WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House, under political pressure
to respond forcefully to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S.
Consulate in Benghazi, is readying strike forces and drones
but first has to find a target.
And if the administration does find a
target, officials say it still has to weigh whether the
short-term payoff of exacting retribution on al-Qaida is
worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group's
profile in the region, alienate governments the U.S. needs
to fight the group in the future and do little to slow the
growing terror threat in North Africa.
Details on the administration's
position and on its search for a possible target were
provided by three current and one former administration
official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the
White House for help. All four spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the
high-level debates publicly.
In another effort to bolster Libyan
security, the Pentagon and State Department have been
developing a plan to train and equip a special operations
force in Libya, according to a senior defense official.
The efforts show the tension of the
White House's need to demonstrate it is responding
forcefully to al-Qaida, balanced against its long-term plans
to develop relationships and trust with local governments
and build a permanent U.S. counterterrorist network in the
region.
Vice President Joe Biden pledged in
his debate last week with Republican vice presidential
nominee Paul Ryan to find those responsible for the Sept. 11
attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed U.S.
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others.
"We will find and bring to justice the
men who did this," Biden said in response to a question
about whether intelligence failures led to lax security
around Stevens and the consulate. Referring back to the raid
that killed Osama bin Laden last year, Biden said American
counterterror policy should be, "if you do harm to America,
we will track you to the gates of hell if need be."
The White House declined to comment on
the debate over how best to respond to the Benghazi attack.
The attack has become an issue in the
U.S. election season, with Republicans accusing the Obama
administration of being slow to label the assault an act of
terrorism and slow to strike back at those responsible.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday night
that the security of State Department operations was her
responsibility.
The White House is "aiming for a small
pop, a flash in the pan, so as to be able to say, `Hey,
we're doing something about it,'" said retired Air Force Lt.
Col. Rudy Attalah, the former Africa counterterrorism
director for Defense Department under President George W.
Bush.
Attalah noted that in 1998, after the
embassy bombing in Nairobi, the Clinton administration fired
cruise missiles to take out a pharmaceutical factory in
Sudan that may have been producing chemical weapons for
al-Qaida.
"It was a way to say, `Look, we did
something,'" he said.
On the subject of developing a special
operations unit, U.S. officials received approval from
Congress well before the Benghazi attack to reprogram some
funding in the budget that could be used for the commando
program in Libya. But the details are still being discussed
with the Libyans and also must get final approval from
Congress, according to the defense official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
discuss the matter publicly.
The initial cost is estimated at about
$6.2 million.
The defense official said U.S. leaders
have recognized the need to train Libyan commando forces,
but details such as the size, mission and composition of the
forces are still being finalized.
A Washington-based analyst with
extensive experience in Africa said administration officials
have approached him for help in connecting the dots to Mali,
whose northern half fell to al-Qaida-linked rebels this
spring. They wanted to know if he could suggest potential
targets, which he says he was not able to do.
"The civilian side is looking into
doing something and is running into a lot of pushback from
the military side," the analyst said. "The resistance that
is coming from the military side is because the military has
both worked in the region and trained in the region. So they
are more realistic."
Islamists in the region are preparing
for a reaction from the U.S.
"If America hits us, I promise you
that we will multiply the Sept. 11 attack by 10," said Oumar
Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for the Islamists in northern Mali,
while denying that his group or al-Qaida fighters based in
Mali played a role in the Benghazi attack.
Finding the militants who overwhelmed
a small security force at the consulate isn't going to be
easy.
The key suspects are members of the
Libyan militia group Ansar al-Shariah. The group has denied
responsibility, but eyewitnesses saw Ansar fighters at the
consulate, and U.S. intelligence intercepted phone calls
after the attack from Ansar fighters to leaders of al-Qaida
in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, bragging about it. The
affiliate's leaders are known to be mostly in northern Mali,
where they have seized a territory as large as Texas
following a coup in the country's capital. The Maghreb is a
region of northwest Africa that stretches from Libya to
Mauritania.
But U.S. investigators have only
loosely linked "one or two names" to the attack, and they
lack proof that it was planned ahead of time or that the
local fighters had any help from the larger al-Qaida
affiliate, officials say.
If that proof is found, the White
House must decide whether to ask Libyan security forces to
arrest the suspects with an eye to extraditing them to the
U.S. for trial or to simply target the suspects with U.S.
covert action.
U.S. officials say covert action is
more likely. The FBI couldn't gain access to the consulate
until weeks after the attack, so it is unlikely it will be
able to build a strong criminal case. The U.S. is also leery
of trusting the arrest and questioning of the suspects to
the fledgling Libyan security forces and legal system still
building after the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
The burden of proof for U.S. covert
action is far lower, but action by the CIA or special
operations forces still requires a body of evidence that
shows the suspect either took part in the violence or
presents a "continuing and persistent, imminent threat" to
U.S. targets, current and former officials said.
"If the people who were targeted were
themselves directly complicit in this attack or directly
affiliated with a group strongly implicated in the attack,
then you can make an argument of imminence of threat," said
Robert Grenier, former director of the CIA's
Counterterrorism Center.
But if the U.S. acts alone to target
them in Africa, "it raises all kinds of sovereignty issues
... and makes people very uncomfortable," said Grenier, who
has criticized the CIA's heavy use of drones in Pakistan
without that government's support.
Even a strike that happens with
permission could prove problematic, especially in Libya or
Mali, where al-Qaida supporters are currently based. Both
countries have fragile, interim governments that could lose
popular support if they are seen allowing the U.S.
unfettered access to hunt al-Qaida.
The Libyan government is so wary of
the U.S. investigation expanding into unilateral action that
it refused requests to arm the drones now being flown over
Libya. Libyan officials have complained publicly that they
were unaware of how large the U.S. intelligence presence was
in Benghazi until a couple of dozen U.S. officials showed up
at the airport after the attack, waiting to be evacuated -
roughly twice the number of U.S. staff the Libyans thought
were there. A number of those waiting to be evacuated worked
for U.S. intelligence, according to two American officials.
In Mali, U.S. officials have urged the
government to allow special operations trainers to return,
to work with Mali's forces to push al-Qaida out of that
country's northern area. AQIM is among the groups that
filled the power vacuum after a coup by rebellious Malian
forces in March.
U.S. special operations forces
trainers left Mali just days after the coup. While such
trainers have not been invited to return, the U.S. has
expanded its intelligence effort on Mali, focusing satellite
and spy flights over the contested northern region to track
and map the militant groups vying for control of the
territory, officials say.
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Callimachi reported from Bamako, Mali.
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this
report.
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Dozier can be followed on Twitter
(at)kimberlydozier.