Daniel N. Hoffman
Washington Times, Sept. 8, 2022
“… outgunned and outmanned while facing large arms fire and heavy smoke from the fire, the CIA team was forced to evacuate the remaining 30 Americans and return to the CIA Base.”
This month, the CIA and State Department will honor and remember four American heroes — Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA officers, former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty — who were killed during the firefight with terrorists at the U.S. diplomatic compound and CIA annex in Benghazi 10 years ago during the night of Sept. 11-12, 2012.
Stevens, Smith, Woods, and Doherty, along with their CIA, State Department, and US military colleagues, were bravely serving our nation from behind enemy lines. The Libyan revolution, which began in February of that year and resulted in the death of dictator Moammar al-Gadhafi in October 2011, shaped their mission, with the situation on the ground increasingly tense and chaotic. Stevens was leading the U.S. diplomatic mission, engaging with emerging Libyan tribal and political leaders. The CIA was tracking the al-Qaeda-allied Ansar al Sharia and other terror groups operating in the Benghazi region.
Serving at the time as chief of the CIA’s Near East Division, I did not have the honor of personally meeting these four supremely dedicated public servants. But I came to know their extraordinary legacies during memorial ceremonies and from a number of the CIA officers who deployed with them and survived the Benghazi terrorist attack, including one who received medical treatment for serious wounds.
Sean Smith enlisted in the Air Force at age 17, served as a ground radio maintenance specialist, and later deployed to Baghdad with the State Department. Responsible for securely managing sensitive communications, Smith was a technology whiz who had already served 10 years with the State Department. Only 33 years old, he traveled to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens because of his critical contribution to the mission. Smith left behind a wife and two young children.
CIA officers considered Amb. Stevens, who served in Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh, as one of his generation’s foremost substantive experts on the Middle East and North Africa. He returned to Tripoli as ambassador in May 2012 after having served a previous tour there from 2007 to 2009 in the No. 2 post as deputy chief of mission. Source