May 4, 2013 by
Fox News disclosed Saturday morning the names of three self-described Benghazi whistleblowers who, up to now, have remained a secret to all but a select few. These individuals are expected to testify Wednesday at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chaired by Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Eric Nordstrom: “For me the Taliban is on the inside of the building.” Photo creditwww.zimbio.com
Gregory N. Hicks, who served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks.
Mark I. Thompson, the deputy coordinator for Operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau and a former Marine.
Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the regional security officer in Libya, the top security officer in the country in the months leading up to the attacks.
Nordstrom’s previous testimony before the committee in October created headlines when he detailed that repeated requests for additional security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi resulted in decreased security.
“For me the Taliban is on the inside of the [State Department] building,” Nordstrom angrily told the committee.
Neither of the other two whistleblowers have testified before.
Hicks, who had previously been placed at such diplomatic hot spots as Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria, was in Tripoli on Sept. 11 and was the first to receive word of the attack from the late Amb. Chris Stevens. Hicks, in turn, “immediately called into Washington to trigger all the mechanisms,” Fox reported Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, an oversight committee member as saying.
Of course, although Hicks pulled the trigger, those mechanisms were never implemented.
“The real-life trauma that [Hicks] went through,” Chaffetz told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, “I mean, I really felt it in his voice. It was hard to listen to. He’s gone through a lot, but he did a great job.”
Thompson “advises senior leadership on operational counterterrorism matters, and ensures that the United States can rapidly respond to global terrorism crises,” according to the State Department.
Read more at Fox News and watch the video below.
