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Officials provide a more detailed account of the attack in Libya that killed the U. S. ambassador.
WICHITA, Kan.— In January 2009, just days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Charles and David Koch met in their company headquarters inWichita with their longtime political strategist, Rich Fink.
The countrywas headed toward bankruptcy, they agreed. Fink told them bluntly that Obama’s administration represented the worst of what Charles and David fear most: a bloated, regulation- heavy, freespending government that could plunge the country into another deep recession.
That day, Fink advised two of the richest men in the nation that it would be the fight of their lives to stop the government spending spree and to change the course of the country, starting with the 2012 election.
“If we are going to do this, we should do it right or not at all,” Fink, 61, recalled telling the brothers. “But if we don’t do it right or ifwe don’t do it at all, we will be insignificant
WASHINGTON— Senior State Department officials provided a more detailed picture last week of the consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U. S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
A look at how they say the attack took place:
Sept. 10- 11, 2012
Stevens arrives in Benghazi and holds meetings on and off the consulate grounds on Sept. 10. He spends the night, and for the 11th anniversary of the 9/ 11 attacks in 2001 on the U. S. holds meetings only inside the compound.
It is an enclosed area about 300 yards long by 100 yards wide, with a 9- foot outer wall topped by barbed wire and augmented by barriers, steel drop bars and other security upgrades.
There are four buildings in the compound.
Five diplomatic security officers are present, along with four members of a local militia that was deployed by Libya’s government to provide added security.
Around 8: 30 p. m.
Stevens finishes his final meeting of the day and escorts a Turkish diplomat outside the main entrance of the consulate.
The situation is calm. There are no protests.
Around 9: 40 p. m.
Agents hear loud noises, gunfire and explosions near the front gate. A barracks at the entrance housing the local militiamen is burned down. Agents viewing cameras see a large group of armed men flowing into the compound. Alarm is sounded. Telephone calls are made to the embassy in Tripoli, officials inWashington, the Libyan authorities and a U. S. quick reaction force located at a second compound a little over a mile away.
Grabbing weapons
One agent, armed with a sidearm and an M4 submachine gun, takes Stevens and computer specialist Sean Smith to a safe room inside one of the compound’s twomain residences. It has a heavy metal grill and several locks, medical supplies and water, and windows that can be opened only from the inside. The other agents equip themselves with long guns, body armor, helmets and ammunition at other buildings. Two try tomake it to the building with Stevens. They are met by armed men and are forced to retreat.
Compound breached
Attackers penetrate Stevens’ building and try to break the grill locks for the safe room but cannot gain access. They dump jerry cans of diesel fuel in the building, light furniture on fire and set aflame part of the exterior of the building.
Two of the remaining four agents are in the compound’s other residence. Attackers manage to force their way into that building, but the agents barricade themselves in and the attackers
and we will just waste a lot of time and I would rather play golf.
“And if we do it right, then it is going to get very, very ugly.”
Three and a half years later, Obama accused the Koch brothers of engineering “a corporate takeover of our democracy.”
The brothers’ political spending and the network of conservative political organizations and think tanks they fund have sparked protests.
Speaking out
Two years of condemnations and criticism prompted Charles Koch to break his silence about politics. In his most extensive interview in 15 years, Charles Koch, along with his family and friends, talked about why he wants to defeat Obama and elect members of Congress who will stop what he calls catastrophic overspending.
Government recklessness threatens the country and his business, he said.
The Kochs say the price for their political involvement has been high: Death threats, cyberattacks on their business, hundreds of news stories criticizing them, calls for boycotts of the company’s consumer goods, and what the brothers see as ongoing and unjustified public attacks fromthe Obama administration.
The Kochs aren’t finished. Win or lose in November, they plan to start a newfight. They are organizing dozens of business and grassroots groups to build support for eliminating all corporate and agricultural subsidies.
The countrymust deal with corporate welfare, which they say exceeds $ 350 billion a year, before it can rein in spending on Social Security andMedicare, Fink said.
“How is any American going to feel good about reformingMedicare, Medicaid and Social Security when there is somuch cronyism going on with these companies, and businessmen are making off with so many tax dollars?” Fink asked.
The Kochs won’t say howmuch they are spending or specifically what they are doing to defeat Obama, but it’s enough to prompt critics to question howmuch political influence one family should have.
“The Koch political machine is the most elaborate, comprehensive financial dip into American politics since Standard Oil and the robber barons a century ago,” said Larry Jacobs, a political scientist at the University ofMinnesota.
“This is the 21stcentury version of how you buy yourself a government in America.”
Their motive, Jacobs suspects, is wealth. “The rest of thismay well be the means to an end.”
Charles Koch says his enemies accuse him of maneuvering “so that we can be free to plunder or exploit people, exploit our employees, exploit our customers.
“And if that’s true, why are we the only large company that’s doing this?” he asked. “If this were the easy way to makemoney, why wouldn’t they be doing it?”
Charles Koch said he would prefer not to get involved in politics.
“I look at those activities as defensive,” he said. “That is, we need to preserve enough liberty and enough of amarket economy so people can speak out and have independent resources to provide diverse opinions, and try to put some limits on the growth and intrusiveness of government.”
Risks, attacks, lies
The brothers say they are taking risks by speaking out. Mark Holden, Koch Industries’ senior vice president and general counsel, said there has been a progression of attacks and lies about the company since Obama’s election, including:
Summer 2010:
Austan Goolsbee, then Obama’s chief economic adviser, accused Koch Industries of not paying taxes.
Under federal law, it’s a crime to improperly access or disclose confidential tax information, according to Holden, who suspects the administration was trying to intimidate them because of their political views.
“It was false and malicious, too,” Holden said. “We pay a lot of taxes.”
Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said in a video that the campaign is “going to call their BS,” referencing the Kochs.
“Really?” Holden said. “Ifmy kids said that to me, they’d be going to their room. This is the deputy campaign manager? This is the discourse in this country?”
David Axelrod, Obama’s senior political consultant, told the media in a telephone conference thatMitt Romney is being aided by “the ( political strategist) Karl ( Rove) and Koch brothers’ contract killers in super PAC land,” according to news accounts.
“And when you have Axelrod, one of ( Obama’s) top campaign officials, saying we are contract
May 2012:
2012:
killers— Imean, I don’t know how somebody in the administration can say that about a private citizen,” said Charles Koch.
July 2012:
U. S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, DN. J., read a statement on the floor of the U. S. Senate accusing the Koch brothers of being “two of the biggest sources of secret money in politics.”
With photos of the Koch brothers as a backdrop, captioned “The Koch Brothers: Subverting the Democratic Process,” Lautenberg accused the brothers of picking their preferred politicians.
“If these wealthy individuals want to pick our next president, they should have themuscle and the courage to stand up and say so, tell everybody what they want to do to our democracy. They don’t have the courage,” Lautenberg said.
Lautenberg also read a list of Koch Industries’ consumer products into the record, detailing the various companies the Koch brothers own. Koch officials called that action tantamount to inviting a boycott by consumers.
The attacks have forced the brothers to increase security around themselves and their families, both said. David Koch said Obama’s criticisms might tempt disturbed people to hurt them.
The threat the Kochs fear most from the government is the potential for harassment by regulation.
“The government can shut our refineries down just by not letting us take an old heater and replace it with amore efficient heater,” Fink said. “You need a permit for that. They have the power to shut us down.”
TheWhite House did not return calls seeking comment.
Fink said he warned the brothers on that January day in 2009 about the perils of taking on the president and upsetting the special interests that fund the political system.
“You guys will possibly risk the businesses that you have built and your family legacy, and there’s going to be a lot of fallback from this,” Fink said he told them.
Their response, he said: “We are committed. We believe it is the right thing to do. If we don’t save the country we are not going to have a company anyhow. So what’s the big difference?”
Blaming both parties
The Kochs believe the country is racing inevitably toward economic disaster. They blame Republicans and Democrats alike.
They say that overspending, coupled with future shortfalls in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, along with interest on the national debt, will push the country into bankruptcy, just as surely as a family that consistently spends more than it makes will end up broke.
“We’re running well over a trilliondollarayear deficits with our national debt climbing inexorably to greater and greater level,” David Koch said. “The Federal Reserve, of course, is buying the bonds the federal government issues to finance the debt. Andmy God, if this continues to increase, we’re going to have everincreasing inflation, it could become runaway inflation that would raise interest rates on our national debt enormously, and our country could spiral into bankruptcy.”
The interest alone that the United States will owe to China in 2025 is projected to be enough to fund that country’s entire military, Fink said.
The Kochs say neither Obama nor Romney will address overspending or expanding government.
“You go through history, the rate of increase in federal government has been almost the same under Republicans as under Democrats,” Charles Koch said.
But he said that under Romney the country’s economic decline would proceed more slowly.
They also say that the country is threatened by cronyism, companies that would lobby for regulations to cripple their competitors or for subsidies rather than compete in the marketplace.
“Businesses, rather than focusing on finding what products and services will add value for people, will improve their quality of life, go to the government and get subsidies, mandates and other things, so the economy is no longer directed by individual consumers, but it’s directed politically,” Charles Koch said.
“And we’ve seen what happens to societies that go there. And so that’s happening to this society.”
Although the Kochs have long complained about corporate subsidies, saying they increase taxes and the price of goods, the company accepts subsidies for production of ethanol.
Not accepting them would put the company at a competitive disadvantage, they say.
The Kochs believe that no government program can create real prosperity, and that when government interferes with the markets, it diminishes prosperity.