Congressional investigators have pieced together a series of decisions that led
State Department officials to inexplicably draw down security in
Libya
last year even as threats and attacks against Western diplomats were
rising in the violent, chaotic city of Benghazi where America’s
ambassador was killed last Sept. 11.
The investigators have determined that between May and September, the
department
reduced the number of Mobile Security Deployment teams from three to
one, thinning the potential U.S. security officers available to protect
diplomats by at least twelve, the Washington Guardian has learned.
In addition, the lone remaining six-member Mobile Security Team in
Libya at the time Ambassador
Chris Stevens
was killed was detailed primarily to training Libyan security officials
rather than providing force protection to U.S. officials, the sources
told the Washington Guardian.
The two-thirds reduction in the
number of special six-member security teams came in addition to
decisions by the administration not to place a Marine security
contingent at the main embassy in Tripoli and to send home in August a
special military attachment that was also providing security for U.S.
officials in
Libya, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the specifics of the
department’s security planning.
The commander of the military team sent home in August has already told
Congress he requested that his team be extended or replaced but his request was denied.
The
dual drawdowns help explain why the U.S. compound in Benghazi and its
visiting ambassador were protected on Sept. 11 only by a few U.S.
security agents and some retired Navy SEALS who worked for the
CIA, a force that fought valiantly but was significantly outmanned by the
al-Qaida inspired terrorists who struck with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. Local
Libya security guards also at the location proved incapable of repelling the attack, officials have said.
At hearings planned for Wednesday, lawmakers in both the House and
Senate plan to confront Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton about the security reductions, which stood in stark contrast to the decisions made by one of America’s closest allies.
British
officials pulled their diplomats from Benghazi after a brazen summer
attack against one of their own, and they had not yet returned them when
the U.S. special mission in that city was attacked the night of Sept.
11, the 11th anniversary of the deadly 2001 terror attacks in Washington
and New York City
In fact hours before he and three other Americans died in the attack, Stevens
reported to Clinton
in a diplomatic cable that he had conferred with British authorities,
and they would not be making a decision on whether to return until at
least October.
In that same cable,
Stevens
painted a portrait of Benghazi that was violent, chaotic and suffering
through constant attacks from Islamist extremists that ranged from car
bombings to explosive attacks on power lines.
Stevens
also warned that the loyalties and capabilities of local Libyan
militias helping to protect U.S. officials in the region were also
increasingly dubious, specifically reporting that one group of militia
leaders had threatened to pull their security if Americans continued to
support a particular candidate for Libyan prime minister.
Stevens’
final, fateful cable was hardly the first sign of deteriorating
security. Congressional investigators have assembled a list of more than
a dozen threats or attempted attacks on Western diplomats in the
Benghazi area in the months before the attack on the compound.
The
prior episodes included a gunfire incident near the U.S mission in
Benghazi in March, an explosives attacks against the compound in June
that blew a hole in a security wall, a grenade attack on the
International Red Cross station in Benghazi and an attack on the British
ambassador’s motorcade in the city.
U.S. officials clearly
understood the deteriorating conditions, congressional investigators
found, because they increased the hazard pay for
State Department officials serving in the region, the sources said. But at the same time, they drew down the security assets sent by both the
State Department and the military.
Obama administration officials declined comment, referring a reporter to the
State Department’s
recent report on the episode. That report cast blame on the entire
agency for keeping a woefully inadequate security posture for the
threats faced in
Libya.
While the primary focus at Wednesday’s hearings will be on the
State Department
bureaucracy, Democrats plan to blame House Republicans for failing to
approve in the recent Sandy recovery bill more diplomatic security
funding for the
State Department.
“I
know from personal experience that there are many thoughtful
Republicans in positions of responsibility in the House who want to do
the right thing,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Tuesday in testing the
new line of attack. “Yet a small but apparently dominant obstructionist
cadre within the Republican ranks seemingly is willing to push the
bounds of irresponsibility to ever greater heights.”
Overall,
Congress since 2007 had increased diplomatic security funding for the
department by about 27 percent, officials have said.
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Republicans
in the Senate today introduced a bill to abolish FEMA, the agency of
the federal government which coordinates responses to natural disasters.
