I JUST watched ABC television’s Nightline report on the first anniversary of the attack on the US Consulate in Jeddah (that was aired on Tuesday night in the US and rebroadcast here in Saudi on Orbit News on Wednesday morning) and saw riveting video footage from the consulate’s security cameras showing the four heavily-armed and camouflage-wearing terrorists driving up to the consulate’s Hail Street entrance right behind a white consulate vehicle, jumping out of their white Toyota car and running into the consulate with what looks like rifles.
The footage also shows one Saudi National Guard unit, which is supposed to be protecting the consulate, running across the street, AWAY from the consulate, towards the parking lot of the Soliman Fakeeh Hospital. What a sad indictment of the National Guard!To watch the video click here.
Nightline also reported that it took more than an hour and a half for another National Guard unit to arrive at the consulate, giving the terrorists all the time they needed to run around the consulate grounds shooting at employees, burning down the US Marine guard house, pulling the US flag down, and taking several non-American consulate employees hostage and using them as human shields.
The ABC News program also revealed that it obtained a secret State Department report on the Jeddah attack, which concluded that Consul General Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley had been lax in enforcing security measures. She refused to comment to Nightline when they tried to interview her last week in Cleveland, Ohio. That’s not surprising, given the fact that five consulate employees ended up dead because of the lax security.
Rasheed, the report said there was a PERCEPTION that security wasn't taken seriously enough. Perception is not fact, just a description of how people feel. Also, since the report appeared to also conclude that everyone including the CG had done their duty, the perception comment is clearly not accurate. The only people likely to be harmed by poor security were the people at the Consulate. Even if the CG was only protecting herself, it makes sense she would do everything possible to keep the Consulate secure.