Why No ARB For the Sonic Attacks in Cuba?

Five members of Congress, three of them Florida Republicans — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo — plus West Virginia Republican Alex X. Mooney and New Jersey Democrat Albio Sires, have sent a letter to U.S. Comptroller-General Gene Dodaro asking for a report on the sonic attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba. As U.S. Comptroller, Dotaro heads the Government Accountability Office.

Among other things, they asked whether an Accountability Review Board was convened to identify vulnerabilities in the State Department’s security programs, and if not, why not?

Good question. Given that employees were reportedly harmed by the mysterious attacks, an ARB could be warranted.

One Week After, Details Keep Emerging

AP photo from video, minutes after the attack in
which Anne Smedinghoff and four others were killed

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 As Domani Spero asked just the other day, can it possibly get any worse than this? I think it could very well get worse, if and when the public gets the results of the on-going FBI investigation into the attack, or those of any investigation the Defense Department may be conducting.

It's quite bad enough already, judging by the details that have come out so far. Let's see ... the book donation visit to the Sheik Baba Metti school by a team from the U.S. Embassy and PRT Zabul was announced to the press one day in advance. But, despite that lack of operational security, the team was allowed to walk to the school from the PRT's base at FOB Smart rather than use protected vehicles. The roughly 100-meter long route to the school evidently wasn't swept before the team's walk, or blocked to traffic during the movement. The team's military escort didn't know which gate to use to enter the school - a school that the PRT itself funded and regularly visited - which required the team to double back to FOB Smart and further expose themselves to attack.

Lastly, the attack reportedly involved a roadside bomb as well as a suicide driver in a bomb-laden vehicle. If that's true, it means that the Taliban were able to plant a command-detonated bomb in the street immediately outside FOB Smart despite the surveillance that street was undoubtedly under by both the U.S. and Afghan military.  

The latest details come from an Associate Press story today which quotes an anonymous State Department official.

A senior State Department [official] familiar with the investigation into the attack told the Associated Press that the group was walking, not driving, from a military base to the nearby school in Zabul Province when the explosion hit.

[snip]

The official was not authorized to speak to the news media and provided the details on condition of anonymity.

[snip]

The official said on-foot travel for the group was approved because of the short distance — about 100 yards — between the base and the school compound, and was in keeping with past visits to the site, which also houses an Afghan Ministry of Agriculture office.

Because of the proximity, the group would have had to get out of their vehicles at the military base, the official said.

He said the group took the shortest and most direct route from the base but was told on arrival that the entrance they wanted to use, and had been used previously, no longer provided access to the school.

The group was moving past the military base to another entrance to the compound at the time of the explosion, apparently from a suicide car bomber. That was followed by a second blast, apparently from a roadside bomb.

UK Guardian graphic

Why was the team allowed to walk to the school? Why was that short transit from the FOB to the school so badly planned? Why didn't anyone notice an explosive device planted seemingly right outside the FOB's perimeter wall? Will any official body be convened to ask these questions?

The regulations governing Accountability Review Boards have a limited exception for incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I assume one will not be convened in this case. (I cannot find a citation extending that exception into 2013, but maybe there is one and I'm just not looking in the right place.)

However, the State Department seriously needs an independent review here, not least for reasons of Congressional relations. It would be well advised to convene one, ideally in conjunction with the Defense Department. 

Fortress Embassies Are Back In Fashion

Photo courtesy Art in Embassies Program

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I'm trying to remember where I put my hardhat and steel-toe safety boots, because all the indications are that the State Department is about to go on another new embassy construction binge.

A key recommendation in the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report was that Congress revive the moribund Capital Security Construction Program by ramping up its funding to compensate for loss of purchasing power since the program was created in 2000. As Admiral Mullen noted during the ARB press briefing, since 2000 the new building program "fell off from 10 buildings - 10 new embassies a year to three, tied to budget constraints, et cetera," and the Board believes it should go back to that original target:

Recalling the recommendations of the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam ARBs, the State Department must work with Congress to restore the Capital Security Cost Sharing Program [here] at its full capacity, adjusted for inflation to approximately $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2015, including an up to ten-year program addressing that need, prioritized for construction of new facilities in high risk, high threat areas. It should also work with Congress to expand utilization of Overseas Contingency Operations funding to respond to emerging security threats and vulnerabilities and operational requirements in high risk, high threat posts.

We'll see whether or not Congress actually appropriates that $2.2 billion for more new embassy construction. The political winds are not blowing in the direction of more spending these days. It's just as likely Congress will instead allow reprogramming from other accounts, which would let them check the 'I-voted-to-improve-embassy-security' box while at the same time not giving the Department a budget increase.

If State really does get more money for embassy construction, I think it will come as a mixed blessing to many in OBO and to their fellow fans of embassy design in the larger architectural community. They were still celebrating the liberation of Art from the shackles of Security by means of OBO's new design excellence program when last September's embassy attacks occurred. Critics of Fortress Embassies could see the writing on the wall after that, and they didn't like it the least little bit.

Consider their disappointment. After twelve years of mass-producing standardized diplokitsch (see the mugshots here) they were finally about to get back into the real design business. And the cherry on top is that the incoming SecState is himself a leading critic of Fortresses who has said this of the post-2000 new embassy construction program:

“We are building some of the ugliest embassies I’ve ever seen,” Senator John F. Kerry said in 2009. “We’re building fortresses around the world. We’re separating ourselves from people in these countries. I cringe when I see what we’re doing.”

All the stars were lining up for a return to the sublime and mysterious architectural values of the era before the now-departed General Williams set OBO on a more mundane course after the East Africa embassy bombings. Now that we are back in post-disaster mode, OBO must once again turn out more new buildings, and I think design excellence will take a backseat to security and numbers. Less quality, more quantity.

Can OBO go back to grinding them out Williams-style after they've done Beijing? I'll be interested in seeing whether this subject comes up at Senator Kerry's confirmation hearing.

A Futile Exchange of Letters On Benghazi, But A Bit Of News About The ARB

Well, that was fast. The Department has already responded to Chairman Issa's letter of earlier today with his several questions about security matters in Benghazi.

True, Hillary sent a non-answer answer, but that's all you would expect at this point. Things won't get real until Issa's committee holds hearings with Department witnesses.

One bit of news (to me, anyway) in her letter was the identification of the members of the Accountability Review Board. They include Richard Shinnick, a retired very senior management officer who served as Interim Director of the Office of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) a few years ago, where he picked up the pieces after General Williams marched off to do whatever it is he's doing now.

Mr. Shinnick (it is a mark of my regard for the man that I always think of him as "Mister" Shinnick) was a New York City firefighter before he became an FSO, and I remember him as a pillar of commonsense and good judgment back in the era of the first big push to increase security of our overseas missions during the late 80s and early 90s. 

I was a callow youth working as a contractor in DS then, and was often sent to handcarry policy memos around to Department big-shots for their clearance. I got a frosty reception from many of them, since they tended to see the emergence of security standards as a zero-sum game in which any Diplomatic Security gain was a loss for their Office or Bureau. But Mr. Shinnick was always polite and reasonable, and he would spend his valuable time discussing whatever the issue at hand was while he read and initialed my bundle of memos. He gave me a candid education in how the Department and its interoffice politics worked, especially as regards DS and OBO. You don't forget that kind of thing.

I already thought Ambassador Pickering was an excellent choice for Chairman. Now, with Mr. Shinnick on board, I think this ARB might actually come to some useful conclusions about how we should proceed with overseas security in the aftermath of the Benghazi incident.