by Scott McEwen
Key Quotes
“The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two—of these two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility,’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate. Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened.”–White House Spokesman Jay Carney, White House Daily Press Briefing, November 28, 2012
“Secondly, because the process was one of declassifying classified information, and in that process the talking points that were provided to Ambassador Rice to members of Congress and to others, including myself in the executive branch, were written in the way that was presented by Ambassador Rice.”–White House Spokesman Jay Carney, White House Daily Press Briefing, January 8, 2013
Ambassador Rice received the approved talking points in advance of her appearances on Sunday, September 16, 2012 on various television programs.66 She was informed that the talking points were created for Congressional members, and modified to protect State Department equities and the FBI investigation.67 Ambassador Rice then appeared the next morning on five Sunday morning talk shows, during which she focused on the attacks being provoked by the Cairo events and the “hateful video.”
The Administration made a conscious decision to focus on the deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that demonstrations protesting a YouTube video evolved into attacks on the Benghazi Mission. This decision resulted in a senior Administration official appearing on major national news programs to discuss a terrorist attack against the United States without mentioning the known threat to the region by al Qa’ida affiliates, the likely participation by Ansar al-Sharia in the incident, and the previous attacks on Western interests in Benghazi.
IV. The Administration’s investigations and reviews of the Benghazi attacks highlight its failed security policies leading to the attacks while undermining the ability of the United States government to bring the perpetrators to justice.
A Compromised FBI Criminal Investigation
The Administration responded to the Benghazi attacks with an FBI investigation, as opposed to a more thorough military or intelligence response. Regrettably, the FBI simply did not have the ability to access the location of the attacks with sufficient speed to ensure that all evidence was accumulated as quickly as possible. Due to security concerns and bureaucratic entanglements among the Departments of Justice, State, and Defense,68 the FBI team investigating the terrorist attacks did not access the crime scene until more than three weeks later, on October 4, 2012. During this time, the site was not secured, and curious locals and international media were able to pick through the burned-out remains of the U.S. facility. The FBI spent less than one day collecting evidence at the Benghazi Mission. FBI officials indicated that the security situation delayed and deterred a more thorough investigation of the site.
The FBI has interviewed all U.S. Government personnel on the ground during the attacks, but has encountered difficulty accessing other witnesses or suspects. For example, one suspect jailed in connection with the attacks, Ali Harzi, was released for lack of evidence on January 7, 2013, by Tunisian authorities. FBI agents questioned Mr. Harzi in December 2012, but the questioning did not result in sufficient information for the FBI to stop his release. Media reports also indicate that the FBI has recently been given access to question an individual of interest, Faraj al-Shibli, in Libya. The scope of that questioning is currently unconfirmed, and it remains unclear whether the access is sufficient enough to yield evidence that could be used to prosecute Shibli or other individuals.
FBI Director Robert Mueller testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) that the investigation is complicated by the lack of security in eastern Libya.69 Without significant progress in finding and questioning suspects, it appears that the decision to proceed with an FBI investigation–presumably with the intention of obtaining a criminal indictment in U.S. courts–was ill-advised. For instance, the United States responded to the attacks against U.S. embassies in Africa in the 1990s and against the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 with criminal investigations. On their own, those investigations failed to bring many of those responsible to justice and likely encouraged further terrorist activity. This approach is not the most effective method of responding to terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in foreign countries.
It was only after the September 11, 2001, attacks, when the United States responded to terrorism with military force, that the government successfully brought some of the perpetrators of those attacks and the previous attacks to justice. Terrorists who successfully attack U.S. interests are not deterred by criminal investigations. Because members of terrorist organizations that attack U.S. interests around the world are conducting more than a crime, they must be responded to accordingly to be thwarted.
The Administration’s decision to respond to the terrorist attacks with an FBI criminal investigation did a public disservice in two ways. First, it prevented the American public from fully understanding the motivation of the terrorist attacks and the ongoing nature of the threat against U.S. interests in the region. Second, by using a compromised criminal investigation as a justification to initially withhold significant information, it skewed the public’s perception and understanding of the events before, during, and after the terrorist attacks, thereby eroding public trust and confidence in the information the Administration did eventually share and release in the aftermath.
An Inadequate State Department Accountability Review Board Process
The State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB) highlights the “systemic failures” of Washington, D.C.-based decision-makers that left the Benghazi Mission with significant security shortfalls. Yet, the Board also failed to conduct an appropriately thorough and independent review of which officials bear responsibility for those decisions.
After Secretary Clinton determined that the attacks that led to the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and U.S. security personnel, and former U.S. Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods on September 11, 2012, involved loss of life at or related to a U.S. mission abroad,70 she convened an Accountability Review Board, headed by Thomas Pickering, a retired U.S. ambassador, to examine the facts and circumstances of the attacks and to report findings and recommendations.71
The ARB made several findings that are consistent with facts uncovered in the Committees’ ongoing investigations:
1. there was no protest prior to the attack, which was “unanticipated” in “scale and intensity”;
2. there was a “pervasive realization among personnel who served in Benghazi that the Special Mission was not a high priority for Washington when it came to security-related requests”; and
3. regarding the Special Mission’s security posture, there was an inadequate number of DS staff in Benghazi on the day of the attack. [do we mean “was” or “was not”?]
A number of the ARB findings, however, are inconsistent with facts uncovered by the Committees and appear to incorrectly place or imply blame for the attacks:
• The Board determined “systemic failures” in Washington, D.C. led to decisions that left the Benghazi Mission with significant security shortfalls. Specifically, the Board found key leadership failures in the Diplomatic Security (DS) Bureau as well as in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) which led to confusion over decision-making in relation to security and policy in Benghazi. These factors likely contributed to the insufficient priority given to the Benghazi Mission’s security-related requests. The Board’s finding regarding the security decisions in Benghazi, however, was limited to Diplomatic Security professionals and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. The Committees’ review shows that the leadership failure in relation to security and policy in Benghazi extended to the highest levels of the State Department, including Secretary Clinton.
• The Board attemp
ted to shift blame to Congress, asserting Congress “must do its part… and provide necessary resources to the State Department to address security risks and meet mission imperatives.” This finding implies that a lack of appropriations from Congress led to the security decisions in Benghazi. Under direct questioning from Members of Congress, State Department personnel have testified that funding was not a reason for the drawdown of security levels in Benghazi.72
• The Board determined there was no breach of duty by any single U.S. Government employee, citing legal limits on the definition of breach of duty. The Committees find the Board’s determination in the area of disciplinary action especially unsatisfactory, as the Board ascertained the gross mismanagement among senior leadership at the State Department contributed to the inadequate security for the Benghazi Mission.73 The House Foreign Affairs Committee expects to consider anticipated legislation to provide future Accountability Review Boards with the authority to recommend disciplinary action against a State Department employee when misconduct or unsatisfactory performance leads to a security incident.
• The Board also determined the security systems and procedures in place were implemented properly. The Committees are deeply concerned with this determination as extensive oversight work uncovered repeated failures by senior State Department officials to support the U.S. Mission in Libya’s security requests, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that such security was needed.
• The Board echoed other Administration attempts to lay blame for the Benghazi attacks at the feet of the Intelligence Community (IC) by highlighting that U.S. intelligence provided no immediate and specific warning of the attack. A Congressional review of the facts reveals that, while the IC had no awareness of an imminent attack on the TMF in Benghazi, the IC provided State Department officials and others countless reports on the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and the risks faced by U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Analysis of the Accountability Review Board
While the work of the ARB provides some insight into the decisions leading up to the attacks, its report fundamentally fails to satisfy its legislative mandate to conduct a thorough review of accountability within the State Department.
While Secretary Hillary Clinton claimed she accepted “responsibility” for Benghazi, the Committees remain concerned that the ARB neglected to directly examine the role that she and her Deputy Secretaries played in overseeing the gross mismanagement or the “systemic failures” within the Department. The Committees note the Board has failed to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why it did not interview Secretary Clinton or her Deputies. In a similar vein, it is unclear why the ARB report made no reference to Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy’s decision to withdraw a SST from Libya, despite multiple warnings from Ambassador Stevens of a deteriorating security environment. The ARB’s complete omission of the roles played by these individuals undermines the credibility of its findings and recommendations.
The Committees have determined that this Accountability Review Board was staffed by current and former State Department employees. The Board’s reluctance to undertake a more comprehensive investigation, and to make more forceful recommendations, may have stemmed from the fact that the State Department’s decisions and actions were investigated internally, undermining public confidence that the review was objective and conducted by individuals free from institutional bias. The current “in-house orientation” of an ARB may have provided a builtin motivation or prejudice, even for the best-intentioned investigators, to deflect blame and to avoid holding specific individuals accountable, especially superiors. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will soon introduce legislation to increase the ARB’s independence and objectivity. Although the report did provide some helpful recommendations regarding various State Department procedures, the Committees conclude it stopped well short of a full review of the policymakers, policies, and decisions that created the inadequate security situation that existed at the Benghazi Mission on September 11, 2012.
V. The Benghazi attacks revealed fundamental flaws in the Administration’s approach to securing U.S. interests and personnel around the world.
U.S. personnel on the ground in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, responded bravely and honorably, using all resources available to defend themselves and their colleagues against dozens of armed militants. The Committees’ review of the attacks against U.S. interests revealed several policy failures that deserve attention and remediation if the United States hopes to avoid further catastrophes like that day.
First, the attacks revealed the United States’ poor defensive posture in North Africa and the Near East. The Committees are concerned that the Administration positioned the nation’s military assets in the region and established force protection requirements for U.S. personnel in Libya based, in large part, on the absence of specific, tactical intelligence warnings of an imminent attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. This decision did not properly account for the generalized threat posed by al-Qa’ida-affiliated groups and other extremists, the many attacks that had already occurred in and around Benghazi, or the dynamic and evolving nature of these groups.
The attack also demonstrated the limitations of the U.S. military capability and capacity to respond to “Benghazi-style” attacks in the region. The strategic posture of U.S. AFRICOM requires continued focus and oversight. While the Defense Department contends that a dedicated AFRICOM special operations force could not have arrived in time to assist the efforts on the ground in Benghazi, the force’s response time would have been dependent on the precise position of those assets and whether enablers were immediately available to such a force. There is a critical link between U.S. forward presence in Europe and the military’s ability to respond to contingencies in Northern Africa in particular, and the broader Middle East, in general. Additional cuts to U.S. force posture within EUCOM will likely undermine AFRICOM’s ability to conduct operations on the continent.74
Second, the Administration failed to acknowledge a deteriorating security environment and respond to the extensive body of intelligence reporting that did exist. The IC collected considerable information about the threats in the region, and disseminated regular assessments warning of the deteriorating security environment in Benghazi, evidenced by previous events targeting American interests, facilities, and personnel. Despite ample warning, the Administration simply failed to provide adequate security arrangements to reflect the level of known risk and threats faced by U.S. personnel in the region. Moreover, in response to the intelligence available and in anticipation that a terrorist attack could occur on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the military apparently raised its force protection levels at regional military installations. But the military did not increase its readiness or posture assets to respond to unforeseen events. The Administration’s lack of sufficient consideration of the broader security and political context continues to lend doubt to the U.S. Government’s ability to respond to, or prevent, the next attack on U.S. assets and interests in Libya and the region.
Third, the attacks highlight the failure of the Administration to properly plan for the post-Gadhafi environment. After the U.S.-backed Libyan revolution resulted in the end of the Gadhafi regime, the Administration failed to provide sufficient U.S. security elements to protect U.S. interests on the ground. Despite repeated requests for further security by U.S. officials working in the high-risk, high-threat environment, requests were denied by senior leadership at the State Department. Moreover, the Administration does not have a clear policy that defines U.S. interests or a strategy designed to comprehensively secure U.S. interests in the region and achieve U.S. policy goals. Thus, the Administration was willing to provide necessary force to expel Gadhafi in support of the Libyan opposition, yet it simply failed to provide sufficient protection for the U.S. personnel and interests that remained.
Fourth, the events after the attacks present similar concerns. The FBI was seriously hamstrung in
its ability to quickly access the Benghazi site, and its investigation and interview of key witnesses were too slow. The Administration did not ensure adequate security for a swift, thorough, and accurate FBI investigation. It should have considered deploying other non-civilian agencies to perform the mission. A civilian investigative team is not the most effective resource to investigate a national security attack in an unstable region with inadequate security.
Fifth, the Administration perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration by minimizing the role played by al-Qa’ida-affiliated entities and other groups. White House officials directed that talking points be changed to protect the reputation of the State Department, highlighting the overall desire to dismiss the continued threat posed by al-Qa’ida-affiliated and other extremist groups in the region. Specifically, the facts reveal that the talking points were modified to remove references to likely participation by Islamic extremists. They were also altered to remove references to the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya, including information about at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including a June 2012 attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. It is clear that the State Department expressed concerns–and was backed by the White House–that the information be removed to avoid criticism for ignoring the general threat environment in Benghazi.
