[ExI] The Bomb verses a Email server

[spike]

>… On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Bomb verses a Email server

 

 

On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 10:35 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

> 

​>​>>…Ambassador Stevens could have evacuated the embassy but he chose not to…  John K Clark

 

​> >…That isn’t Ambo’s call… he isn’t qualified to make military assessments.

 

​>…Stevens was no neophyte, he was considered one of the State Department's top experts on Iran as well as Libya…  Stevens was a very brave man who made a mistake, we all make mistakes but when you make one in a crises it can be lethal…  John K Clark

 

 

 

John, I will certainly grant that Amb. Stevens was a fine American, a brave man and an expert on the Middle East, and that he wanted to stay.  But that still isn’t his call.  The Sec.State is responsible for making that decision, and if that decision is stay, the Secretary has the responsibility to have adequate security, based on the availability of military support and a reasonable evacuation plan in the event of an attack.

 

My theory is that there were military threat assessments coming in, but those would not and could not be sent directly to Sec. Clinton because they are classified up the kazoo.  An example would be an assessment which observation of an apartment building within range where a person in the top floor could fire out the window and hit a target standing at the front door of the embassy with an 80% chance of a hit per round fired.  The same assessment could suggest an alternative entrance, where a rooftop shot would have only a 30% chance per round.  Clearly that kind of information would be highly classified, for it would identify a vulnerability and suggest a workaround for the bad guys.

 

Since the Secretary had no encrypted .gov account, and the embassy couldn’t use her unsecured server (for that would require an illegal act to even write on a system that could access her unsecured server) then I see no legal means for the military threat assessment to get into the proper hands.  

 

Keep in mind Stevens was making life-or-death decisions for others besides himself.  The military contractors hired to rescue him in an attack are also placed at risk, as was the Information Officer Sean Smith as well as the others who escaped.  Those contractors knew that if shooting started, their moral duty was to run toward the sound of gunfire to try to rescue Ambo and anyone else still alive there (which they did (but it was too late for Smith and Stevens.))  

 

For that reason, Stevens doesn’t get to make the decision of stay or go: the Secretary makes that call based on military threat assessments.  What was the schedule for periodic threat assessments?  Where are these assessments?  Who received them?  How?  Why do we still not know the answers to those questions?  And, if the assessments were being received on the State Department’s .gov (legally) in what form did those reports get to the Sec.State?  What was the mechanism whereby those reports made it to the person with the power to make the decision?

 

spike

 

 

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