New documents from Benghazi show pointed concern

The Benghazi attack stays in the news because the story keeps unfolding. This morning there are new details from an exclusive FP report about documents and personal items found at the site of the "diplomatic mission" in Benghazi that suggest the degree to which American personnel were concerned about security that day. Two reporters who visited the site six weeks after the assault found papers apparently showing that American personnel were concerned about a Libyan police officer watching the compound the day of the attack.

"…two unsigned draft letters are both dated Sept. 11 and express strong fears about the security situation at the compound on what would turn out to be a tragic day. They also indicate that Stevens and his team had officially requested additional security at the Benghazi compound for his visit — and that they apparently did not feel it was being provided," write reporters Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa. http://bit.ly/RwoIkT

Issa and Chaffetz want answers on the documents revealed in the FP story, the Cable’s Josh Rogin reports.  http://bit.ly/Temokg

Now Petraeus is beginning to feel the heat from Benghazi. The CIA played a much more pivotal role than previously thought in Benghazi on the night of the assault that killed four Americans. Senior U.S. intelligence officials provided a detailed tick-tock of what occurred after the Sept. 11 attack in an effort to set the record straight. Some believe the State Department, which had nominally been responsible for security at the mission in Benghazi, was taking the public hit for not responding to the need for more security there. But what is now known about the role the CIA played at the compound – indeed, the "U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation," as the WSJ reports this morning, paints a fuller picture of the dynamics at play. Of the 30 Americans who were evacuated from Benghazi the next day, only seven worked for State. The CIA began to establish a base of operations there in February 2011 to help stem the "spread of weapons and militant influences" throughout the region- not only in Libya, but in Mali, Somalia and Syria, the WSJ reports. It was this secretive mission that contributed to the bungled security situation in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11 – and the administration’s puzzling response in the weeks afterward. http://on.wsj.com/TpsZpQ

Welcome to Friday’s edition of Situation Report, where, amazingly, the questions on Benghazi still linger. Follow me @glubold. Or hit me anytime at gordon.lubold@foreignpolicy.com. And sign up for Situation Report here: http://bit.ly/NCN9uN or just send me an e-mail and I’ll put you on the list.

This would not make McChrystal happy. When Stan McChrystal was ISAF commander in Kabul he endeavored to create an austere environment and sought to close down some of the amenities that seemed unfathomable to him in a war zone, like a KFC and a coffee shop that might have improved morale but for some fobbits created an illusion that places like Kandahar Air Field were kinda like that Air Force base in northern California. McChrystal’s efforts were barely successful, stymied by the collective bureaucracy of more than 40 nations and the Department of Defense. Imagine his reaction to this: a friend of Situation Report tells us that there is now a large bright green Astroturf field at Kandahar Air Field with a running track around it. Our friend writes: "It’s a beautiful island of fake green amid dust and sand and the stench of sewage, a new End Zone Green Zone in the middle of the boardwalk, with soldiers in reflective belts playing football and soccer well into the night while spectators sip smoothies and smoke cigars. The former crown jewel of the KAF boardwalk, the Canadian hockey rink, sits disused and forlorn."

Marines are deploying to the littorals – in New Jersey. The Pentagon is sending Marines to the New Jersey coast to help in the aftermath of Sandy. But that’s probably not the real coastline they’re thinking of as the Marines retool for conflict around the world. http://buswk.co/U3zGoj

But the Marines have other littorals in mind. Despite the military’s abysmal record at predicting where it will fight its next wars, the services are nonetheless laying claim to the areas in which they think they’ll be doing the most work. The Marines often cite the fact that 80 percent of the world’s population lives along coastlines around the world — meaning that’s where the action will be. "This concentration of people, political power, and economic dynamism means that the littorals are where the world’s future crises will take place," Mills writes. There are a number of chokepoints that represent "the archipelago of action" for U.S. naval forces, he says: the Malacca Straits, the Strait of Hormuz, the Arctic Ocean, the Panama Canal, the waters off East Africa, the Suez Canal, and the Gulf of Guinea. Perfect time to remind the nation of the Marines’ special sauce: the Marine Air Ground Task Force, which could come in handy in so many of these areas. Mills does just that, quoting Commandant Gen. Jim Amos: they are "light enough to get there quickly, but heavy enough to carry the day upon arrival, and capable of operating independent of local infrastructure."

Nice gig if you can get it. The Mills piece was written with the assistance of an organization called the Ellis Group, a Marine Corps internal think tank comprised of about 10 majors and lieutenant colonels and led by a full-bird — all personally selected by the commandant. They focus on war-fighting issues for the Navy and Marine Corps and what the Corps needs to do to compete.

Why it’s called the Ellis Group: For the amphib-ignorant, the group is named after Maj. Earl "Pete" Ellis, the father of amphibious assault in the 1920s. The group was just formed in May 2012. http://bit.ly/Stok8q

The Navy is getting in on the drone action. Last Friday, an unmanned, 36-foot boat launched a series of missiles in a test to see how such vessels could be used to patrol the waters around larger boats and decrease their vulnerability to swarms of suicide attackers using small speedboats –the same way that the U.S.S. Cole was attacked 12 years ago last month. It’s called the unmanned surface vehicle precision engagement module (USV PEM), and the Navy is working on it with the Israelis in a fairly obvious attempt to foil Iranian war plans in the Persian Gulf region, Killer Apps’ John Reed reports. Reed: "The project is part of a joint-U.S.-Israeli collaboration run out of the U.S. Navy’s sea systems command’s Special Warfare Program Office. The same shop is responsible for, among other things, fielding a number of tiny submarines used to listen for enemy submarines, deliver Navy SEALs, and other secret squirrel activities." http://bit.ly/Yt5di6

So you think you know who’s going to get the military’s vote? Folks like to assume they know that the military is filled with red-staters, and it’s true, there are many. But with just a few days before the election, it would be wrong for Mitt Romney to assume he’s got the military vote, argues FP’s Rosa Brooks. Indeed, it’s long been a question just how many Democrats and Republicans there are in the military; there is no easy way to determine it.

The annual Military Times poll — interesting as it always is — is, as the paper itself points out, fundamentally flawed in that it relies on voluntary responses from readers — a preponderance of whom are older, white, career-military males. Brooks cites the work of Jason Dempsey, a lieutenant colonel formerly on West Point’s faculty, who has found that the political attitudes of Army personnel closely track the views of the civilian population. And, surprisingly, on some social issues, soldiers may be more liberal than the rest of society: "[I]n 2004 (the most recent year for which there is hard data), for instance, civilians were substantially more likely than Army personnel to oppose abortion under all circumstances, and large majorities of Army personnel supported increasing domestic government spending on education, health care, Social Security, and environmental protection," Brooks writes. http://bit.ly/SfL9vg

Twelve Years and Counting

• AP: Four Afghan police killed in Helmand in apparent insider attack. http://bit.ly/SBixzo
• ISW: Understanding green-on-blue attacks, an interactive site. http://bitly.com/QWIVCh
• GlobalPost: Taliban fear grips once peaceful Parwan province. http://bit.ly/SzIfVH
• Registan: Afghan tourists in Tajikistan. http://bit.ly/Y69mcC

Noting

• The Guardian: Cycling in Yemen, an uphill struggle against insurgency and ignorance. http://bit.ly/TnpT5C
• NYT: U.N. says Syria execution video shows apparent war crime. http://nyti.ms/RyC69Y
• USAT: Officials say no delay in helping U.S. personnel in Benghazi. http://bitly.com/SvaGSg
• RTT: Reports say armed militiamen besiege Libya’s Parliament. http://bit.ly/RvVcz8