[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 170 (Sunday, December 30, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8530-S8541]
REPORT ON THE TERRORIST ATTACK AT BENGHAZI
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I guess the good news is that I am
rising today not to speak about the fiscal cliff. What I am speaking
about is not good news because it deals with the tragic event that
occurred in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, when terrorists took the
lives of our Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other brave Americans
who were serving us there.
I rise today, along with the ranking member of the Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins, to submit for the
Record the report she and I have been working on with our staffs and
other members of the committee following those events in Libya. We call
this report ``Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At
Benghazi.'' ``Flashing red'' is a term that was used in a conversation
with us by an official of the State Department, and it could not have
been more correct. All the evidence was flashing red that we had put
American personnel in Benghazi in an increasingly dangerous situation,
with violent Islamic extremists gathering there, with events having
occurred, attacks on our mission there--two others prior that year. Yet
we did not give them the security they needed to protect them, and we
did not make the decision that I believe we should have made, since we
did not provide them with the security, that we should have closed our
mission there. As a result, people really suffered.
We recognize that the congressionally mandated Accountability Review
Board at the Department of State has issued a report on the events in
Benghazi. I think it was an excellent report. There are other
committees of Congress continuing with their own investigations. Each
of these will and should make a valuable contribution to our
understanding of what happened at Benghazi so that we can take steps to
make sure nothing like it ever happens again.
Under the rules of the Senate, the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs has a unique mandate to investigate the
effectiveness and efficiency of governmental agencies, especially when
matters that span multiple agencies are involved.
Our report is intended to inform the Senate and the American people
about events immediately before, during, and after the attack at
Benghazi. In order to contribute most to the public debate, we have
chosen to include only unclassified information in this report. We are
hopeful that the report can and will make an important contribution to
the ongoing discussions about how to better protect our diplomatic
personnel abroad.
Our report contains 10 findings and 11 recommendations that we
believe can help us better protect our diplomats and others who serve
our country, often in very dangerous places. I ask unanimous consent
that the full text of the report be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this is probably the last opportunity I
will have to do this, to thank the ranking member again for the
extraordinary partnership we have had for more than a decade now on the
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. It is really
meaningful to me that we have this last opportunity to do something
together, across party lines, that we believe and hope will be in our
national interest.
Exhibit 1
Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi
(By Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman and Susan M. Collins, Ranking Member)
United States Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental
Affairs
December 30, 2012
While our country spent September 11, 2012, remembering the
terrorist attacks that took place 11 years earlier, brave
Americans posted at U.S. government facilities in Benghazi,
Libya, were fighting for their lives against a terrorist
assault. When the fight ended, U.S. Ambassador to Libya John
C. (Chris) Stevens and three other Americans were dead and
U.S. facilities in Benghazi were left in ruin. We must
remember the sacrifice that these selfless public servants
made to support the struggle for freedom in Libya and to
improve our own national security. While we mourn their
deaths, it is also crucial that we learn from how they died.
By examining the circumstances of the attack in Benghazi on
September 11th, we hope to gain a better understanding of
what went wrong and what we must do now to ensure better
protection for American diplomatic personnel who must
sometimes operate in dangerous places abroad.
We are cognizant that the Congressionally-mandated
Accountability Review Board (ARB) of the Department of State
has now issued its important and constructive report and that
other Congressional committees are investigating the Benghazi
attack as well. Each makes significant contributions to our
collective understanding of what transpired and what we must
do going forward.
The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
(HSGAC), pursuant to its authority under Rule XXV(k) of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, Section 101 of S. Res 445
(108th Congress) and Section 12(e) of S. Res 81 (112th
Congress), has a unique mandate to investigate the
effectiveness and efficiency of governmental agencies,
especially when matters that span multiple government
agencies are involved. Over the years, HSGAC has spent much
time and dedicated considerable resources to understanding
the challenges inherent in national security interagency
relationships, and it is through this lens that we have
examined and drawn lessons from the attack in Benghazi.
Since the 112th Congress is drawing to a close, this
investigation has necessarily been conducted with a sense of
urgency and with focused objectives. Our findings and
recommendations are based on investigative work that the
Committee has conducted since shortly after the attack of
September 11, 2012, including meetings of members and staff
with senior and mid-level government officials; reviews of
thousands of pages of documents provided by the Department of
State, Department of Defense, and the Intelligence Community
(IC); written responses to questions posed by the Committee
to these agencies; and reading of publicly-available
documents.
In the report that follows we provide a brief factual
overview of the attacks in Benghazi and then discuss our
findings and recommendations.
Brief Overview of the Benghazi Attacks
The attacks in Benghazi occurred at two different
locations: a Department of State ``Temporary Mission
Facility'' and an Annex facility (``Annex'') approximately a
mile away used by another agency of the United States
Government. On September 11th, Ambassador Stevens was in
Benghazi, accompanied by two Diplomatic Security (DS) agents
who had traveled there with him. Also present were three
other DS agents and a Foreign Service Officer, Sean Smith,
who were posted at the Temporary Mission Facility
(``facility'' or ``compound''). There were also three members
of the February 17 Brigade, a Libyan militia deputized by the
Libyan government but not under its direct control, and four
unarmed local contract guards protecting the compound.
During the day on September 11th, the Ambassador held
several meetings on the compound and retired to his room at
approximately 9:00 p.m. local time. About 40 minutes later,
several agents and guards
[[Page S8531]]
heard loud shouting, noises coming from the gate, as well as
gunfire, and an explosion. A closed-circuit television
monitor at the facility's Tactical Operations Center
(``TOC'') showed a large number of armed people flowing
unimpeded through the main gate. One of the DS agents in the
compound's TOC triggered an audible alarm, and immediately
alerted the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli and DS headquarters in
Washington. These notifications were quickly transmitted from
the Department of State to the Department of Defense. DS
headquarters maintained open phone lines with the DS
personnel throughout the attack. That same DS agent also
called the Annex to request assistance from security
personnel there, who immediately began to prepare to aid the
U.S. personnel at the diplomatic facility.
When the attack commenced, four DS agents and Foreign
Service Officer Smith were in or just outside the same
building where the Ambassador was spending that night. A
fifth DS agent was in the TOC when the terrorist attack
began. Ambassador Stevens, Smith, and one DS agent sought
shelter in the building's safe haven, a fortified area
designed to keep intruders out, while the other three agents
went to retrieve additional weapons and tactical gear such as
body armor, helmets, and ammunition. After retrieving their
gear, at least two of the DS agents sought to return to the
building where the Ambassador was. On the way back, however,
the DS agents encountered attackers. The lone DS agent with
the Ambassador reported via radio that he was secure within
the safe haven, allowing the two agents who had left in
search of weapons to seek refuge in the same building where
they had armed themselves. The third DS agent who had gone to
the TOC to retrieve his gear, stayed there with the DS agent
who had been manning the TOC since the beginning of the
attack.
The attackers started to set several of the compound's
structures on fire, using diesel fuel found on site, and
groups of attackers tried to enter several buildings on the
compound. The attackers did not succeed in entering the TOC,
but did succeed in entering the building where Ambassador
Stevens was staying and the building where the two DS agents
were seeking refuge. No safe havens were breached during the
initial assault. The attackers spread the diesel fuel
throughout the building where the Ambassador was hiding, and
ignited it, causing the building to fill with smoke.
When the smoke became so thick that breathing was
difficult, the DS agent attempted to lead the Ambassador and
Smith to escape through a nearby window. The agent opened the
window to make sure it was safe to leave, and stepped out but
then realized he had become separated from the Ambassador and
Smith. The agent radioed the TOC, requesting assistance and
returned numerous times to the building to look for the
Ambassador and Smith. When the other agents arrived, they
also took turns entering and searching the building. Though
they were able to find and remove Smith's body, they were
unable to find Ambassador Stevens.
After being notified about the attack, Annex personnel had
attempted to contact the February 17 Brigade, other militias,
and the Libyan government to ask for assistance. After
gathering necessary weapons and gear, at approximately 10:04
p.m., six security personnel and a translator left the
Annex en route to the facility. Prior to reaching the
facility, they again attempted to contact and enlist
assistance from the February 17 Brigade, other militias,
and the Libyan government. By 10:25 p.m., the security
personnel from the Annex had entered the compound and
engaged in a 15-minute firefight with the armed invaders.
The team reached the Ambassador's building at 10:40 p.m.
but was unable to find him due to the intense fire and
smoke.
At 11:15 p.m., the Annex security personnel sent the DS
agents (who were all suffering from smoke inhalation from
their continuous search for Ambassador Stevens and Smith) to
the Annex, and followed there later, both groups taking fire
while en route. By this time, an unmanned, unarmed
surveillance aircraft began circling over the Benghazi
compound, having been diverted by the Department of Defense
from its previous surveillance assignment over another
location. Soon after the Americans returned to the Annex,
just before midnight, they were attacked by rocket-propelled
grenade (RPG) and small arms fire. The sporadic attacks
stopped at approximately 1:01 a.m.
U.S. government security personnel who were based in
Tripoli had deployed to Benghazi by chartered aircraft after
receiving word of the attack, arriving at the Benghazi
airport at 1:15 a.m. They were held at the airport for at
least three hours while they negotiated with Libyan
authorities about logistics. The exact cause of this hours-
long delay, and its relationship to the rescue effort,
remains unclear and merits further inquiry. Was it simply the
result of a difficult Libyan bureaucracy and a chaotic
environment or was it part of a plot to keep American help
from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi?
The team from Tripoli finally cleared the airport and
arrived at the Annex at approximately 5:04 a.m., about ten
minutes before a new assault by the terrorist began,
involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex. The attack
concluded at approximately 5:26 a.m., leaving Annex security
team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty dead and two
others wounded. The decision was then made to leave the
Annex. Libyan forces, not militia, arrived around 6:00 a.m.
with 50 vehicles and escorted the Americans to the airport.
Two planes carrying all remaining U.S. personnel then left
Benghazi. The first flight departed between 7:00 a.m. and
7:40 a.m. (agency timelines vary on this point) and the
second at 10:00 a.m.
American government officials outside of Benghazi learned
of the attack shortly after it started at 3:40 p.m. EST (9:40
p.m. Benghazi time). DS agents, in addition to notifying
personnel at the Annex, immediately alerted officials at the
U.S Embassy in Tripoli and the Department of State
Headquarters in Washington, D.C. As noted earlier, the U.S.
Africa Command (AFRICOM) at the Department of Defense (DOD)
directed an unarmed surveillance aircraft to the skies over
the Benghazi compound at 3:59 p.m. EST. It arrived there at
5:10 p.m. EST (11:10 p.m. Benghazi time). At 4:32 p.m., the
National Military Command Center in the Pentagon alerted the
Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, and
the information was shared with Secretary of Defense Leon
Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Martin Dempsey. Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey were at
the White House for a previously scheduled meeting at 5:00
p.m. and so were able to brief the President on the
developments in Benghazi as they were occurring.
From 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. EST, Secretary Panetta met with
senior DOD officials to discuss the Benghazi attack and other
violence in the region in reaction to the anti-Muslim video.
The Secretary directed three actions: 1) that one Fleet
Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) platoon stationed in Rota,
Spain, deploy to Benghazi and that a second FAST platoon in
Rota prepare to deploy to Tripoli; 2) that U.S. European
Command's In-extremis Force, which happened to be training in
central Europe, deploy to a staging base in southern Europe;
and 3) that a special operations force based in the United
States deploy to a staging base in southern Europe. The
National Command Center transmitted formal authorization for
these actions at 8:39 p.m. A FAST platoon arrived in Tripoli
the evening (local time) of September 12th, and the other
forces arrived that evening at a staging base in Italy, long
after the terrorist attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi
had ended and four Americans had been killed.
Key Findings and Recommendations
Finding 1. In the months leading up to the attack on the
Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi, there was a large
amount of evidence gathered by the U.S. Intelligence
Community (IC) and from open sources that Benghazi was
increasingly dangerous and unstable, and that a significant
attack against American personnel there was becoming much
more likely. While this intelligence was effectively shared
within the Intelligence Community (IC) and with key officials
at the Department of State, it did not lead to a commensurate
increase in security at Benghazi nor to a decision to close
the American mission there, either of which would have been
more than justified by the intelligence presented.
Security decisions concerning U.S. facilities and personnel
overseas are informed by several different types of
information, including classified threat reporting from the
IC; cables and spot reports from U.S. diplomatic posts, which
describe local incidents and threats; and publicly available
information. Prior to the attack, the IC and the Department
of State were aware of the overall threat landscape in Libya
and the challenges facing the new Libyan government in
addressing those threats. This understanding evolved over
time, consistent with broader changes in the nature of the
threat, and also based on reported incidents and attacks in
Benghazi and other parts of Libya in 2012.
The Committee has reviewed dozens of classified
intelligence reports on the evolution of threats in Libya
which were issued between February 2011 and September 11,
2012. We are precluded in this report from discussing the
information in detail, but overall, these intelligence
reports (as the ARB similarly noted) provide a clear and
vivid picture of a rapidly deteriorating threat environment
in eastern Libya--one that we believe should have been
sufficient to inform policy-makers of the growing danger to
U.S. facilities and personnel in that part of the country and
the urgency of them doing something about it. This
information was effectively shared by the IC with key
officials at the Department of State. For example, both the
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International
Programs in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Charlene Lamb,
who was responsible for the security at more than 275
diplomatic facilities, and former Regional Security Officer
(RSO) for Libya Eric Nordstrom, who was the principal
security adviser to the U.S. Ambassador in Libya from
September 21, 2011 to July 26, 2012, told the Committee that
they had full access to all threat information from the IC
about eastern Libya during the months before the attack of
September 11, 2012. Yet the Department failed to take
adequate action to protect its personnel there.
This classified intelligence reporting was complemented by
open-source reporting on attacks and other incidents
targeting western interests in Libya during the months prior
to the September 11, 2012 attack. The RSO in Libya compiled a
list of 234 security incidents in Libya between June 2011 and
[[Page S8532]]
July 2012, 50 of which took place in Benghazi. The document
describes an array of incidents, including large-scale
militia clashes, protests involving several hundred people,
and the temporary detention of non-governmental organization
(NGO) workers and of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Benghazi.
Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy noted in
a briefing for the Committee, that Libya and Benghazi were
``flashing red'' around the time of the attack.
The incident reporting shows that western facilities and
personnel became an increasing focus of threats in the spring
of 2012. For example, on April 2, 2012 in Benghazi, a British
diplomatic vehicle was attacked by a mob of demonstrators.
Four days later, on April 6th, a crude improvised explosive
device (IED) was thrown over the wall of the U.S. facility in
Benghazi, causing minimal damage. A spot report on the day of
the event stated that shortly after the event two individuals
were questioned. The suspects included one current and one
former guard employed by Blue Mountain Group, the company
which supplied the unarmed Libyan contract guards responsible
for screening visitors to the U.S. compound--underscoring the
potential risk of an insider threat in Benghazi. Four days
after that, on April 10th, also in Benghazi, a crude IED was
thrown at the convoy of the United Nations Special Envoy to
Libya.
Other publicly reported incidents occurred during this time
frame, but there are four that we believe are particularly
noteworthy. Taken as a whole, they demonstrated the
capability and intent of Benghazi-based Islamist extremist
groups to conduct a significant attack against U.S. or other
western interests in Libya:
On May 22, 2012, the International Committee for the Red
Cross/Red Crescent (ICRC) building in Benghazi was hit by two
RPG rounds, causing damage to the building but no casualties.
Several days later, the Brigades of the Imprisoned Sheikh
Omar Abdel Rahman claimed responsibility for this attack,
accusing the ICRC of proselytizing in Libya.
On June 6, 2012, the U.S. Temporary Mission Facility in
Benghazi was targeted by an IED attack that blew a hole in
the perimeter wall. Credit for this attack was also claimed
by the Brigades of the Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman,
which said it carried out the attack in response to the
reported drone strike on al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi in
Northern Waziristan.
On June 11, 2012, an attack was carried out in Benghazi on
the convoy of the British Ambassador to Libya. Attackers
fired an RPG on the convoy, followed by small arms fire. Two
British bodyguards were injured in the attack. This attack
was characterized afterwards in an incident report by the
Department of State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security as a
``complex, coordinated attack.''
On June 18, 2012, the Tunisian consulate in Benghazi was
stormed by individuals affiliated with Ansar al-Sharia Libya
(AAS), allegedly because of ``attacks by Tunisian artists
against Islam.''
Overall, the threat to western interests in eastern Libya
and in Benghazi specifically was high even prior to the
attack of September 11, 2012. Reviewing these incidents, an
unclassified open source report by a contractor to AFRICOM
noted in July 2012 that:
``Nonetheless, Benghazi has seen a notable increase in
violence in recent months, particularly against international
targets. These events point to strong anti-Western sentiments
among certain segments of the population, the willingness of
Salafi-jihadi groups in the city to openly engage in violence
against foreign targets, and their capacity to carry out
these attacks.''
Taking classified reporting on the increasing dangers in
eastern Libya together with the open source incidents should
have provided a clear picture of the dangers for American
personnel in Benghazi unless their security were greatly
improved.
Finding 2. Notwithstanding the increasingly dangerous
environment in eastern Libya in 2011 and 2012, the U.S.
government did not have specific intelligence of an imminent
attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. The lack of such
actionable intelligence may reflect a failure in the IC to
focus sufficiently on terrorist groups that have weak or no
operational ties to core al Qaeda and its main affiliates.
While the IC had developed and adequately shared general
threat information on terrorist groups and Islamist extremist
militias in eastern Libya prior to the attack, it did not
have specific warning that this attack was to take place on
September 11, 2012. Intelligence capabilities that provide
early, specific warnings have played a critical role in
preventing terrorist attacks against U.S. facilities overseas
and in the homeland in the last decade. There were no such
warnings available for Benghazi before the attack of
September 11, 2012. Why?
First, there may not have been significant or elaborate
advance planning for the attack. In a hearing before our
Committee on September 19, 2012, National Counterterrorism
Center (NCTC) Director Matthew Olsen described the attack as
``opportunistic'' and stated that the IC had no indication of
``significant advanced planning or coordination for this
attack.''
However, the activities of local terrorist and Islamist
extremist groups in Libya may have received insufficient
attention from the IC prior to the attack, partially because
some of the groups possessed ambiguous operational ties to
core al Qaeda and its primary affiliates. For example, public
statements by Libyan officials and many news reports have
indicated that Ansar al-Sharia Libya (AAS) was one of the key
groups involved in carrying out this attack on the U.S.
facility in Benghazi. The group took credit on its own
Facebook page for the attack before later deleting the post.
U.S. officials viewed AAS prior to the attack as a ``local
extremist group with an eye on gaining political ground in
Libya.'' AAS has not been designated as a foreign terrorist
organization by the U.S. government, and apparently the IC
was ``not focused'' on this group to the same extent as core
al Qaeda and its operational affiliates.
This finding has broader implications for U.S.
counterterrorism activities in the Middle East and North
Africa. With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened,
a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations
and cells have emerged in the last two to three years. These
groups are not all operationally linked to core al Qaeda or
in some cases have only weak ties to al Qaeda. This trend is
particularly notable in countries such as Libya, Egypt,
Tunisia, and Syria that are going through political
transition or military conflict as a result of the political
upheavals referred to as the ``Arab Spring.''
While such groups do not always have strong operational
ties to al Qaeda, they adhere to a similar violent Islamist
extremist ideology. As an unclassified August 2012 report by
the Library of Congress noted, AAS in Libya shares common
symbols (the black flag) and ideology with al Qaeda. This
Committee has spent several years focusing on the role that
this ideology plays in motivating homegrown violent Islamist
extremists, most of whom have no direct ties to al Qaeda. A
similar phenomenon, though potentially much more dangerous,
is at work with respect to many of these nascent terrorist
groups, and is leading many of them to shift their focus from
local grievances to foreign attacks against U.S. and other
western facilities overseas.
Recommendation: U.S. intelligence agencies must broaden and
deepen their focus in Libya, and beyond, on nascent violent
Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong
operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate
groups. One benefit of doing so would be improved tactical
warning capabilities, the kind of which were not present at
Benghazi, but might have been even for an ``opportunistic''
attack.
Finding 3. The absence of specific intelligence about an
imminent attack should not have prevented the Department of
State from taking more effective steps to protect its
personnel and facilities in Benghazi.
This finding reflects earlier conclusions of the 1985
Advisory Panel on Overseas Security (``Inman Report'') and
the 1999 Accountability Review Board report on the attacks on
the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which both warned
the Department of State against becoming too reliant on
tactical intelligence to determine the level of potential
terrorist threats. The Inman report points out that ``it
would be foolhardy to make security decisions on the basis of
an expectation of advance warning of peril.''
Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb stated that the
level and kind of attack at Benghazi was something they had
never seen before anywhere in the world. However, given clear
warnings that threats were increasing in the Benghazi area,
the Department of State should not have waited for a specific
incident to happen or expected the delivery of tactical
intelligence of a specific, imminent threat before taking
additional steps to protect its diplomats or, if that was not
possible, to close the Benghazi facility.
Recommendation: In providing security for its personnel
around the world, the Department of State must fully consider
the types of attacks that could take place given the
strategic threat environment, even in the absence of imminent
warning intelligence.
Finding 4. Prior to the terrorist attacks in Libya on
September 11, 2012, it was widely understood that the Libyan
government was incapable of performing its duty to protect
U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel, as required by
longstanding international agreements, but the Department of
State failed to take adequate steps to fill the resulting
security gap, or to invest in upgrading the Libyan security
forces.
A host country's responsibility to protect and safeguard a
foreign nation's diplomatic personnel and facilities in its
country has been codified in several international treaties,
including the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,
which states that ``[t]he receiving State is under a special
duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the consular
premises against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any
disturbance of the peace of the consular post or impairment
of its dignity.'' The Treaty also states that ``[t]he
receiving State shall treat consular officers with due
respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any
attack on their person, freedom or dignity.''
A host country's protection of an American embassy or other
diplomatic facilities is one of the most important elements
of security at that facility, but it is not the only one. A
facility's own security, such as its U.S. Marine Corps
Security Guards, DS agents, and in some cases, private
security guards under contract, is also critical to its
overall security posture. States whose governments do not
exercise full control over their sovereign territory, or that
have a limited security capability, cannot be counted
[[Page S8533]]
on to safeguard U.S. diplomatic personnel and facilities.
This is usually true, of course, in the aftermath of a
revolution or civil war--as was the case in Libya--where the
provision of protective services by the host nations is
unpredictable at best. In those instances, the Department of
State must improve one or more of the other three protectors
of mission security within its control: Marine Corps Security
Guards, Dipolmatic Security agents, or private security
contractors.
In February 2011, the revolution began to end Colonel
Muammar al-Qadhafi's autocratic rule of Libya. Between
February and October of 2011, Libya was consumed with intense
fighting between anti-government groups and Qadhafi's regime.
On October 20, 2011, opposition forces conquered the last
Qadhafi stronghold in Sirte and killed Qadhafi. Qadhafi's
death ended the revolt but left open the question of who
would govern Libya and how.
Just days after Qadhafi's death, Libyans turned to the
interim Transitional National Council (TNC), established in
the spring of 2011, to improve security and begin the process
of reconstituting national institutions. However, the TNC
faced numerous challenges and ``struggled to calm the
incendiary regional and factional disputes or exert control
even over its own militias.'' Since no cohesive opposition
group emerged from the civil war, the TNC had to contend with
various armed factions that ``remained a law unto
themselves.''
On July 7, 2012, Libyan voters participated in the first
national election since 1965 and elected 200 members to the
General National Congress. The election of the General
National Congress represented a significant political
achievement, but the formation of a new government was still
under negotiation when the attacks in Benghazi occurred three
months later in September. Civil order had not yet been
restored. According to one expert review, ``[a]ttacks on
international targets, a series of aggressive attacks by
armed Salafists on religious buildings around the country,
and an assassination campaign against senior security
officers have fueled widespread criticism of interim leaders
since early 2012.''
Given the unstable political and security situation,
particularly in eastern Libya, the Libyan government was
unable to provide security protection to foreign diplomatic
facilities in a manner consistent with international law.
That is why the Department of State relied in part on a local
militia, the February 17 Brigade, to provide protection for
the Benghazi facility, as well as unarmed Libyan guards under
contract with a private security firm. Throughout 2012,
Department of State officials questioned the February 17
Brigade's competence and expressed concerns about its
abilities. U.S. Department of State personnel were also
concerned about the involvement of members of the February 17
Brigade in the extrajudicial detention of U.S. diplomatic
personnel in at least one incident in Benghazi. Eric
Nordstrom, told the Committee that while the February 17
Brigade did provide some protection and would likely respond
to an attack, they clearly needed additional training. Only
limited training ever occurred.
Some U.S. personnel also questioned the Brigade's loyalty
to the Libyan government and their capacity or desire to
safeguard American interests. In June 2012, an RSO in
Benghazi wrote, ``Unfortunately, given the current threat to
the diplomatic mission, the militia members not currently on
the [four-man team stationed at the facility] have expressed
concern with showing active open support for the Americans in
Benghazi.'' Notably, the contract between the State
Department and the February 17 Brigade had expired by the
time of the attack. In a handoff email to his replacement on
August 29, 2012, the principal U.S. diplomatic officer in
Benghazi wrote that the contract with the militia ``lapsed
several weeks ago'' but that they were still operating under
its terms. He said that ``[t]his is a delicate issue, as we
are relying on a militia in lieu of the central authorities
and [Feb 17 Brigade] has been implicated in several of the
recent detentions. We also have the usual concerns re their
ultimate loyalties. But they are competent, and give us an
added measure of security. For the time being, I don't think
we have a viable alternative.'' In early September, a member
of the February 17 Brigade told another RSO in Benghazi that
it could no longer support U.S. personnel movements. The RSO
also asked specifically if the militia could provide
additional support for the Ambassador's pending visit and was
told no.
The ability of the Libyan government to provide surge
forces to rescue or evacuate personnel from the Benghazi
facility was also extremely limited. The Department of State
recognized this limitation. As early as February 1, 2012, RSO
Nordstrom stated in a memo to his superiors that the
political situation in post-revolution Libya ``was fragile''
and that ``[m]any basic state institutions, including
emergency services and tourist facilities are not yet fully
operational.''
Nordstrom noted that ``various factions and militias
continue to vie for power in the absence of a stable
political and security environment, often resulting in
violence.''
This view of the Libyan government's inadequate security
capabilities persisted through the attack on September 11,
2012. Communications from U.S. personnel in Libya continued
to repeat the same conclusions stated by Nordstrom earlier in
February. For instance, an early August cable from the
Tripoli Embassy to the Department of State in Washington,
states that even though the TNC had established a Supreme
Security Council (SSC) to stabilize the security situation in
Benghazi, its own commander had said that the SSC had ``not
coalesced into an effective, stable security force.''
Further, the cable warned that the ``absence of a significant
deterrence, has contributed to a security vacuum that is
being exploited by independent actors.'' Similarly, an August
20, 2012 security update reported that other diplomats
believed the SSC was `` `fading away,' unwilling to take on
`anyone with powerful patrons from powerful tribes.' '' That
same month, DS personnel reviewing tripwires for an ordered
departure of the post--that is, political, security, and
intelligence benchmarks which would prompt diplomatic
officials to close a facility or modify its operations--
stated that ``[m]ission opinion is that Libyan security
forces are indifferent to the safety needs of the U.S.
mission.'' On September 11, 2012, the day of the attack, the
``Weekly Report'' prepared by Department of State officers on
the security situation in Benghazi described the frustrations
of an SSC commander that the police and security forces were
``too weak to keep the country secure.''
Prior to Ambassador Stevens' visit to Benghazi in September
2012, the U.S. mission in Benghazi had made a request to the
Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs for additional security in
Benghazi to support the visit. At a minimum, these requests
included appeals for a 24/7 police presence consisting of a
vehicle and personnel at each of the compound's three gates.
The only Libyan government response appears to have been an
SSC police vehicle parked in front of the front gate (which,
as the ARB noted, sped away as the attack began).
Though a few members of the February 17 Brigade and the
Libya Shield militia assisted the Americans on the night of
the attack, the security that these militias and the local
police provided to U.S. personnel was woefully inadequate to
the dangerous security environment in Benghazi.
The unarmed local contract guards also provided no
meaningful resistance to the attackers. The Department of
State's Inspector General had previously found that concerns
about local security guards were not limited to Libya. A
February 2012 Department of State Inspector General (IG)
report found that more than two-thirds of 86 diplomatic posts
around the world surveyed reported problems with their local
guard contractors. Of those posts that reported problems with
their contractors, 37 percent said there was an insufficient
number of local guards and 40 percent said there was
insufficient training. The IG found that overseas diplomatic
posts, particularly those in high-threat situations beyond
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan urgently needed best-value
contracting, which takes into account the past performance of
contractors.
Recommendation: When it becomes clear that a host nation
cannot adequately perform its functions under the Vienna
Convention, the Department of State must provide additional
security measures of its own, urgently attempt to upgrade the
host nation security forces, or decide to close a U.S.
Diplomatic facility and remove U.S. personnel until
appropriate steps can be taken to provide adequate security.
American personnel who serve us abroad must often work in
high risk environments, but when they do, we must provide
them with adequate security. That clearly was not the case in
Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
Recommendation: The Department must conduct a review of its
local guard programs and particularly the use of local guard
contractors at high-risk posts who do not meet appropriate
standards necessary for the protection of our personnel or
facilities.
Finding 5. The Benghazi facility's temporary status had a
detrimental effect on security decisions, and that fact was
clearly known by DS personnel in Benghazi and to their
superiors who nevertheless left the American personnel in
Benghazi in this very dangerous situation. The Department of
State did not take adequate measures to mitigate the
facility's significant vulnerabilities in this high-threat
environment.
The Department of State opened the temporary mission in
Benghazi in 2011 after the revolution against the Qadhafi
government began because eastern Libya was the headquartes of
the opposition to Qadhafi, and the embassy in Tripoli had
been closed due to security concerns. The temporary mission
was first located in a hotel and then moved, based on
security concerns, to the compound referred to as the
Temporary Mission Facility. After the U.S. Embassy was
reopened in Tripoli when Qadhafi was overthrown, the
Department of State initially planned to close the Benghazi
facility in late 2011. However, in December 2011, the
Department decided to extend its presence in Benghazi until
December 2012. In the memo approving this decision, the
Department stated that the facility would be a ``smaller
operation'' but noted its importance to eastern Libyans and
the assistance it could provide to the embassy in Tripoli.
The temporary status of the Benghazi facility contributed
to its vulnerability. For example, DS agents stationed in
Benghazi were always on temporary duty assignments, remaining
there for relatively short periods, often no longer than a
month. As Nordstrom noted, having temporary duty agents made
``developing security procedures, policies,
[[Page S8534]]
and relationships more difficult.'' The temporary status also
made it difficult to procure funds for security upgrades. A
briefing paper prepared for a meeting of Assistant Secretary
of State for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell and then-
Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz noted, ``Due to the ambiguity
surrounding the duration of the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, RSO
Benghazi has encountered funding issues for projects that are
commonplace at most U.S. missions.'' The Committee received
conflicting evidence with regard to whether the temporary
Benghazi facility was on the Security Environment Threat
List--a semiannual document that aids DS management in the
allocation of overseas security resources and programs. In
any event, it is hard to imagine there were more than a few
Department of State missions anywhere in the world that were
in a more dangerous environment than Benghazi.
In the December 2011 memo approving the Temporary Mission
Facility in Benghazi, the Department of State noted the need
for corrective security measures for the facility. According
to RSO Nordstrom, the Department of State never consulted
with him about the security requirements of the facility
before the December 2011 action memo was sent to Under
Secretary Kennedy for approval. The memo approved by Kennedy
indicated that the Department of State would ``rapidly
implement a series of corrective security measures as part of
the consolidation of the State footprint.'' However, the memo
lacked details as to the security standards to be followed
and the resources required to implement the security
measures. The absence of dedicated resources contributed to
the constraints under which those in Washington and Benghazi
would operate throughout 2012.
During 2012, however, the Department did make a variety of
field expedient security enhancements, including:
The installation of concrete jersey barriers;
The installation of four vehicle barriers for access
control and anti-ram protection;
Increased compound lighting;
The installation of barbed wire on top of the existing
perimeter wall to raise height and on top of the interior
chain link fence to create secondary barrier;
The installation of platforms for property and street
surveillance;
The construction of four guard booths;
The installation of steel grillwork on windows;
The installation of emergency releases on select windows
grills for fire/emergency exit;
The replacement of several wooden doors with steel doors
with appropriate locking hardware;
Sandbag emplacements for internal defense purposes; and
Hardening villas with safe rooms with a steel door.
But these physical security upgrades were insufficient to
deter or repel the dozens of armed attackers that swarmed the
compound, unimpeded, on September 11, 2012. As discussed in
more detail below, the facility lacked the type of pedestrian
barriers that could have slowed the attackers, even though
the Department of State Inspector General and an earlier
Accountability Review Board had each recommended the
installation of such barriers at diplomatic posts in high-
risk places like Benghazi.
Because the Benghazi facility was temporary, no security
standards applied to it. While existing security standards
require meaningful physical barriers to slow pedestrian
access for permanent U.S. diplomatic facilities, there were
few meaningful physical barriers at the Benghazi facility
that would slow pedestrian access other than the closed gate.
Once the gate was opened, there were no other physical
impediments at that access point to keep anyone out of the
facility's grounds or slow their assault.
Having additional physical barriers to reinforce the gate
might have delayed the breach of the compound, giving those
inside more time to prepare for the attack. For example, some
permanent diplomatic facilities have a compound access
control (CAC) point, a ``mantrap,'' or both. Both of these
types of barriers act as gates or enclosures that are used to
limit the movement of pedestrians entering a diplomatic
facility. While a CAC is primarily installed in conjunction
with a pedestrian entrance, a mantrap is typically installed
in conjunction with a vehicle gate or barrier. According to
Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb, a CAC was not in
place at Benghazi due to time and money constraints. She
estimated a CAC there would have cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars. No mantrap was in place either, though the reason
for that is less clear. Unfortunately, we will never know if
the additional investment in either a CAC or mantrap would
have provided the time needed to save the lives of Ambassador
Chris Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith because
of the fires set by the terrorists.
The absence of mantraps has been identified as a security
vulnerability at least twice in the last ten years by the
Department of State. According to a 2009 Department of State
Inspector General Report, the 2004 Accountability Review
Board regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia recommended the installation of pedestrian
barriers at U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas. During that
attack, terrorists exited their vehicle and quickly breached
the perimeter after being stopped by the entrance's anti-
vehicle barrier. The attackers killed six and wounded several
others.
Five years later, the Department of State Inspector General
found that the absence of approved security standards or
recent directives from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security
regarding the installation of mantraps resulted in a fewer
number of mantraps at overseas posts than required worldwide.
At the time, 25 percent of critical threat posts that
responded to the IG's survey did not have or request a
mantrap and 39 percent of posts rated as a high threat post
that responded to the survey also had no mantraps, plans for
a mantrap, or were unable to accommodate mantraps. The
numbers were worse for low and medium threat posts. According
to the Department of State IG report, the average cost of
installing mantraps at a U.S. diplomatic post (including
related infrastructure) is approximately $55,000.
In determining the amount of additional security to provide
to the Benghazi facility, the Department of State did not
conduct a joint analysis or confer with other agencies, such
as DOD or members of the IC. For U.S. diplomatic facilities
at greatest risk, such as Benghazi, more interagency analysis
of security needs must be done to identify gaps in security
and take the steps to address them. Since the attack in
Benghazi, the Department of State and the Department of
Defense have jointly begun this important work, focusing
initially on the highest threat facilities around the globe,
but that should have happened before the attack.
Resourcing for security is a joint responsibility of the
Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch. The Department
of State's decisions regarding security at the Benghazi
facility were made in the context of its budget and security
requirements for diplomatic facilities around the world.
Overall, the Department of State's base requests for security
funding have increased by 38 percent since Fiscal Year (FY)
2007, and base budget appropriations have increased by 27
percent in the same time period. Other security funding
provided beyond that in supplemental appropriations bills has
been nearly entirely for diplomatic facilities in just three
countries--Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Less has gone
elsewhere and very little is available to the temporary
facilities such as the one in Benghazi.
Importantly, funding requests for baseline diplomatic
security programs have not been fully funded in any year
since FY 2010. These accounts fund local guards, security
technology, DS agents, and maintenance, construction and
security upgrades for facilities. The Administration
requested almost $2.4 billion for the Worldwide Security
Protection (WSP) and Embassy Security, Construction and
Maintenance (ESCM) accounts in fiscal year 2011 (the
Department of State's two largest diplomatic security
accounts), but the House of Representatives recommended a
funding level that was $127.5 million less than the
President's Budget request. The Senate restored $38 million
of the funding in the final enacted appropriations bill for
that year. In fiscal year 2012, the gap was larger: Congress
enacted appropriations for diplomatic security that were $275
million less than was requested.
At the same time, Congress has generally been responsive in
providing supplemental and Overseas Contingency Operations
(OCO) funds to the Department of State--more than $1.7
billion since 2007--in response to emergent, security-driven
funding requests, although primarily for facilities in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, there was no supplemental
or OCO request made by the President for additional
diplomatic security enhancements in FY2010 or FY2011. Neither
the Department of State nor Congress made a point of
providing additional funds in a supplemental request for
Libya, or more specifically, Benghazi.
Congress' inability to appropriate funds in a timely manner
has also had consequences for the implementation of security
upgrades. RSO Nordstrom stated that Continuing Resolutions
had two detrimental effects on efforts to improve security in
Benghazi. First, the Department of State would only allow
funds to be expended at a rate of 80 percent of the previous
year's appropriations level, so as not to risk a violation of
the Anti-Deficiency Act. Second, in the absence of a
supplemental appropriations or reprogramming request,
security funds for Benghazi had to be taken ``out of hide''
from funding levels for Libya because Benghazi was not
included in previous budget requests.
Recommendation: The Department of State should establish a
mandatory process to determine what security standards are
applicable to temporary facilities to ensure that they are
adequately protected.
Recommendation: In the future, more interagency joint
assessments or analyses of security needs must be done for
U.S. diplomatic facilities at greatest risk. A joint
assessment could not only improve our government's ability to
identify security gaps, it would make all agencies more aware
of assets available to meet security challenges and those
available to respond to a crisis.
Recommendation: The Administration and Congress must work
together to provide sufficient, steady, and timely funding
resources to secure diplomatic facilities and personnel
worldwide.
Finding 6. The Department of State did not adequately
support security requests from its own security personnel in
Benghazi.
Throughout 2012, the number of DS agents temporarily
deployed to Benghazi fluctuated, decreasing to as low as one
agent for a six week period in March and April 2012 due to
visa problems. At the time of the attack, there were three DS
agents who were stationed in Benghazi and two more who
accompanied the Ambassador there from Tripoli.
[[Page S8535]]
RSO Nordstrom said that security personnel in Tripoli were
sometimes used to augment Benghazi security when necessary.
As conditions changed in late spring and early summer,
officers in Tripoli and in Washington had good situational
awareness of the growing threats in Libya and especially in
Benghazi. However, the Department of State did not provide
enough security to address the increased threats and did not
adequately support field requests for additional security.
For example, in March 2012 the Tripoli Embassy had requested
five full-time security positions for Benghazi. However, a
day after sending this request, Nordstrom was told that
Washington had capped the number of agents in Benghazi at
three, even though the request for five agents was consistent
with the December 2011 action memo approved by Under
Secretary Kennedy to extend the duration of the Benghazi
facility. In addressing the March request for five DS agents,
Deputy Assistant Secretary Lamb questioned RSO Nordstrom
about the fact that two of those five requested positions
would be used for non-personnel security related duties--one
for driving and one to secure a computer. Deputy Assistant
Secretary Lamb asked that local employees be hired for these
positions since they were arguably not related to security.
Later, two local nationals were hired to fulfill these
duties. In July Embassy officials in Tripoli requested a
minimum of three DS agents for Benghazi.
Nordstrom also testified that he would have preferred to
extend a DOD support team, which DOD provided to the
Department of State on a non-reimbursable basis, that was
scheduled to depart in August 2012. The 16-person Site
Security Team (SST) was stationed in Tripoli, but on occasion
some of its members also helped with security in Benghazi.
The team's deployment had previously been extended twice.
Nordstrom said he thought that requesting an extension would
have ``too much political cost,'' and he was not told to do
so. In July 2012, Nordstrom had sent a request, via cable
approved by Ambassador Stevens, for a minimum of 13 temporary
U.S. security personnel--which he said could be either DS
employees or SST personnel, or a combination of both--to
support needs in Tripoli. Nordstrom said he never received a
response to that request. Though the Department of State
never formally asked DOD to extend the SST team, at the time
of the attack several members of the SST were still in
Tripoli for other purposes, and two participated in the
rescue effort the night of the attack.
In the Department's late 2011 plan describing a transition
to ``locally staffed operations,'' one of the reasons given
for that transition was that ``DS does not have sufficient
resources to sustain the current level of the security assets
in Libya.'' Lamb commented on this issue in her interview
with the Committee, stating that it was hard to sustain large
numbers of DS agents on short-term tours because there is not
a floating pool of agents so that to fill a gap in Libya she
needed to create a gap elsewhere.
Finding 7. Despite the inability of the Libyan government
to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the
increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly
vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did
not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or
temporarily shut down. That was a grevious mistake.
The Department of State kept the Benghazi facility open
despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its
duties to secure the facility and the increasingly dangerous
threat environment that American intelligence described.
Though diplomatic security officials in Libya repeatedly
considered and discussed the adequacy of security at the
Benghazi facility, we found no evidence that any official
ever recommended closing the facility even though the
facility's vulnerability remained high, particularly in
relation to the limited number and quality of the security
personnel on site including the militia, the contracted
guards, and DS agents on short-term assignments.
In the months leading up to the September 11, 2012 attack,
U.S. personnel sitting on the Benghazi Emergency Action
Committee (EAC)--the interagency entity responsible for
assessing the security of the facility--met several times to
discuss the growing threats in eastern Libya, and whether
additional actions to protect U.S. personnel ought to be
taken. As late as August 15, 2012, an EAC was convened and
resolved to update the ``tripwires'' for the facility. The
updates were to include a new category, ``suspension of
operations,'' under which diplomatic personnel remain present
at a post but limit activity off U.S. grounds. Notes from
that meeting show that joint security exercises were carried
out with Annex security personnel that same month, and that
conditional manpower requests and the revised set of
tripwires were sent to the Embassy in Tripoli for review. A
Department of State document shared between officials in
Tripoli show various ``tripwires'' in Benghazi were, in fact,
set off weeks before September 11, 2012. Following a bomb
attack on a Libyan Army colonel in August, the principal U.S.
diplomatic officer in Benghazi wrote that ``[g]iven our small
size, there is really no distinction between authorized and
ordered departure from Benghazi: if we lose one more person,
we will be ineffective . . . we are already at a skeleton
crew.''
Still, no additional security was provided to the facility
in Benghazi and there was no ordered evacuation. RSO
Nordstrom said the inability of the host nation to provide
security is a significant tripwire. Yet neither he nor, to
his knowledge anyone else at the Department of State,
recommended the Benghazi post be closed.
Despite the Department of State's initial determination
that the facility in Benghazi would be a temporary one, as
time progressed, some Department of State officials believed
U.S. diplomats needed to remain there longer than they
initially expected. Just weeks before his death and even
after there had been attacks against the facility and other
western targets in Benghazi, Ambassador Stevens continued to
make the case that the Department of State needed a long term
presence in Benghazi.
A number of other western governments also continued to
maintain a presence in Benghazi throughout the summer and
fall of 2012. Under Secretary Kennedy noted that diplomats
for Italy, France, Turkey and the United Nations remained in
Benghazi during that time period.
One option American officials did consider was co-locating
the American government facilities in Benghazi. By December
27, 2011, officials had ``come to the conclusion that co-
location is the best and most economical option for'' a
continued presence in Benghazi. They also recognized that
there were administrative hurdles to this--such as finding a
suitable location large enough for the presence of all
personnel. The ARB report on the 1998 Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam attacks recommended that, ``When building new
chanceries abroad, all U.S. government agencies, with rare
exceptions, should be located in the same compound.'' The
Department of State should also examine whether similar
standards should be adopted for the co-location of temporary
facilities.
Finding 8. The Department of Defense and the Department of
State had not jointly assessed the availability of U.S.
assets to support the Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi
in the event of a crisis and although DOD attempted to
quickly mobilize its resources, it did not have assets or
personnel close enough to reach Benghazi in a timely fashion.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has a longstanding
cooperative relationship with the Department of State,
providing support for evacuation and security of diplomatic
facilities. For Libya, responsibility for DOD support for
diplomatic missions primarily rested with AFRICOM and its
Combatant Commander, General Carter F. Ham, headquartered in
Stuttgart, Germany. AFRICOM is one of DOD's six geographic
combatant commands and is responsible for all DOD operations,
exercises, and security cooperation on the African continent
(with the exception of Egypt), its island nations, and
surrounding waters. The command is also responsible to the
Secretary of Defense for military relations with 54 African
nations, the African Union, and African regional security
organizations. It was established in February 2007 and became
a stand-alone command in October 2008. The reason for
establishing AFRICOM grew out of concerns about DOD's
division of responsibility for Africa among three geographic
commands--European Command (EUCOM), Central Command
(CENTCOM), and Pacific Command (PACOM)--and worries that
security in Africa was receiving less attention than it
required based on the increasing presence of Islamist
extremists and terrorists there.
Since its creation, AFRICOM has been involved in a number
of operations in Africa, with a focus on training African
forces and engaging in counterterrorism activities in the
Horn of Africa. Unlike many of the other geographical
combatant commands, AFRICOM was developed to maintain a light
footprint. It maintains a single base on the entire
continent, in Djibouti. In the spring of 2011, AFRICOM
directed U.S. support to the NATO military operations in
Libya, and in October 2011, it established a joint task force
to command and control post-conflict U.S. operations related
to Libya. Since DOD assumes responsibility for evacuation of
diplomatic personnel, U.S. citizens, and designated host
nation and third country nationals in crises, AFRICOM was
responsible for working with Department of State officials in
Libya to develop and coordinate Noncombatant Evacuation
Operations (NEO) plans for the diplomatic facilities within
the region. But the Department of State did not know how long
it would take DOD to evacuate personnel at the Benghazi
facility in the case of a crisis, naturally making it more
difficult for the Department of State to ensure it had
adequate security at the facility.
In addition, General Ham did not have complete visibility
of the extent and number of government personnel in Benghazi
in the event that a NEO was required. If sufficient time had
been available for such an evacuation, we are concerned that
this limitation could have impeded AFRICOM's ability to
respond and fulfill its mission responsibility.
AFRICOM's lack of operational assets near Benghazi hindered
its capacity to evacuate U.S. personnel during the attacks.
The Djibouti base was several thousand miles away. There was
no Marine expeditionary unit, carrier group or a smaller
group of U.S. ships closely located in the Mediterranean Sea
that could have provided aerial or ground support or helped
evacuate personnel from Benghazi. AFRICOM also lacked a
dedicated Commander's In-extremis Force (CIF)--a specially
trained force capable of performing no-notice missions. As a
result,
[[Page S8536]]
General Ham was forced to call on the European Command's CIF
whose location in Eastern Europe prevented it from getting to
Benghazi before the four Americans were killed and all other
U.S. personnel were evacuated. We note that AFRICOM later
received an independent CIF in October, 2012. DOD and AFRICOM
tried to provide effective support on September 11th, but
given the nature of the attack in Benghazi and the distance
of their assets from Benghazi, they were tragically unable to
do so.
Recommendation: DOD and the Department of State must
jointly perform comprehensive crisis defense and evacuation
planning for personnel at U.S. diplomatic facilities
worldwide, particularly in high risk environments to
determine whether DOD can provide timely support and
evacuation capabilities, and assist the Department of State
in deciding whether to keep facilities open.
Recommendation: Because Africa has increasingly become a
haven for terrorist groups in places like Libya and Mali, DOD
should provide more assets and personnel within range on land
and sea to protect and defend both Americans and our allies
on the African continent.
Finding 9. Although the September 11, 2012 attack in
Benghazi was recognized as a terrorist attack by the
Intelligence Community and personnel at the Department of
State from the beginning, Administration officials were
inconsistent in stating publicly that the deaths in Benghazi
were the result of a terrorist attack.
One of the key lessons of this Committee's six-year focus
on the threat of violent Islamist extremism is that, in order
to understand and counter the threat we face, we must clearly
identify that threat. During the Committee's investigation
into the Fort Hood massacre, for example, we found systemic
problems with the way the military addressed violent Islamist
extremism in its policies and procedures (treating this
specific threat within the broader context of ``workplace
violence''). Similarly, while we welcomed the
Administration's release last year of a national strategy and
implementation plan for countering radicalization
domestically, we expressed our disappointment in the
Administration's continued refusal to identify violent
Islamist extremism as our enemy. The enemy is not a vague
catchall of violent extremism, but a specific violent
Islamist extremism. It is unfair to the vast majority of law-
abiding Muslims not to distinguish between their peaceful
religion and a twisted corruption of that religion used to
justify violence.
There are related lessons to be learned from the
Administration's public comments about Benghazi, which we
believe contributed to the confusion in the public discourse
after the attack about exactly what happened.
The NCTC and U.S. law define terrorism as the
``premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated
against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or
clandestine agents.'' Senior officials from the IC, the
Department of State, and the FBI who participated in
briefings and interviews with the Committee said they
believed the attack on the mission facility in Benghazi to be
a terrorist attack immediately or almost immediately after it
occurred. The ODNI's spokesman also has publicly said, ``The
intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that
what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.''
In short, regardless of questions about whether there had
been a demonstration or protest outside the Temporary Mission
Facility in advance of the attack, the extent to which the
attacks were preplanned, or the role of an anti-Islamic video
which had sparked protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo and
elsewhere earlier on September 11th, there was never any
doubt among key officials, including officials in the IC and
the Department of State, that the attack in Benghazi was an
act of terrorism.
For example, two emails from the State Department
Diplomatic Security Operations Center on the day of the
attack, September 11, and the day after, September 12, 2012,
characterized the attack as an ``initial terrorism incident''
and as a ``terrorist event.'' Agencies and offices
responsible for terrorism, including the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the CIA's Office of Terrorism
Analysis, and the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, were
immediately involved with gathering information about the
attack. Indeed, how could there have been any doubt in
anyone's mind that, when a large number of armed men break
into a U.S. diplomatic facility, set fire to its buildings,
and fire mortars at Americans, that it is by definition a
terrorist attack?
However, the IC's assessment was not reflected consistently
in the public statements made by Administration officials,
several of whom cited the ongoing investigation, in the week
following the attack:
On September 12th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
attributed the attack to ``heavily armed militants'' who
assaulted the compound . . .'' Her suspicion was that the
people involved in this ``were looking to target Americans
from the start.'' She also noted that we ``continue to apply
pressure on Al Qaeda and other elements that are affiliated .
. .''
Also that September 12th President Obama, referring to the
anti-Islamic video, said ``we reject all efforts to denigrate
the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no
justification to this type of senseless violence . . .'' He
went on to add, ``Of course, yesterday was already a painful
day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11
attacks,'' and that ``No acts of terror will ever shake the
resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or
eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.''
However, that same day, the President had the following
exchanges with Steve Kroft in a taping for the CBS news
program 60 Minutes:
Mr. Kroft: Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?
The President: Well, it's too early to know exactly how
this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it
was an attack on Americans and we are going to be working
with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these
folks to justice one way or the other . . .
Mr. Kroft: That doesn't sound like your normal
demonstration.
The President: As I said, we're still investigating exactly
what happened, I don't want to jump the gun on this. But--
you're right that this is not a situation that was--exactly
the same as what happened in Egypt. And--my suspicion is--is
that there are folks involved in this who were looking to
target Americans from the start. So we're gonna--make sure
that our first priority is to get our folks out safe, make
sure that our embassies are secured around the world. And
then we are gonna go after--those folks who carried this out
. . .
This is also obviously a reminder that for all the progress
that we've made in fighting terrorism, that we're living in a
volatile world. And, you know, our troops, but also our
diplomats and our intelligence officers they're putting their
lives on the line every single day in some very dangerous
circumstances . . .
But I think we also also have to understand that, we have
to remain vigilant. And that even as we--continue to apply
pressure on Al Qaeda and--other elements that are
affiliated--that in big chunks of the world, in Northern
Africa and the Middle East, you've got--a lot of dangerous
characters. And we've got to make sure that we're continuing
to apply pressure on them . . .
Two days later, during a September 14, 2012, White House
press briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked to
respond to senators' characterizations of the incident as a
terrorist attack following a briefing by Secretary Panetta
and others:
[Unidentified Reporter]: Jay, one last question--while we
were sitting here--Secretary Panetta and the Vice Chair of
the Joint Chiefs briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee.
And the senators came out and said their indication was that
this, or the attack on Benghazi was a terrorist attack
organized and carried out by terrorists, that it was
premeditated, a calculated act of terror. Levin said--Senator
Levin--I think it was a planned, premeditated attack. The
kind of equipment that they had used was evidence it was a
planned, premeditated attack. Is there anything more you
can--now that the administration is briefing senators on
this, is there anything more you can tell us?
Mr. Carney: Well, I think we wait to hear from
administration officials. Again, it's actively under
investigation, both the Benghazi attack and incidents
elsewhere. And my point was that we don't have and did not
have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in
reaction to the film. But we're obviously investigating the
matter, and I'll certainly--I'm sure both the Department of
Defense and the White House and other places will have more
to say about that as more information becomes available.
Then, on September 16th, during one of several similar
appearances on the Sunday news programs, Ambassador Susan
Rice had the following exchange with David Gregory of NBC's
Meet the Press:
Gregory: Can you say definitively that the attacks on--on
our consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Stevens and
others there security personnel, that was spontaneous, was it
a planned attack? Was there a terrorist element to it?
Ms. Rice: Well, let us--let me tell you the--the best
information we have at present. First of all, there's an FBI
investigation which is ongoing. And we look to that
investigation to give us the definitive word as to what
transpired. But putting together the best information that we
have available to us today our current assessment is that
what happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous
reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo,
almost a copycat of--of the demonstrations against our
facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the
video. What we think then transpired in Benghazi is that
opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as
this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons which
unfortunately are readily available in post revolutionary
Libya. And it escalated into a much more violent episode.
Obviously, that's--that's our best judgment now. We'll await
the results of the investigation . . .
On September 18th, President Obama said on the Late Show
with David Letterman that ``extremists and terrorists used
this (referring again to the anti-Islamist video) as an
excuse to attack a variety of our embassies, including the
consulate in Libya.''
A definitive response to the question of whether Benghazi
was a terrorist attack was given by NCTC Director Matthew
Olsen during a hearing before this Committee on September 19,
2012. Olsen was asked by the Chairman whether he ``would say
that Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans died as
a result of a terrorist attack.''
[[Page S8537]]
Director Olsen responded that, ``[c]ertainly, on that
particular question, I would say yes. They were killed in the
course of a terrorist attack'' on our diplomatic mission in
Benghazi.
After Olsen's September 19th appearance before the
Committee, other Administration officials stated with more
certainty that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. For example:
On September 19th, referring to Matthew Olsen's statements
that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, Victoria Nuland stated
``We stand by comments made by our intelligence community who
has first responsibility for evaluating the intelligence and
what they believe we are seeing.''
On September 20th, Jay Carney said, ``It is, I think, self-
evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist
attack. Our embassy was attacked violently, and the result
was four deaths of American officials. So again, that's self
evident . . . ''
On September 21st, Secretary Clinton said, ``What happened
in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and we will not rest
until we have tracked down and brought to justice the
terrorist who murdered four Americans.''
On September 24th, however, when one of the co-hosts of the
television program The View asked the President to clarify
what she perceived to be discrepancies in the public record
regarding the Administration's position about whether
Benghazi attack was an act of terrorism, the President's
answer was not as definitive:
Joy Behar: It was reported that people just went crazy and
wild because of this anti-Muslim movie, or anti-Muhammad, I
guess, movie. But then I heard Hillary Clinton say that it
was an act of terrorism. Is it? What do you say?
The President: Well, we're still doing an investigation.
There's no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the
ongoing assault, that it wasn't just a mob action. Now, we
don't have all the information yet, so we're still gathering
it. But what's clear is that around the world, there's still
a lot of threats out there. And that's why we have to
maintain the strongest military in the world. That's why we
can't let down our guard when it comes to the intelligence
work that we do, and staying on top of not just al Qaeda--the
traditional al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan--but all
these various fringe groups that have started to develop . .
.
Director Olsen's statement on September 19, 2012 before
this Committee was also significant because he mentioned ties
to al Qaeda. He said:
At this point, what I would say is that a number of
different elements appear to have been involved in the
attack, including individuals connected to militant groups
that are prevalent in eastern Libya, particularly in the
Benghazi area. As well, we are looking at indications that
individuals involved in the attack may have had
connections to al Qaeda or al Qaeda's affiliates, in
particular al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb.
Olsen's acknowledgement was important because, in talking
points that were prepared the previous week by the IC for
Congress, a line saying ``we know'' that individuals
associated with al Qaeda or its affiliates participated in
the attacks had been changed to say: ``There are indications
that extremists participated,'' dropping the reference to al
Qaeda and its affiliates altogether. Members of the IC
differed over whether or not this information should remain
classified. It is nevertheless noteworthy that the analyst
who drafted the original talking points--a veteran career
analyst in the intelligence community believed it was
appropriate to include a reference to al Qaeda in the
unclassified talking points. The senior analyst concluded
that the information could be made public because of the
claims of responsibility made by Ansar al-Sharia, which has
been publicly linked to al Qaeda.
In addition to the change deleting al-Qaeda, a reference to
``attacks'' in Benghazi was changed to ``demonstrations.''
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper and
representatives from the CIA, the State Department, NCTC and
the FBI told this Committee that the changes characterizing
the attacks as ``demonstrations'' and removing references to
al-Qaeda or its affiliates were made within the CIA and the
IC, while the change from ``we know'' to ``indications'' was
made in response to an FBI request. They also testified that
no changes were made for political reasons, that there was no
attempt to mislead the American people about what happened in
Benghazi, and that the only change made by the White House
was to change a reference of ``consulate'' to ``mission.''
To provide a full account of the changes made to the
talking points, by whom they were made and why, DNI Clapper
offered to provide the Committee with a detailed timeline
regarding the development of the talking points. At the time
of writing this report, despite repeated requests, the
Committee had yet to receive this timeline. According to a
senior IC official, the timeline has not been delivered as
promised because the Administration has spent weeks debating
internally whether or not it should turn over information
considered ``deliberative'' to the Congress. The September
28, 2012 public statement from the ODNI confirmed the IC's
judgment ``that some of those involved were linked to groups
affiliated with, or sympathetic to al Qa'ida.''
We anticipate that the ongoing investigation into these
attacks by the FBI will provide important new details about
exactly which violent Islamist extremists carried out the
attack, the extent to which it was planned, and their precise
motivations. But as everyone now acknowledges, there is no
doubt that Benghazi was indeed a deliberate and organized
terrorist attack on our nation. If the fact that Benghazi was
indeed a terrorist attack had been made clear from the outset
by all Administration and Executive Branch spokespeople,
there would have been much less confusion and division in the
public response to what happened there on September 11, 2012.
Much of the public discussion about the Benghazi attack has
focused on whether a protest took place in Benghazi prior to
the attack. While the IC worked feverishly in the days after
the attack to identify the perpetrators of the attack, they
did not place a high priority on determining with certainty
whether a protest had in fact occurred. The IC's preliminary
conclusion was that there had been a protest outside of the
mission prior to the attack, making this assessment based on
open source news reports and on other information available
to intelligence agencies. The IC later revised its assessment
and the Accountability Review Board has since ``concluded
that no protest took place before the Special Mission and
Annex attacks.''
The unnecessary confusion in public statements about what
happened that night with regards to an alleged protest should
have ended much earlier than it did. Key evidence suggesting
the absence of a protest was not widely shared as early as it
could have been, creating or contributing to confusion over
whether this was a peaceful protest that evolved into
something more violent or a terrorist attack by an
opportunistic enemy looking for the most advantageous moments
to strike.
As early as September 15th, the Annex team that had been in
Benghazi during the attack reported there had been no
protest. This information was apparently not shared broadly,
and to the extent that it was shared, it apparently did not
outweigh the evidence decribed above that there was a
protest. The next day, the President of Libya's General
National Congress, Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, also stated on
the CBS News show Face the Nation that the attack was planned
and involved Al Qaeda elements.
On September 15th and 16th, officials from the FBI
conducted face-to-face interviews in Germany of the U.S.
personnel who had been on the compound in Benghazi during the
attack. The U.S. personnel who were interviewed saw no
indications that there had been a protest prior to the
attack. Information from those interviews was shared on a
secure video teleconference on the afternoon of the 16th with
FBI and other IC officials in Washington; it is unclear
whether the question of whether a protest took place was
discussed during this video conference.
Information from those interviews was written into FBI FD-
302 interrogation reports and sent back to the FBI
headquarters. Nearly a week later, on or around September
22nd, key information from those interrogation reports was
disseminated by the FBI in Intelligence Information Reports
(IIRs) to other agencies within the IC. By that date,
however, the IC had already received conclusive proof via
other means that there had been no protest prior to the
attack, in the form of video evidence from the facility's
CCTV cameras.
We also found documentation that one DS agent apparently
concluded there had been no protest as early as September
18th. On that date, a State Department DS agent who had seen
national press reporting about the attacks asked an agent at
the DS Command Center in an email, ``Was there any rioting in
Benghazi reported prior to the attack?'' The reply from the
Command Center agent: ``Zip, nothing, nada.''
Recommendation: When terrorists attack our country, either
at home or abroad, Administration officials should speak
clearly and consistently about what has happened. While
specific details and a full accounting cannot be provided
until the government has completed its investigation, the
fact that a terrorist attack occurred must be communicated
with clarity.
Finding 10. As discussed earlier, the talking points about
the September 11th attack in Benghazi which were issued by
the Intelligence Community on September 14th in response to a
request by the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, were the subject of much of the confusion and
division in the discussion of the attack. That confusion and
division were intensified by the fact that the talking points
were issued before the IC had a high degree of confidence
about what happened in Benghazi and in the midst of a
national political campaign.
Recommendation: While the Intelligence Community's primary
mission is to inform the appropriate officials of the
executive and legislative branches of our government about
events that affect our security, it is not the responsibility
of the IC to draft talking points for public consumption--
especially in the heat of a political campaign--and we
therefore recommend that the IC decline to do so in the
future.
Conclusion
The deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans
at the hands of terrorists is a tragic reminder that the
fight our country is engaged in with Islamist extremists and
terrorists is not over. U.S. and
[[Page S8538]]
Western diplomats, and other personnel operating in the
Middle East and other countries where these terrorists use
violence to further their extremist agenda and thwart
democratic reforms are increasingly at risk.
We hope this report will help contribute to the ongoing
discussion that our nation must have about how best to
protect the brave men and women who serve our country abroad
and how to win this war that will continue for years to come.
We owe it to our public servants abroad to protect them as
they work to protect us. The government of the U.S. failed
tragically to fulfill that responsibility in Benghazi on
September 11, 2012. We hope the findings and recommendations
we have made in this Special Report will help ensure that
such a failure never happens again.
endnotes
1. The details of this narrative are based on briefings to
the Committee in November 2012, as well as publicly available
documents describing the narrative provided by the Department
of State and the Department of Defense.
2. Charlene Lamb and Eric Nordstrom, interviews with
Committee staff, December 2012.
3. U.S. Embassy Tripoli, Libya, Regional Security Office,
``Security Incidents since June 2011.''
4. Committee Member briefing, November 14, 2012.
5. REDACTED, e-mail message to DS-IP-NEA, April 6, 2012.
6. U.S. Embassy Tripoli, Libya, Regional Security Office,
``Security Incidents since June 2011.''
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. REDACTED, e-mail message to DS-IP-NEA; DSCC_E TIA/PII;
DSCC_E TIA/ITA; DSCC_C DS Seniors, ``Benghazi--SR--Attack on
British Ambassador Motorcade--06112012,'' June 11, 2012.
10. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, ``Gunmen attack Tunisian consulate
in Benghazi,'' Reuters, June 18, 2012. http://
www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/18/us-libya-gunmen-tunisia-
idUSBRE85H1V620120618; Michel Cousins, ``Tunisian Consulate
in Benghazi attacked,'' Libya Herald, June 18, 2012. http://
www.libyaherald.com/2012/06/18/tunisian-consulate-in-
benghazi-attacked/
11. Navanti Group, Security Conditions in Benghazi, Libya,
July 12, 2012.
12. However, as discussed later in this report, reliance
solely on early warning intelligence is insufficient for
making security improvement decisions.
13. Homeland Threats and Agency Responses: Hearing before
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
United States Senate, 112th Cong., September 19, 2012.
(Statement of Matthew Olsen, Director, NCTC).
14. Eli Lake, ``Ansar al Sharia's Role in Benghazi Attacks
still a Mystery,'' The Daily Beast, November 5, 2012, http://
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/05/ansar-al-sharia-s-
role-in-benghazi-attacks-still-a-
mystery.html
15. Ibid.
16. For a general discussion of this phenomenon: Robert F.
Worth, ``Al Qaeda-Inspired Groups, Minus Goal of Striking
U.S.'', The New York Times, October 27, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/world/middleeast/al-qaeda-
inspired-groups-minus-goal-of-striking-us.html
17. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Al-
Qaeda in Libya: A Profile, August 2012. See, e.g., the
discussion of two local Libyan Islamist-oriented militias--
Ansar al-Sharia and al-A'hrar Libya--which are described as
broadcasting ``typical al-Qaeda-type propaganda on the
Internet.''(33), http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/
2012/10/LOC-AQ-Libya.pdf
18. As discussed further, infra, the State Department and
the IC must also think beyond ``warning'' intelligence of
specific attacks when making security decisions. This is one
of the key lessons of the Accountability Review Board (ARB)
Reports on the 1998 terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania.
19. Inman Report, Report of the Secretary of State's
Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, (June 1985). http://
www.fas.org/irp/threat/inman/.
20. Charlene Lamb, interview with Committee staff, December
6, 2012.
21. See Finzer v. Barry, 798 F.2d 1450, 1455 (D.C. Cir.
1986) (Bork, J.), (citing 2 C. Hyde, International Law 1249
(1945)) (``The principle that host states have a special
responsibility to ensure that foreign embassies and the
personnel inside them are free from threats of violence and
intimidation is `solidly entrenched in the Law of Nations.'
'').
22. Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, (Adopted April
24, 1963, entered into force, March 19, 1967) Art. 31; see
also The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Art.
22 (Adopted April 18, 1961, entered into force, April 29,
1964).
23. Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, (Adopted April
24, 1963, entered into force, March 19, 1967) Art. 40.
24. Christopher M. Blanchard, Congressional Research
Service, Libya: Transition and U.S. Policy, October 18, 2012
(16).
25. Adam Nossiter and Kareem Fahim, ``Revolution Won, Top
Libyan Official Promises Elections and a More Pious State,''
New York Times, October 24, 2011, A10.
26. Ibid.
27. Blanchard (17).
28. Blanchard (6).
29. See, for example, REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED,
January 4, 2012; or REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED,
April 1, 2012.
30. ``Security Incidents since June 2011,'' U.S. Embassy
Tripoli, Libya, Regional Security Office and REDACTED, email
to DS-IP-NEA, ``Benghazi RSO Spot Report,'' March 15, 2012.
31. Eric Nordstrom, interview with Committee staff,
December 7, 2012. The State Department did provide some
training to members of the Brigade.
32. See, for example, REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED,
January 4, 2012; or REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED,
April 1, 2012. See also, REDACTED, email to REDACTED, June
17, 2012.
33. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, June 17, 2012.
34. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, ``Benghazi Hand-
off Notes,'' August 29, 2012.
35. REDACTED, e-mail message to Charlene Lamb,
``Ambassador's protective detail in Benghazi,'' September 20,
2012.
36. The Security Failures of Benghazi: Hearing before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. Congress,
112th Cong., October 10, 2012. (Eric Allan Nordstrom,
Regional Security Officer, Tripoli, Libya from 9/21/11--7/26/
12).
37. RSO Eric Nordstrom, Memorandum to DS/DSS/TIA/OSAC,
``OSAC Crime and Safety Report,'' February 1, 2012.
38. Ibid.
39. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, ``The Guns of
August: security in eastern Libya,'' August 8, 2012.
40. Ibid.
41. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, ``Benghazi Weekly
Report, Special Eid al-Fitr Edition,'' August 20, 2012.
42. Under an ordered departure, all U.S. diplomatic
personnel and their families are instructed by the Chief of
Mission to leave the post.
43. Benghazi Assessment of Tripwires Breached as of August
13, 2012.
44. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, ``Benghazi Weekly
Report,'' September 11, 2012, (1).
45. REDACTED, e-mail message to Charlene Lamb,
``Ambassador's protective detail in Benghazi,'' September 20,
2012.
46. State Department, Office of Inspector General, Review
of Best-Value Contracting for the Department of State Local
Guard Program and the Utility of Expanding the Policy Beyond
High-Threat Posts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan,
February, 2012 (9).
47. Ibid. (5).
48. Alex Tiersky and Susan Epstein, Congressional Research
Service, Securing U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and Personnel
Abroad: Background and Policy Issues, November 26, 2012, (3).
49. REDACTED, e-mail message to DS-IP-NEA and REDACTED,
September 13, 2012.
50. NEA--Jeffrey Feltman, Action Memo to Under Secretary
Kennedy, December 27, 2011, (2).
51. The Security Failures of Benghazi: Hearing before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. Congress,
112th Cong., October 10, 2012. (Eric Allan Nordstrom,
Regional Security Officer, Tripoli, Libya from 9/21/11-7/26/
12).
52. Diplomatic Security Issues Only Briefing paper for
March 6, 2012 meeting of Assistant Secretary Boswell and
Ambassador Cretz.
53. Eric Nordstrom, interview with Committee staff,
December 7, 2012.
54. Ibid.
55. NEA--Jeffrey Feltman, Action Memo to Under Secretary
Kennedy, December 27, 2011, (2).
56. REDACTED, e-mail message to DS-IP-NEA and REDACTED,
September 13, 2012.
57. Charlene Lamb and Eric Nordstrom, interviews with
Committee staff, December 2012.
58. Charlene Lamb, interview with Committee staff, December
6, 2012.
59. Department of State, Inspector General, Review of the
Department's Implementation of Mantraps, Report Number ISP-I-
09-29, February 2009, (2-3).
60. Attack on U.S. Consulate General in Jeddah, James C.
Oberwetter, U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, On-the-Record
Briefing, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 7, 2004 http://2001-
2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/39516.htm
61. Department of State, Inspector General, Review of the
Department's Implementation of Mantraps, Report Number ISP-I-
09-29, February 2009, (3).
62. Committee member briefing, November 14, 2012.
63. Congressional Research Service (CRS), e-mail message to
Committee staff, December 20, 2012. For example, CRS noted
all Overseas Contingency Operations enacted and requested for
the Worldwide Security Protection account in Fiscal Years
2012 and 2013 were for facilities in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Additionally, there was approximately $1.5 billion
funding for Iraq embassy ``security and overhead cover'' in
FY 2012.
64. According to CRS, these include State Department
accounts for Worldwide Security Protection (WSP); Embassy
Security, Construction and Maintenance (ESCM); Diplomatic
Security, Counterterrorism within the Diplomatic and Consular
Programs; and Diplomatic Security within the Border Security
Program.
65. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification
Volume 1: Department of State Operations Fiscal Year 2013
(February 13, 2012), and the Consolidated Appropriations Act,
2012, P.L. 112-74.
[[Page S8539]]
66. Alex Tiersky and Susan Epstein, Congressional Research
Service, Securing U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and Personnel
Abroad: Background and Policy Issues, November 26, 2012,
(15).
67. Eric Nordstrom, interview with Committee staff,
December 7, 2012.
68. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, October 1, 2012.
69. Eric Nordstrom, interview with Committee staff,
December 7, 2012.
70. Eric Nordstrom, e-mail message to REDACTED, March 29,
2012.
71. Charlene Lamb, interview with Committee staff, December
6, 2012.
72. Ibid.
73. The Security Failures of Benghazi: Hearing before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. Congress,
112th Cong., October 10, 2012. (Eric Allan Nordstrom,
Regional Security Officer from September 21--July 26, 2012).
74. 12 Tripoli 690, July 9, 2012.
75. The Security Failures of Benghazi: Hearing before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. Congress,
112th Cong., October 10, 2012. (Eric Allan Nordstrom,
Regional Security Officer from September 21--July 26, 2012).
76. DS/IP/OPO/FPD, Proposal for Security Support to RSO
Tripoli.
77. Charlene Lamb, interview with Committee staff, December
6, 2012.
78. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, August 30, 2012.
Subject: ``Latest tripwires for Tripoli and Benghazi,'' which
included an attached document entitled ``Benghazi assessment
of tripwires breached as of 8/31/2012''
79. REDACTED, e-mail message to REDACTED, August 6, 2012,
``Security Incident Involving Embassy Vehicle Driven by DOD
Personnel.''
80. Eric Nordstrom, interview with Committee staff,
December 7, 2012.
81. ``Benghazi.docx,'' document attached to email of August
31, 2012.
82. Committee member briefing, November 29, 2012.
83. NEA--Jeffrey Feltman, Action Memo to Under Secretary
Kennedy, December 27, 2011. Re: ``Future of Operations in
Benghazi, Libya''
84. Accountability Review Board, Bombings of the US
Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on
August 7, 1998, (January 8, 1999). NB: The facility in
Benghazi was a lease and not new construction.
85. Committee member briefing, November 14, 2012.
86. Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Budget
Request from U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command:
Armed Services Committee, United States House of
Representatives, 112th Congress, February 29, 2012. (General
Carter Ham, Commander, United States Africa Command). http://
www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=4133
87. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Noncombatant Evacuation
Operations, Report 3-68, December 23, 2010, I-1. http://
www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_68.pdf.
88. General Carter Ham, Combatant Commander for Africa
Command, briefing Chairman and Ranking Member, December 6,
2012.
89. General Carter Ham, Counterterrorism in Africa,
Homeland Security Policy Institute event, December 3, 2012.
According to General Ham, DOD had been developing this force
since 2011.
90. U.S. Senate, Homeland Security and Government Affairs
Committee, A Ticking Time Bomb: Counterterrorism Lessons From
the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood
Attack, 112th Cong., 1st sess, February 3, 2011, 7,9.
91. The White House, Strategic Implementation Plan for
Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the
United States, December 2011.
92. ``Lieberman, Collins React to Administration's
Countering Violent Extremism Strategic Implementation Plan,''
Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, press
release, December 8, 2011.
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/lieberman-
collins-react-to-administrations-countering-violent-
extremism-strategic-implementation-plan
93. The National Counterterrorism Center, Terrorism
Definitions, August 27, 2010. http://www.nctc.gov/site/other/
definitions.html
94. Committee member briefings, November 14, 2012 and
November 29, 2012.
95. ``Sources: Office of the DNI cut ``al Qaeda'' reference
from Benghazi talking points, and CIA, FBI signed off,'' CBS
News, November 20, 2010. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-
505263_162-57552328/sources-office-of-the-dni-cut-al-qaeda-
reference-from-benghazi-talking-points-and-cia-fbi-signed-
off/
96. See, for example, REDACTED on behalf of the DS Command
Center, email message, ``Terrorism Event Notification--
Libya,'' September 12, 2012.
97. Secretary Hillary Clinton, ``Remarks on the Deaths of
American Personnel in Benghazi, Libya,'' Treaty Room,
September 12, 2012.
98. President Barack Obama, ``Remarks by the President on
the Deaths of U.S. Embassy Staff in Libya,'' Rose Garden,
September 12, 2012.
99. President Barack Obama, interview by Steve Kroft, 60
Minutes, CBS, September 12, 2012, transcript.
100. Benjamin Netanyahu, Susan Rice, Keith Ellison, Peter
King, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Andrea Mitchell,
interview by David Gregory, Meet the Press, NBC, September
16, 2012, transcript. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49051097/
ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/t/september-benjamin-
netanyahu-susan-rice-keith-ellison-peter-king-bob-woodward-
jeffrey-goldberg-andrea-mitchell/
101. Homeland Threats and Agency Responses: Hearing before
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
United States Senate, 112th Cong., September 19, 2012.
(Statement of Matthew Olsen, Director, NCTC).
102. Ibid.
103. Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland,
Press Briefing, September 19, 2012, transcript.
104. Press Secretary Carney, press briefing, The White
House, September 20, 2012, transcript.
105. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ``Remarks With
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar Before Their
Meeting,'' Treaty Room, September 21, 2012.
106. President Obama, interview by Joy Behar, The View,
September 24, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Hdn1iX1a528
107. Homeland Threats and Agency Responses: Hearing before
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
United States Senate, 112th Cong., September 19, 2012.
(Statement of Matthew Olsen, Director, NCTC). The ODNI also
released a statement on September 28, 2012 which confirmed
that the IC had ``assess[ed] that some of those involved were
linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al-
Qa'ida.'' See Statement by the Director of Public Affairs for
the Director of National Intelligence, Shawn Turner, on the
intelligence related to the terrorist attack on the U.S.
Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, September 28, 2012.
108. Committee member briefing, November 29, 2012.
109. Committee member briefing, November 29, 2012.
110. Sources: Office of the DNI cut ``al Qaeda'' reference
from Benghazi talking points, and CIA, FBI signed off, CBS
News, November 20, 2010
111. Committee member briefing, November 29, 2012.
112. ``Statement by the Director of Public Affairs for the
Director of National Intelligence, Shawn Turner, on the
intelligence related to the terrorist attack on the U.S.
Consulate in Benghazi, Libya,'' Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, press release, September 28, 2012.
113. Accountability Review Board, Department of State,
December 19, 2012, 4.
114. Acting Director Michael Morell, briefing Senator
Collins, November 28, 2012.
115. Committee member briefing, November 29, 2012.
116. Ibid.
117. REDACTED, e-mail message on September 18, 2012.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairman of the
Homeland Security Committee, Senator Joe Lieberman, in submitting for
the Congressional Record our investigative report on the terrorist
attack against the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that claimed the
lives of four Americans who were serving our country. This report is
indeed the last initiative the chairman and I will produce together. It
is the final work product of 10 years of cooperation and collaboration
and was authored in the same bipartisan spirit as our investigations
into the attack at Fort Hood and into the Government's response to
Hurricane Katrina, among many others.
I will so miss working with Chairman Lieberman. He is an
extraordinary Senator who has contributed so much during his years in
the Senate and as a leader of our committee. Sadly, our last official
act together was prompted by the terrorist attack in Benghazi on
September 11 of this year that took the lives of our Ambassador and
three other brave Americans. Our findings and recommendations are based
on the extensive investigative work the committee has conducted since
shortly after the attack of September 11, 2012, including meetings with
senior and midlevel government officials; reviews of literally
thousands of pages of documents, both classified and unclassified,
provided by the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the
intelligence community; a review of written responses to questions
posed by our committee to numerous agencies; our consultations with
security experts and former officials; and our review of publicly
available documents.
Our investigation found that the terrorists essentially walked right
into the Benghazi compound, unimpeded, and set it ablaze due to
extremely poor security in a threat environment that was indeed
``flashing red,'' in the words of a high-ranking State Department
official.
As we all recognize, the ultimate responsibility for this atrocity
lies with the terrorists who attacked our diplomats. Nevertheless,
there are several lessons we must learn from this tragedy if we are to
make our diplomats
[[Page S8540]]
safer in the future. It is in that spirit that we are putting our
unclassified report into the Record so that we can share it with our
colleagues and with the American people. We will have more to say about
our specific findings and recommendations when we release the report
tomorrow.
In the months leading up to the attack, it was well known in
Washington that Benghazi was increasingly dangerous and at risk for a
significant attack.
Our mission facility in Benghazi was itself the target of two prior
attacks involving improvised explosive devices, including an April
attack in which one current and one former contract guard at the
facility were suspects, and a June attack that blew a hole in the
perimeter wall.
There were also multiple attacks on other western targets, including
a June attack in which a rocket propelled grenade was fired at the
convoy of the British ambassador to Libya, injuring two British
bodyguards. Yet, the State Department failed to take adequate steps to
reduce the facility's vulnerability to a terrorist attack of this kind.
While the Department and the Intelligence Community lacked specific
intelligence about this attack, the State Department should not have
waited for--or expected--specific warnings before increasing its
security in Benghazi, a city awash with weapons and violent extremists.
Our report also underscores the need for the Intelligence Community
to enhance its focus on violent Islamist extremist groups in the region
to improve the likelihood of obtaining such intelligence.
The lesson about over-dependence on such intelligence, however, is
not new. The independent Accountability Review Board reports following
the 1998 attacks on our embassies in Africa found that ``both the
intelligence and policy communities relied excessively on tactical
intelligence to determine the level of potential terrorist threats to
posts worldwide,'' yet prior security reviews and ``previous experience
indicate[d] that terrorist attacks are often not preceded by warning
intelligence.'' The State Department must finally take this lesson to
heart.
The State Department failed to implement adequate security measures
to account for the fact that there was no reasonable expectation that
the host government--Libya--would protect our diplomats. There was an
overreliance on the rule of international law when Benghazi was
operating under the rule of militias outside the effective control of
the central Libyan government.
The unreliability and conflicting loyalties of the Libyan militia and
the unarmed Blue Mountain guards hired to protect the facility are
deeply troubling, especially since this problem was recognized long
before the attack. Despite evidence that they were not dependable,
American personnel were forced to rely upon them far too much. For
example, in August, State Department personnel in Benghazi stated that
``[m]ission opinion is that Libyan security forces are indifferent to
the safety needs of the U.S. mission.'' This proved all too true.
When a host nation cannot adequately protect our diplomats, the State
Department must provide additional security measures of its own,
urgently press the host government to upgrade its security forces, or
remove U.S. personnel until appropriate steps can be taken to provide
adequate security. It is telling that the British government removed
its personnel from Benghazi after the attack on its ambassador.
Too often, the State Department failed to sufficiently respond to--or
even ignored--repeated requests from those on the ground in Benghazi
for security resources, especially for more personnel.
Ironically, the challenges facing the security personnel in Benghazi
were well summarized in a March 2012 write-up from the top U.S.
security officer in Benghazi as he sought to recognize his security
agents with a meritorious honor award. The official justified the award
based upon the fact that, ``Agent ingenuity took over where funding and
Department restrictions left off.''
The temporary and junior security personnel in Benghazi pleaded for
more help from Washington and Tripoli, but they were forced to make do
on their own.
The Department must also reassess its local guard programs,
particularly the use at high-risk posts of local guard contractors who
do not meet standards necessary for the protection of our personnel or
facilities.
I have previously noted the parallels and repeated mistakes
identified in the report on the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania, and we include several of these in our report. One of the
recurring lessons is that the President and Congress must work together
to ensure that we appropriately fund security for the State Department.
We have seen finger pointing about the lack of resources for embassy
security, but the budget is a shared responsibility. The inadequate
security in Benghazi was a product of both budgets approved by Congress
and of the desire of the administration for a light footprint.
Overall, appropriations for the Department of State's security have
increased by 27 percent since 2007 and Congress has generally been
responsive in providing supplemental and Overseas Contingency
Operations--OCO--funds to the Department of State. But, there was no
supplemental or OCO request made by the President for additional
embassy security enhancements in the last three years.
The administration must reevaluate its budget priorities, and since
the Benghazi attack, Secretary Clinton is undertaking such a review.
She has asked to reprogram $1.4 billion of the FY13 budget request to
jump start this effort.
The lack of resources is just one of a number of factors we
identified in our report that contributed to a perfect storm on the
night of September 11.
Our report also calls for the State Department to work more closely
with the Department of Defense and the intelligence community to
improve the security of our diplomats in high-threat areas when our
national interests require their presence. When a host nation cannot
protect our personnel, the Department of State must work more
effectively with the Department of Defense to assign and deploy
military assets, such as Marine Security Guards, and plan for
contingencies in the event of an attack.
One of our findings is that, while the Defense Department attempted
to mobilize its resources quickly, it had neither the personnel nor
other assets close enough to reach Benghazi in a timely fashion.
Indeed, as we learned, the Combatant Commander of U.S. Africa Command
did not have complete visibility regarding the number of U.S.
government personnel in Benghazi who would require evacuation in the
event of an attack.
Our diplomats are increasingly being called on to serve in dangerous
posts, in countries where emerging democracies lack the ability to
protect U.S. personnel and where terrorists and extremist factions
harbor antipathy toward the West. The U.S. cannot afford to retreat
entirely from dangerous places where our country's interests are at
stake, nor is it possible or smart to transform every diplomatic post
into a fortress.
The absence of reasonable time-tested security measures is, however,
unacceptable in such high-risk countries. When a host nation cannot
adequately protect our diplomats or if the State Department and other
U.S. agencies cannot work together to provide appropriate security, we
cannot ignore the option of temporarily removing U.S. personnel until
appropriate steps can be taken to provide adequate security.
Finally, our report concludes that the attack in Benghazi was
recognized as a terrorist attack by the intelligence community from the
beginning.
Nonetheless, administration officials were inconsistent in stating
publicly that the deaths in Benghazi were the result of a terrorist
attack. If the fact that Benghazi was indeed a terrorist attack had
been made clear from the outset by the administration, there would have
been much less confusion about what happened in Benghazi that terrible
night. The attack clearly was not a peaceful protest in response to a
hateful anti-Muslim video that evolved into a violent incident. It was
a terrorist attack by an opportunistic enemy.
This, too, is not a new lesson. One of the key lessons of this
Committee's 6-
[[Page S8541]]
year focus on the threat of violent Islamist extremism is that, in
order to understand and counter the threat we face, we must clearly
identify that threat. We have repeatedly expressed our disappointment
in the administration's reluctance to identify violent Islamist
extremism as our enemy--while making the sharp distinction between the
peaceful religion of Islam and a twisted corruption of that religion
used to justify violence. The administration's inconsistent statements
about whether this was a terrorist attack are symptomatic of this
recurring problem. We hope this lesson will finally be heeded.
Ultimately, it is with the goal of enabling continued U.S. engagement
around the world to support our own national interests that we offer
our findings and recommendations regarding the terrorist attacks in
Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. The men and women who serve our
country in dangerous posts deserve no less.
Mr. President, I thank the chairman for his extraordinary work on
this very important project.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, first, I thank both of my colleagues for
their diligent work. They committed themselves to this work, and I
appreciate it. They keep us all informed.
(The remarks of Mr. Manchin pertaining to the introduction of (S.
3714) are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
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