Diplomatic security after terrorists kill US Ambassador in Benghazi, Libya

[JMA]

Bill, after the Camp Bastion attack two Marine generals get (effectively) fired.

After this debacle it all gets swept under the carpet.

I keep telling Africans who tell me they are confused by the actions of the US not to worry as they are not nearly as confused as the Americans themselves are.

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/b...4/benghazi.pdf

Published January 15, 2014

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Review of the Attacks on U.S. Facilities.

Hopefully this report will both raise some concerns with Department of State security practices and quell the endless conspiracy theories. Mistakes were clearly made, but some mistakes have been mis-contributed to intentional action versus the fog of war.

It clearly states there were numerous and substantiated reports of Al-Qaeda linked groups operating in Libya, and the increasing threat they posed to the U.S. facilities. The CIA acted on these threats and beefed up the security at their facilities, while the Ambassodor's request for increased security were not acted upon.

The military was preparing to sending troops, but by the time they were prepared to deploy the folks at Benghazi were long evacuated (that is reality that most people in the military get when you're deploying from a cold start).



The Annex was the CIA facility, their security personnel did respond as quickly as possible.

At least some the attackers were well trained, this clearly wasn't poorly trained militia member casually hip firing a mortar.


I'm quite familiar with chaos and confusion in the heat of the moment, but this wasn't that. The red flag was sent up prior to the event more than once and it was ignored. I have a hard time accepting that department leadership ignored their people in harm's way when they requested a modest increase in security. The report later went on to say there was considerable confusion on who had the authority within State to make the decision.

- Two FAST teams were ordered to deploy, one for Benghazi, but by the time they were ready, and then add the flight time it would have been too late (post evacuation)
- Special Operations units were ordered to deploy, but they couldn't get there until after the U.S. personnel in Benghazi were evacuated.

[Bill Moore]

JMA,

What frustrates me about this most isn't what our attack media focused on about the military not responding quick enough, but State ignoring the requests for help from the experts in the field.

If decision makers in D.C. only waited two instead of four hours to give the orders for the military to deploy they still wouldn't have gotten there before the Americans in Benghazi were evacuated. I think we would all love to the Star Track capability of energizing a force anywhere in the world within minutes, but until we do we have to live real world time-distance limitations.

This is exactly why State should have honored the Ambassador's request for more security. If it was honored, in all likelihood the temporary facility for the Ambassador was killed would have held just like the CIA annex held. The report claims there was confusion in the State Department about who had the authority to make the decision, yet they have making these types of decisions for decades, the process "was" pretty clear in the past. Someone dropped the ball, people died, and as you pointed out no one was held accountable.

[carl]

Bill:

A culture of impunity for higher ups is one the things that severely weaken various governments overseas. Yet here we have what looks an awful lot like a culture of impunity for the higher ups in the Dept. of State at least.