would prevent hackers sending e-mails that appear to be from clintonemail.com. SPF is a basic and highly recommended security precaution for people who set up their own servers. Here is a security evaluation of Clinton's server by SenderScore:
Experts told us that oversight was just one flaw of a security system that would have been relatively easy for foreign intelligence services and others to exploit. "I have no doubt in my mind that this thing was penetrated by multiple foreign powers, to assume otherwise is to put blinders on,” said Bob Gourley, the chief technology officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2005 to 2008 and the founder of Cognitio, a cybersecurity consultancy.
"If a Sender
Policy Framework was not in use, they could send an e-mail that looks like it
comes from her to, say, the ambassador of France that says, 'leave the back
door open to the residence a package is coming,'" added Gourley. "Or
a malicious person could send an e-mail to a foreign dignitary meant to cause
an international incident or confuse U.S. foreign policy."
Spoofing a senior official’s e-mail identity is also an easy way to conduct "spear phishing" attacks, where an attacker sends a personally crafted e-mail that appears to come from a trusted source. Once the target opens it, his own system can be compromised. Clinton said she e-mailed with dozens of State Department and White House officials using her server, including President Barack Obama.
Spear phishing has caused problems for the government in the past. In October 2012, the White House confirmed that hackers linked to the Chinese government had penetrated sensitive but unclassified computer systems using the technique. Just last week, the State Department shut down its entire e-mail system after attacks by hackers suspected to be Russian.
There's no evidence that Clinton's e-mail server was linked to those or any other specific attacks. And it's worth noting that the State Department’s e-mail domain does not have SPF enabled. Thus, experts point out, it may also have been vulnerable to hacking during her time as secretary.
Nick Merrill, a
spokesman for Clinton’s personal office, declined to comment on the SPF issue,
telling us that she took several security precautions when setting up her
server, including hiring third-party experts. "Robust protections were put in
place and additional upgrades and techniques were employed over time as they
became available," he said. “There was never evidence of a breach, nor any
unauthorized intrusions."
The problem with such confidence is that if hackers exploited the SPF vulnerability, Clinton's office would likely never have known her domain name, which has been public information since March of 2013, was being used surreptitiously.
Merrill declined to say who has been in charge of maintaining the server or ensuring its security since 2009 [Base One Technologies, mentored by Serco]. This would be a good question to have answered. It would be important to know, for instance, what sort of security vetting the employees overseeing the server received.
It would be useful to know, too, if the federal agencies that protect sensitive government communications -- the FBI and the NSA -- were aware of the server's existence and helped to provide security. Clinton has refused to clarify this issue, saying only that the server "had numerous safeguards and was on property guarded by the Secret Service In 2008. Chinese hackers penetrated the e-mail systems of both the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns, which were operating on commercial systems. After the hacks were discovered, the FBI lent its assistance and the hacks stopped.
E-mails "that run on commercial services are vulnerable to collection,” said James A. Lewis, who held senior technology posts at the White House and State Department and now directs the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Lewis, who authored “Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency," a report commissioned by a bipartisan House panel in 2007, added: “I don’t think people realize how much of this information is available to foreign intelligence services."
Until team Clinton
answers vital questions about exactly what safeguards were in place in
Chappaqua, New York, we won't know how likely it was that sensitive
communications at the highest level of government may have ended up in
unfriendly hands.
To contact the authors on this story:
Josh Rogin at joshrogin@bloomberg.
Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net
"Information Security Services
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Information Security
Planning is the process whereby an organization seeks to protect its
operations and assets from data theft or computer hackers that seek to obtain
unauthorized information or sabotage business operations. Without a properly
planned and managed Information Security Plan, an organization runs the risk
of law suits, loss of data, compromised operations and loss of reputation.
Our experts have secured some of the world largest and most complex
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Base One Technologies takes your information security needs seriously! We conduct business analysis, install solutions and protect your network from unauthorized entry and data loss. We are there in the beginning to provide guidance and support to your data security program, through to implementation and eventually during the support life cycle providing process and procedures for incident reporting, analysis and counter measures.
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Base One
Technologies
Expertly researches, designs, and develops information security policies that protect your data and manage your firm's information technology risk at levels acceptable to your business. Performs architectural assessments and conducts both internal and external penetration testing. The results of these efforts culminate in an extensive risk analysis and vulnerabilities report. Develops and implements multi-layer Information Security Solutions, practices and procedures. We deploy Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and IP Security with VPN solutions using Cisco routers, Frame Relay, firewalls, address and port translation, obscurity standards and authentication technologies (AAA, 3DES, TACACS, etcŠ), to enhance and meet the level of Data Security required for global organizations. Conducts IT Security and Risk Assessment in Federal government as well as security testing, implementing security for multiple platforms and operating systems around the world. Ability to conduct business process analysis to provide technical security countermeasures, risk management and data communications security planning for large organizations. Provides computer security integration for web server and traditional client-server based applications. We secure environments up to as many layers as required by our clients' policies, industry practices, and regulating bodies - including the desktop and user experience as required.
Develops, implements and supports
Information Security Counter measures such as honey-pots
and evidence logging and incident documentation processes and
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|
"Contact
111 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
New York, NY 10011
Description
Base One Technologies,
Ltd. is a DOMESTIC BUSINESS CORPORATION, located in New York, NY and was formed
on Feb 15, 1994. This file was obtained
from the Secretary of State and has a file
number of 1795583.
This business was
created 7,695 days ago in the New York SOS Office and the registered agent is C
T Corporation System that does business at 111 Eighth Avenue , New York in New
York.
After conducting a search for principals and owners of Base One Technologies, Ltd., we were able to find 2 owners and/or executives. Their information is listed below.
This file was last
updated on May 14, 2013.
Principals
Liza R Zaneri
Chief Executive Officer
15 Irving Place
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Chief Executive Officer
15 Irving Place
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Liza R Zaneri
Principal Executive Office
15 Irving Place
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Principal Executive Office
15 Irving Place
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Registered Agent
C T Corporation System
111 EIGHTH AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10011
111 EIGHTH AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10011
"SOURCE: Base One Technologies
September 02, 2008
09:00 ET
Base One Technologies,
Inc. Continues Operations in Government Space
NEW ROCHELLE,
NY--(Marketwire - September 2, 2008) - Base One Technologies, Inc. is pleased
to announce that it has sold its affiliate, Base One Technologies Ltd., to
Apptis Inc. Base One Technologies, Inc. will continue to compete in the
government space as an 8(a), HubZone and Woman Owned Small Disadvantage
Company. Base One Technologies, Inc. is an IT Engineering and Technical
Services company founded in 1994. Base One has a Top Secret Facilities
Clearance and specializes in: Enterprise Architecture, Network Infrastructure
Support, Data Security, Software & Database Services, Disaster Recovery
& Contingency Planning, and Independent Validation & Verification. Base
One is a privately-held organization with headquarters in New Rochelle, NY. For
more information visit: www.base-one.com.
About Base One Technologies
Base One Technologies, Inc. is an IT Engineering and Technical Services company certified as an 8(a), Woman Owned, SDB, HUBZone Business. Founded in 1994, Base One has a Top Secret Facilities Clearance and specializes in: Enterprise Architecture, Network Infrastructure Support, Data Security, Software & Database Services, Disaster Recovery & Contingency Planning, and Independent Validation & Verification. Please visit www.base-one.com for more information.
CONTACT INFORMATION
"Serco's Office of Partner Relations (OPR) helps facilitate our aggressive small business utilization and growth strategies. Through the OPR, Serco mentors four local small businesses under formal Mentor Protégé Agreements: Three sponsored by DHS (Base One Technologies, TSymmetry, Inc., and HeiTech Services, Inc.,) and the fourth sponsored by GSA (DKW Communications, Inc.). Serco and HeiTech Services were awarded the 2007 DHS Mentor Protégé Team Award for exceeding our mentoring goals." http://www.dtic.mil/
"Opened in 1994 as the successor to the Transitional Immigrant Visa Processing Center in Rosslyn, Va., the NVC centralizes all immigrant visa preprocessing and appointment scheduling for overseas posts. The NVC collects paperwork and fees before forwarding a case, ready for adjudication, to the responsible post.
The center also handles immigrant and fiancé visa petitions, and while it does not adjudicate visa applications, it provides technical assistance and support to visa-adjudicating consular officials overseas.
Only two Foreign Service officers, the director and deputy director, work at the center, along with just five Civil Service employees. They work with almost 500 contract employees doing preprocessing of visas, making the center one of the largest employers in the Portsmouth area.
The contractor, Serco, Inc., has worked with the NVC since its inception and with the Department for almost 18 years.
The NVC houses more than 2.6 million immigrant visa files, receives almost two million pieces of mail per year and received more than half a million petitions from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) in 2011. Its file rooms’ high-density shelves are stacked floor-to-ceiling with files, each a collection of someone’s hopes and dreams and each requiring proper handling.
….
The NVC also preprocesses the chief of mission (COM) application required for the filing of a petition for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV). Such visas, for foreign nationals who have performed services for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan, require COM concurrence before the applicant can file a petition with USCIS. The NVC collects the requisite documents from such applicants and, when complete, forwards the package to the U.S. embassies in Baghdad or Kabul for COM approval"
"Update on Serco's Strategy Review including the Contract & Balance Sheet Reviews; capital structure and funding; latest trading and outlook
Date : 10 November 2014
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS RESTRICTED AND IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN, INTO OR FROM THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN, SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE SAME WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. PLEASE SEE THE IMPORTANT NOTICE AT THE END OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT.
… Strategy Review: Serco's future to be as an international B2G business. A successful, innovative and market-leading provider of services to Governments. Core sectors: Justice & Immigration, Defence, Transport, Citizen Services and Healthcare.
….
In the Americas Division, our work for the US Affordable [Obama] Care Act (ACA) has begun an expanded first option year. Other awards in the period included: career transition services for US soldiers; health outreach services for the US Naval Reserve; deployable medical systems solutions also for the Navy; and two contracts for fleet maintenance services for commercial clients. In total, the ACA and all other awards in the period are valued at over $550m. Meanwhile, our contract supporting the Department of State's National Visa Center and Kentucky Consular Center (NVC/KCC) came to an end during the period, as did some Acquisition and Program Management support work for US intelligence agency customers. C4I2TSR services for the US Air Force and Naval installation task order work under the Sea Enterprise frameworks are also reducing. …
For further information please contact Serco:
Stuart Ford, Head of Investor Relations T +44 (0) 1256 386 227
Marcus De Ville, Head of Media Relations T +44 (0) 1256 386 226
Jonathan Glass, Brunswick T +44 (0) 207 404 5959
Analyst and institutional investor meeting…….
Download PDF [PDF, 387 KB] (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)"
Yours sincerely,
Field McConnell, United States Naval Academy, 1971; Forensic Economist; 30 year airline and 22 year military pilot; 23,000 hours of safety; Tel: 715 307 8222
David Hawkins Tel: 604 542-0891 Forensic Economist; former leader of oil-well blow-out teams; now sponsors Grand Juries in CSI Crime and Safety Investigation
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