The Foreign Service Journal, February 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 2013 29 Diplomatic Security was already severely stretched. Fewer than a thousand DS agents guard more than 270 American embas- sies and consulates around the globe. Even though Libya was never formally classified as a war zone like Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, the Department of Defense acceded to two requests from State for assistance in securing its Libyan operations once contractors were banned. This aid was crucial because the situation in Benghazi, the former headquarters of the anti-Qaddafi forces, had worsened over the course of 2012. The Red Cross had pulled out of the city in June, after an attack on the organization. In August Eric Nordstrom, then the chief security officer at the American embassy in Tripoli, requested a third extension of that support. But Washington denied it, creating an immedi- ate security vacuum. In testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Oct. 10, Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, described State’s plan to phase out reliance on the U.S. military and hire local guards to protect the Benghazi compound, a strategy that had been successfully deployed in Yemen. This shift was apparently spurred, at least in part, by the fact that State had been reimbursing DOD at relatively expensive rates. Yet in hearings the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held on Dec. 20, Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., denied that the program was expensive. He asserted that State had to pay only for the team’s lodging, as the rest was covered by DOD. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides did not contest this claim. Whatever the reason for denial of the August request to con- tinue the existing program, the tragedy in Benghazi makes clear that State has neither the resources nor the in-house capacity to operate safely in three war zones simultaneously, even if one is not officially labeled as such. Making matters worse, more host governments are becoming reluctant to accept the impro- visation of turning to security contractors. As for the QDDR directive to turn to the personnel of other agencies before contractors, even where the Pentagon is willing to help, State sees some potential diplomatic costs to relying too heavily on the military to secure its operations in danger- ous environments. Lessons Learned? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly ordered an independent investigation of the attacks in Benghazi, and the Accountability Review Board released the unclassified ver- sion of its findings in late December. The ARB found “grossly”