The Foreign Service Journal, March 2014

Plenty of Blame to Go Around O n Jan. 15 the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a bipartisan report on the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2012, when four U.S. officials— J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty—were killed at the special mission in Benghazi, Libya. Writing in the Jan. 16 Washington Post , Adam Goldman and Anne Gear an note that the committee faults the State Department for failing to increase security at its mission despite warnings, and blames the intelligence commit- tee for not sharing information about the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency outpost in Benghazi with the U.S. military command responsible for Africa. In addition, the Pentagon did not have the resources in place to defend the State Department compound in an emergency. Due to the document’s importance, we are devoting this edition of Talking Points to its findings and recommenda- tions, as excerpted from the report. FINDING #1: In the months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2012, the intelligence community [the IC] provided ample strategic warning that the security situation in eastern Libya was deteriorating and that U.S. facilities and personnel were at risk in Benghazi. FINDING #2: The State Department should have increased its security posture more significantly in Benghazi based on the deteriorating security situation on the ground and IC threat reporting on the prior attacks against Westerners in Benghazi—including two incidents at the Temporary Mission Facility on April 6 and June 6, 2012. RECOMMENDATION: The State Department must ensure that security threats are quickly assessed and security upgrades are put into place with minimal bureaucratic delay. The State Department has made changes since Sept. 11, 2012, including the creation of a new position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for High- Threat Posts. Although this new position will help the State Department focus on high-threat posts, the State Department must make the institutional changes nec- essary to quickly and efficiently respond to emerging security threats—especially those threats that have been identified numerous times by the U.S. IC. The committee urges the State Department to consider the recom- mendation of its Independent Panel on Best Practices to, “as a matter of urgency, establish an Under Secretary for Diplo- matic Security” to “bring security gov- ernance into the 21st century and align security management with the realities of a post-9/11 threat environment.” As noted by the chairman of the Indepen- dent Panel on Best Practices in his writ- ten testimony to a House committee, this structural recommendation is not new and was suggested in a report written 14 years ago, following the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. RECOMMENDATION: Only in rare instances—and only after a formal risk management plan has been put into place—should State Department facilities that fall short of current security stan- dards be allowed to operate. Facilities that do not meet these standards should be prioritized for additional security measures. In these cases, temporary facilities should have the physical security, personnel, weapons, ammuni- tion and fire safety equipment needed to adequately address the threat. The committee understands the need for State to have the flexibility to operate, on a temporary basis, out of facilities that fall short of these standards; however, these operations are extremely vulnerable, as seen in Benghazi. RECOMMENDATION: As appropri- ate, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for High-Threat Posts should also find con- sistent ways to coordinate with the CIA to exchange best practices for high-threat posts and to discuss common security concerns. RECOMMENDATION: The IC and State Department should ensure all surveillance cameras at high-risk, high- threat facilities have sufficient resolution, nighttime visibility, remote monitoring capabilities and redundancy to provide warning and situational awareness in the event of an attack. The committee notes that the Independent Panel on Best Prac- tices has recommended that the State Department establish a new office “for field-expedient deployment of hardware, cutting-edge protective technology and procedures.” FINDING #3: There was no singular “tactical warning” in the intelligence reporting leading up to the events on Sept. 11, 2012, predicting an attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi on the 9/11 anniversary, although State and the CIA both sent general warning notices to facilities worldwide noting the potential security concerns associated with the anniversary. Such a specific warning should not have been expected, however, given the limited intelligence collection of the Benghazi area at the time. RECOMMENDATION: The IC must place a greater emphasis on collecting intelligence and open-source informa- tion, including extremist-affiliated social media, to improve its ability to provide tactical warnings, especially in North Africa, the Middle East and other areas 14 MARCH 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL TALKING POINTS