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A four-hour lull in the fighting beginning shortly after midnight seemed to suggest that the worst was over. An unarmed military drone that the C.I.A. took control of to map possible escape routes relayed reassuring images to Tripoli and Washington. But just before dawn, and soon after a C.I.A.-led team of reinforcements, including two military commandos, arrived from Tripoli, a brief but deadly mortar attack surprised the Americans. Two of the C.IA. security officers who were defending the base from a rooftop were killed.“The officers on the ground in Benghazi responded to the situation on the night of 11 and 12 September as quickly and as effectively as possible,” one of the senior intelligence officials told reporters.Thursday’s briefing for reporters was intended to refute reports, including one by Fox News last Friday, that the C.I.A.’s chain of command had blocked the officers on the ground from responding to the mission’s calls for help.“There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of continuing investigations by the State Department and the F.B.I.
Around 9:40 p.m. local time, the C.I.A. base received the first of several calls from the mission saying it was under attack. During the 25 minutes between the first call and when the officers rolled out the door, half a dozen security officers were readying their gear and weapons, while the base chief called several Libyan militias, seeking fighters with heavy weaponry to defend the mission. His appeals failed.Over the next 25 minutes, C.I.A. officers approached the walled diplomatic compound, tried to secure heavy weapons, and made their way onto the compound itself in the face of enemy fire.At 11:11 p.m., the Predator drone arrived over the mission compound. Within 20 minutes, all United States personnel, except for Mr. Stevens, whom the American security officers could not find in the chaos, left the mission, coming under fire as they did.The Americans retreated safely to the C.I.A. annex, where over the next 90 minutes they came under sporadic small-arms fire and rocket-propelled-grenade attacks. The State Department and C.I.A. officers returned fire and the assailants melted away.
