DS Agent Complaints Boiling Over to News Media, Something to Watch

"Four sources pointed to particular resource challenges associated with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's continued protection. This challenge is exacerbated by sustained threats against Pompeo." https://t.co/gKOvIWS9Xh

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) December 21, 2022

SFRC Hearings for State Department Nominees In Progress Now

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding hearings for State Department nominations today, one of which is for Gentry Smith, the nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security.

If confirmed - which is a given - he will be only the third former DS Agent to ever hold the post.

2018 Budget Request Released; OBO Walks Away Unharmed

The 2018 State Department's 2018 budget justification was released yesterday, and with it a press conference was conducted. There you go, news media! Don't say Silent Rex doesn't ever think about you.

Here's how the request impacts my good friends in the Office of Overseas Buildings Operations.

The 2018 budget request basically cuts the funding for Embassy Security, Construction, and Maintenance, and the much smaller Compound Security Upgrade program, in half. The ESCM request is for $1,142,200, which is $1,731,156 less than last year. Nevertheless, it provides sufficient funding for seven new capital construction projects in some of the dodgiest places on earth. You can see the project list on page 162.

The Compound Security Program goes down to $50,000,000, which is $50.8 million less than last year. That program "funds comprehensive security upgrade projects, major forced entry/ballistic resistant (FE/BR) door and window replacement projects, chemical/biological retrofit projects, and security upgrades for soft targets," it says on page 163.

Here's the Q and A on security funding from the press conference.

QUESTION: Hey. Thanks for doing this. Two quick questions. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is in charge of the appropriations for State, said, quote, “You have a lot of Benghazis in the making if this thing becomes law.” Can you sort of clarify what the funding will be like for Diplomatic Security around the world, for embassy security, and respond to that charge?

MR PITKIN: Sure. This is Doug Pitkin. I’ll start with the security question ... The administration has appreciated the strong Congressional support for the department security programs over the past several years. They also note with appreciation that they fully funded – in addition to the supplemental, they fully funded the previous standing requests for both our embassy security programs and Diplomatic Security for FY17.

However, in looking at FY18, I think we have to recognize that there are significant funds in the pipeline, partly because of the supplemental that was provided in December. Also, for example, OBO, the Office of Overseas Building Operations, has some 53 projects in the planning process and under construction. And so what we’re proposing in FY18 is – essentially is to use some of our current-year money to buy down or apply towards our construction program in FY18. This shows up as a cut or a reduction in the strict budget line as we’ve presented it, but we will still be able to support $2.2 billion in FY18 embassy construction and security upgrades for those posts in the greatest need of such upgrades. And so this, essentially, reflects the fact that we’re taking a slight reduction in capital investments because we have a lot of funding that we – has been previously appropriated.

So that looks like the 2018 request, plus the "significant funds in the pipeline" from current year funding and supplemental appropriations, will equal last year's funding level for new construction and security upgrades. If that budget makes it through Congress, OBO will get away unscathed, at least for next year. 

Political Violence Against Americans in 2016

Yesterday, the same day the Department released its budget justification for next year, it also released the annual report on Political Violence Against Americans in 2016.

To advance American interests and U.S. foreign policy, Diplomatic Security (DS) protects people, property, and information at more than 280 State Department posts worldwide. As a leader in international investigations, threat analysis, cyber security, counterterrorism, dignitary protection, and security technology, DS is the most widely represented U.S. security and law enforcement organization in the world.

Political Violence Against Americans is produced by the Bureau’s Directorate of Threat Investigations and Analysis. Created in May 2008, the Directorate of Threat Investigations and Analysis strives to improve DS's ability to detect and counter threats, and to upgrade the Bureau’s capacity to rapidly disseminate threat and security information to U.S. embassies, consulates, and the private sector.

Introduction

Since its inception in 1987, the goal of Political Violence Against Americans has been to provide the reader with an awareness of the hazards facing U.S. interests abroad by chronicling incidents of terrorism and political violence impacting U.S. citizens and facilities overseas. This publication is not an all-inclusive compendium of acts targeting U.S. interests, but rather a sampling of events involving private Americans and U.S. Government personnel (including locally hired foreign nationals serving at U.S. diplomatic missions), as well as U.S. diplomatic and private sector installations. Whenever possible, the goals and ideologies of those responsible have been included; however, in some cases, incidents have been included despite a lack of clarity as to the motive or direct target, due to the clear intent to cause harm. In addition, some incidents may have been omitted due to their sensitive nature, as have the names of American citizens for privacy purposes.

Read the whole report here. And, the report's Conclusion:

Historically, overseas environments have presented potential hazards to citizens and diplomats of the United States. As our nation’s diplomatic presence and its commercial tourist trade broadened considerably throughout the twentieth century, potential dangers and vulnerabilities increased as well. Over the past quarter-century in particular, the rise of international terrorism and criminal activity has contributed to a worldwide increase in incidents of violence against individuals, organizations, and facilities of the United States. In some cases, U.S. citizens have been victimized randomly; in other cases, assaults appear to have been intentional.

Political Violence Against Americans serves as a reminder that vigilance, preparation, and sensible discretion are valuable safeguards. Reasonable precautions can significantly minimize opportunities for those who would do harm to the people of the United States and its interests.

Throwback Thursday (1991, When DS Just Scraped By)

Gorby closes his speech notes, and resigns

It was a Wednesday, actually, but close enough. On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the last leader of the Soviet Union, and the Red Flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time.

With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government stood down a lot of its national security programs. That didn't last long, and the post-Cold War euphoria is hard to even remember now, but while it lasted serious people questioned how much we needed to protect any of our national assets. The great national security threat we had been countering ever since the Truman Administration - assuming it ever really existed - surely existed no longer, as the thinking went. It was even supposed that terrorism would mostly end now that the Soviet Union would not be around to support groups like the Red Brigades and PLO.

Like I said, it didn't last long, but while it did, the USG cut funding.

See the excellent in-house history of Diplomatic Security for how its programs were affected after 1991.

The urgency to improve security after the Beirut attacks had faded, and for fiscal year (FY) 1988, the Reagan Administration requested $303 million for DS, well below the $458 million anticipated by the Bureau. Assistant Secretary Lamb admitted, “Each post is going to see cutbacks in every [security] program.” The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) set a ceiling of $303 million for DS’s budget in FYs 1989 and 1990 as well. In FY 1990, the total funds available to DS were only $180 million, and DS leaders questioned whether they could fulfill the security responsibilities authorized by Congress … The budget cuts, in part, reflected the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991.

Unlike today, there was no OCO funding back then to eke out the DS budget, but there was its predecessor, the Gulf War supplemental.

Meanwhile, tensions increased between the United States and Iraq during 1990 and 1991 when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the neighboring nation of Kuwait, and DS experienced the odd situation of facing increased demands for its services, notwithstanding cuts in its budget … The Department estimated that it incurred an additional $22 million in expenses for increased diplomatic security and another $11 million in evacuation costs as a result of the [1991] Gulf War. Ironically, Congress agreed to large security supplemental appropriations for Operation Desert Storm while debating a reduction of budget appropriation for DS … The [appropriation] supplementals for the 1991 Gulf War did not arrest the trend of budget cuts and staff reductions faced by DS. DS shifted its goals and philosophy from total risk avoidance, as promoted in the mid-1980s, to reducing risk “to an acceptable level” where possible, i.e. risk management. This shift in approach, DS hoped, would allow it to direct its increasingly limited resources toward its most urgent security needs. DS, together with the Overseas Security Policy Group, undertook a wholesale review of existing overseas security standards.

Security standards are politically sacrosanct things, at least until enough time has passed since the last embassy attack and Congress’ interest dwindles, along with its willingness to appropriate funds.

By the spring of 1991, the budget cuts began affecting DS operations. Lamb’s successor, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Sheldon Krys noted that staffing shortages had forced him to employ front office personnel on protective details. Overseas support positions were not filled, and technical security countermeasures work fell behind. In March 1992, Under Secretary of State for Management John W. Rogers informed the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State that the Department faced a conflict between security measures demanded by its revised security standards and the Department’s ability to pay for implementing those standards.

And so the unavoidable happened, and security programs were reduced to match the resources allocated for them. That situation continued until 1998 and the next round of embassy attacks.

Benghazi and HRC's Culpability, the SECCA Time Around

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Gregory Hicks, the former DCM in Tripoli, now retired, has written an opinion piece for Fox News with the very election-year-sounding title of "What the Benghazi Attack Taught Me About Hillary Clinton."

Far be it from me to defend HRC, however, Mr. Hicks repeats a mistaken impression concerning security waivers that was debunked by the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report (here) but which has been flogged repeatedly by his legal counsel, the frequent Fox News contributor Victoria Toensing (bio here). It ought to be corrected, although of course it won't be so long as it has political utility.

Here are excerpts from Hicks' opinion piece:

Last month, I retired from the State Department after 25 years of public service as a Foreign Service officer. As the Deputy Chief of Mission for Libya, I was the last person in Tripoli to speak with Ambassador Chris Stevens before he was murdered in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on our Benghazi post. On this, the fourth anniversary of the Benghazi tragedy, I would like to offer a different explanation for Benghazi’s relevance to the presidential election than is usually found in the press.

Just as the Constitution makes national security the President’s highest priority, U.S. law mandates the secretary of state to develop and implement policies and programs "to provide for the security … of all United States personnel on official duty abroad.”

-- Snip --

The Benghazi Committee’s report graphically illustrates the magnitude of her failure. It states that during August 2012, the State Department reduced the number of U.S. security personnel assigned to the Embassy in Tripoli from 34 (1.5 security officers per diplomat) to 6 (1 security officer per 4.5 diplomats), despite a rapidly deteriorating security situation in both Tripoli and Benghazi. Thus, according to the Report, “there were no surplus security agents” to travel to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens “without leaving the Embassy in Tripoli at severe risk.”

Had Ambassador Stevens’ July 2012 request for 13 additional American security personnel (either military or State Department) been approved rather than rejected by Clinton appointee Under Secretary of State for Management Pat Kennedy, they would have traveled to Benghazi with the ambassador, and the Sept. 11 attack might have been thwarted.

To digress a bit, that is not really what the former RSO in Tripoli, Eric Nordstrom, said in his testimony to the House Oversight Committee. You can read his prepared statement here courtesy of state.gov.

Let me say a word about the evening of September 11th. The ferocity and intensity of the attack was nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service. Having an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault.

The minority side lead on the Oversight Committee came back to that statement during his question period. You can read it in the hearing transcript:

Mr. Cummings: I just want to go back to something that you wrote in your statement, Mr. Nordstrom, in reference to the question that the chairman just asked you. And I quote you. I am reading from page 2. You said, ``Having an extra foot of wall or extra half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault.''

Did you write that?

Mr. Nordstrom. Yes, I did. And I still believe that.

Mr. Cummings. Thank you.

But back to that misleading impression of HRC's supposed illegality. It concerns whether SecState Clinton did or did not approve a waiver of public law. Hicks wrote:

U.S. law also requires the secretary of state to ensure that all U.S. government personnel assigned to a diplomatic post abroad be located at one site. If not, the secretary — and only the secretary — with the concurrence of the agency head whose personnel will be located at a different location, must issue a waiver. The law, which states specifically that the waiver decision cannot be delegated, was passed after the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa, when deficient security was blamed for that debacle under Bill Clinton's presidency.

The law in question is the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act (SECCA). As anyone can read for himself in the publicly available online 12 Foreign Affairs Manual 310 (right here), paragraph 313 b says:

For purposes of the application of SECCA, a U.S. diplomatic facility is any chancery, consulate, or other office notified to the host government as diplomatic or consular premises in accordance with the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations, or otherwise subject to a publicly available bilateral agreement with the host government (contained in the records of the United States Department of State) that recognizes the official status of U.S. Government personnel present at the facility.

So there it is. SECCA applies only to declared diplomatic premises, which neither of the two facilities in Benghazi were, according to the findings of the Benghazi Accountability Board, specifically in its second key finding (" ... the decision to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility, not officially notified to the host government, even though it was also a full time office facility ... resulted in the Special Mission compound being excepted from office facility standards and accountability under the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act ...").

Mr. Hicks is repeating Victoria Toensing’s misguided deduction from testimony at a Benghazi Select Committee hearing, which I posted about before (here). Maybe she knows better, maybe she doesn't. Either way, this is a politically convenient line in an election year, so it won't go away soon, if ever.

The Nigerian Land Deal That Didn't Happen

Site of Eko Atlantic on reclaimed land in Lagos

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Fox News had a story the other day that purported to catch my good friends in OBO doing underhanded real estate deals at the behest of The Clinton Foundation. Briefly, it was alleged that OBO is acquiring property for a future new construction project in Lagos, Nigeria, as payback to a big-bucks contributor to the Clintons.

State Department sought land deal with Nigerian firm tied to Clinton Foundation:

EXCLUSIVE: Shortly after Hillary Clinton left the Obama administration, the State Department quietly took steps to purchase real estate in Nigeria from a firm whose parent company is owned by a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, records obtained by Fox News show.

On March 20, 2013, William P. Franklin, an “international realty specialist” at the State Department, emailed Mary E. Davis, an American diplomat stationed in Africa, instructing her to “put on Post letterhead” an “expression of interest” by the department in purchasing property at Eko Atlantic, a massive real estate development off the coast of Lagos. Franklin further instructed that the signed letter was to be “delivered to Ronald Chagoury.”

The draft letter, also obtained by Fox News, was undated and addressed to Chagoury care of his firm South Energyx Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the larger Chagoury Group that is spearheading the Eko Atlantic real estate venture. The State Department letter sought, among other things, to confirm that the department could proceed with “acquisition of the real property … [at] the asking price of $1,250 per square meter.”

Overtures to real estate developers from State Department officials scouting locations for embassies, consulates and other diplomatic facilities would ordinarily not arouse interest. But in this case, the budding transaction – never completed, the department now says – raised eyebrows because Ronald Chagoury is the brother and business partner, in the Chagoury Group, of Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-born businessman whom federal records show has donated between $1 and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

-- Snip --

The State Department’s outreach to the Chagoury family, looking to buy property from the brothers, came less than a month after former President Clinton himself toured the Eko Atlantic project – for the second time. The first occasion was the ground breaking, in 2009, in which the former president participated. By all accounts, Eko Atlantic represents a staggeringly ambitious undertaking: the dredging of millions of tons of sand from the sea floor off Victoria Island and the creation of an estimated 3.5 square miles of new land, on which the Chagourys aim to establish what they call a “21st century city … for residential, commercial, financial and tourist development.”

-- Snip --

“A month after Bill Clinton visits a Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury-run land project in Nigeria, the U.S. State Department wants to buy the same land,” said David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group whose litigation against the State Department pried loose the Franklin email and accompanying letter. “Who could be so lucky? A major donor to the Clinton Foundation, that’s who.”

A few things jump out as wrong with this expose. First, no property has been acquired, or even selected. Fox's smoking gun email said that OBO seeks to confirm the asking price, from which all we can conclude is that the Eko Atlantic site is under consideration for purchase.

Second, the property in question is only one of several possibilities that were identified by an outsourced professional real estate search and subsequently narrowed down to a short list by OBO’s site selection process.

Third, the search for property to build on in Lagos has been underway for over five years, as we learned when this matter was addressed during a State Department press briefing, and funds for property acquisition were requested in the FY2013 budget for Embassy Security, Construction, and Maintenance. See page 14 of this budget justification:

The FY 2013 funding will also support the acquisition of sites where NEC [New Embassy Complex] projects are planned in future years. Sites are being sought in Baku, Azerbaijan; Bangui, Central African Republic; Lagos, Nigeria; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Shanghai, China.

So, in fact, the Department did not decide to buy a Chagoury-run property, much less decide to build a new Consulate-General in Lagos, one month after Bill Clinton visited the site.

Now, I will concede that Press Relations Director Elizabeth Trudeau could have been given better media guidance when she discussed this matter at a press conference, but what she said was completely correct.

MS TRUDEAU: So a few points, okay, that I’d like to make of this. As of today, as of right now, we have not contracted or acquired property for a new consulate in Lagos. The site search for a new consulate in Lagos began in 2011, as prioritized by the Capital Security Construction Program. Many of the potential sites under consideration by the department, to include the Eko Atlantic development, were identified by an independent international real estate firm, as is typical in site searches around the world. The Eko Atlantic site was identified, as I said, by an independent international real estate firm in 2012.

The problem was the word "prioritized," which apparently lead the press to assume that OBO has been trying to buy the Eko Atlantic site ever since 2011, when what Ms. Trudeau actually said was that U.S. Consulate-General Lagos became a priority for a new construction project at that time.

Ms. Trudeau would have been better served if OBO had provided her with an explanation of what the Capital Security Construction Program is, exactly. Specifically, that it is a list of 80 posts all of which are prioritized for replacement with new buildings according to their degree of security vulnerability, and therefore Lagos has to wait its turn behind other, higher, priorities before it gets funding.

There is no mystery about the list of top 80 posts. Here is an impeccable short description of the Capital Security Construction Program by Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy - the man himself - in testimony to Congress:

Each year, [Diplomatic Security] ranks all posts worldwide according to their security vulnerability and OBO uses this list to develop its top 80 Posts for the Department’s Capital Security Construction Program. These posts span all regions of the world. Replacement of these most vulnerable facilities is an ongoing effort.

And here is a recent OIG Report saying the same thing:

DS publishes a Vulnerability List, which ranks facilities according to their vulnerability across a wide variety of security threats on an annual basis, as mandated by SECCA. This list is then used to establish the Top 80 list of posts in which [New Embassy Compounds] are needed to reduce security vulnerabilities. The Top 80 list shows which posts are scheduled to receive a NEC. (Footnote, page 32)

SECCA is the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999, which mandated that the Department annually rank-order the top 80 candidates for new embassy construction funding. You can read the relevant text here. It's public law. Like I said, there is nothing mysterious or sensitive about it, and explaining it to the press might have helped Ms. Trudeau get her message across.

Ms. Trudeau's other big talking point likewise seemed to go over the heads of the press. OBO has an extensive and highly structured site selection and due diligence process that does, indeed, take a few years to complete.

"Our site search process, speaking specifically about this but also generally on how we operate, is managed by career real estate professionals in the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations with input from independent real estate firms and other department stakeholders, to include Diplomatic Security and overseas post. Career professionals evaluate and score potential properties under consideration before any property is put under contract. This robust process was followed in Lagos, as it is around the world.

Again, her media guidance could have noted that OBO's very extensive site selection process is spelled out in 15 FAM 470, which is a public source of information the Department makes available online. Hey, Matt Lee, read it for yourself instead of scoffing about how replacing our decrepit building in Lagos "can’t be that much of a priority if it’s taken five years." Is that Foreign Affairs Manual not written in English?

Fox concluded its story with John Bolton, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Fox News contributor, finding this real estate transaction "very unusual."

“The impression left is that there’s favoritism involved,” Bolton said. “And it’s just very unusual in State Department real estate and housing transactions overseas to have this kind of focus on someone with such clear financial connections to even the departed secretary of state. Normally, there’s much more competitive activity involved, [of] which we haven’t seen any evidence from the State Department.”

Well Ambassador Bolton, did Fox News ask for such evidence? Maybe it ought to. I think OBO could provide it.

Just as an aside, let me note that our government’s domestic real estate transactions can also give an impression of political favoritism sometimes. Consider the sweet deal that the U.S. Postal Service concluded with a real estate firm headed by the husband of Senator Diane Feinstein.

CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), of which Sen. Feinstein’s husband is the Chairman and largest individual owner, brokers the sale of thousands of unwanted Post office properties and, by the terms of its contract, gets to represent and profit from both sides of those transactions, the seller and the buyer. Last year the Postal Service's OIG found:

Management continues to allow CBRE to collect commissions from lessors for lease negotiations in addition to payments from the Postal Service based on performance targets for lease renewals. Management also allows dual agency transactions, enabling CBRE to represent and negotiate for both the Postal Service and buyers or lessors. These actions are inherently risky and create conflicts of interest whereby CBRE may not negotiate property sales and lease transactions in the Postal Service’s best interest or may capture opposing party fees from the Postal Service.

Oh, sure, Feinstein’s husband is not the sole owner of CBRE, and the Postal Service contract is a drop in bucket for them, and it was a competitive bid, and so on. You can find exculpatory material here. Nevertheless, if that deal had happened in any foreign country, I’d automatically assume it was corrupt. When it happens here, maybe a softer term for it is crony capitalism.

DS Female Attrition: "How Would You Know If You're Not Even Looking?"

Diplopundit discusses the recent - recent as of a couple weeks ago, as I recall - Sounding Board post by an employee who had attended the Safety Overseas Seminar and encountered what she believed to be incomplete instruction and demeaning behavior. See A Joke That Wasn’t, and a State Department Dialogue That Is Long Overdue.

Much of the Sounding Board post and its subsequent comments were directed towards Diplomatic Security, which has yet to respond in any way, so far as I can tell.

Diplopundit concludes with a question about female recruitment and retention in DS:

We asked the State Department about the gender composition of DSS agents in Diplomatic Security: 90.18% male and 9.82% female. We also asked about the attrition rate by gender at the bureau. Below is what we’re officially told:

DS reports that they do not have information related to special agent attrition rate by gender. They do not keep those statistics, but note that the overall Special Agent attrition rate for 2015 was 3.66%.

The State Department’s DGHR should be able to run these numbers. That’s a very low attrition rate but — don’t you want to know who and why these employees are leaving? If a bureau is overwhelmingly male, and if the entire attrition rate is, for instance, composed of all female employees, aren’t you going to wonder why?

But how would you know if you’re not even looking?

The InHerSight reviews [here] are pretty broad but are troubling nonetheless. The first step in fixing a problem is recognizing that there is a problem. Is there?

Who’s going to volunteer to look into this if we can’t even get S/OCR to respond to a public inquiry?

So less than ten percent of DS Special Agents are female? That seems to match my casual observation. (The percentage appears to be even lower among Security Engineering Officers, I think.) Consider the kinda-sorta comparable percentage of women in the U.S. military, which is 14.6 for the active military and 19.5 percent for the reserves.

Either few women are entering agent classes, or else they're leaving in very high numbers. Whichever it is, I agree that DS and DGHR ought to be interested in why.

Was It All That Bad To Have a Few American Center Libraries Torched? Discuss

A Golden Oldie, USIS Library Karachi

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Two weeks ago the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD) repeated some very old arguments that blame the current decline in public diplomacy programs on the post-1985 creation of security standards for overseas diplomatic missions, as well as the replacement of old embassy office buildings with so-called Fortress Embassies, and - most of all - a 1999 law that prohibits having stand-alone American Centers outside those new embassies without a waiver signed by the SecState. I sympathize with the goal of retaining stand-alone American Centers, but the ACPD's arguments are badly in need of updating and fact-checking.

Which brings me to last Tuesday's post at Whirled View about American Diplomacy: What Went Wrong and What Can Be Done About It? Once again, it seems, those Fortress Embassies are What Went Wrong to public diplomacy programs.

The post 9/11 explosion of fortress embassies [phrasing?] on the outskirts of cities has just exacerbated US diplomats’ inability to function abroad effectively. Diplomacy is foremost about interacting with people - and when diplomats are sidelined to distant suburbs and the people they need to talk with work in the city center and are not welcome in Embassy offices chances are that those discussions and meetings will be far and few between, if they take place at all.

-- snip --

The report [of the Academy of American Diplomacy, American Diplomacy at Risk] ignores America’s fortress embassies but they too are a part of the equation.

What good does it do to have crusader castles and even the most qualified diplomats based in the equivalents of the outer reaches of the universe? True, such embassies provide a single hardened location supposedly easier to defend from terrorists but wouldn’t it be better - perhaps even safer - if certain functions were separated into smaller, less visible but more accessible units scattered throughout a city? Was it even all that bad to have a very few American Center libraries torched over the decades as happened in volatile places like Pakistan years ago but the rest of the larger mission - including the Embassy and Consulates - kept out of harm’s way?

The not-all-your-eggs-in-one basket argument has merit, I think, at least in the comparatively safe places where the host government is capable of providing the U.S. mission with a reasonable level of protection. Where it isn't capable or willing to do so, then all our eggs are better off collected into one big Fortress protected by our own resources.

As for the rhetorical question about torched American Center libraries, well, someone must be kidding. Was it all that bad? Yes, it was pretty damn bad when mobs attacked our libraries in Pakistan in 1979, with loss of lives in every case. And it didn't act as a safety value for the rest of the mission, either, since our Embassy and Consulates were also attacked. The only difference was that the Libraries in Lahore and Rawalpindi were more vulnerable than the rest of the mission facilities, and so they were more easily destroyed. Mobs also tried to burn the Libraries in Karachi and Peshawar, but those were collocated with our Consulate office buildings and the attackers were stopped by massive police interventions.

A survivor of the 1979 attack in Lahore described it to CNN in 2012:

A mob of perhaps 5,000 marched to the American Center, burned it and then marched to the consulate and attacked us. Battled by 300 Pakistani policemen, they burned our cars and tried, unsuccessfully, to burn down the consulate itself -- with us inside. There were enough police to keep the crowd at bay, but not enough to disperse them quickly. After several hours, the crowd left and the police took us out in an armed convoy.

The attack on the Lahore Library was described in detail by one of its local employees, Tanweer Ahmed Khan, in an article he wrote for a USIA commemorative history, Fire and Luck at the American Center, Lahore:

On November 21, 1979, in Lahore, Pakistan, the three American USIS officers — BPAO Douglas H. Smith, BCAO V.Miro Morville, and Program Officer Lester R. Velez — were out for lunch as was FSN Administrative Specialist Mohammad Ajmal Khan. Suddenly, a mob of 5,000 rioters attacked the American Center. At that time, there were no high protective walls, no steel fences on perimeter walls, no guard booths, and no security doors on the third floor where the staff worked.

When the mob first appeared, our security guard in the lobby pulled the steel shutter down to close off the entrance. In response, the crowd tore down the electrical poles and used them to break open the shutters and force their way into the building. Rais-uddin Zuberi, our budget analyst and second in command in the Administrative Section, called Ajmal Khan at his residence and informed him of the situation. Ajmal told him to have the staff move immediately onto the roof of the building, which was the designated safe haven.

What really impressed me at that time was that, within minutes, Ajmal, without caring for his own life, showed up at the American Center building — entering through a back service entrance — to help us out of the life-threatening situation. He masterfully took charge of defending the lives of the 50 staff members and the visiting library patrons, who were afraid to leave the building.

Ajmal led the group to the third floor and then onto the roof. He counted the staff members and asked if anyone was missing. Someone said that Umar Din, a library security guard, was missing. Everyone got panicky. Fortunately, a few of us who had returned from lunch just before the attack had seen Umar Din having lunch at a nearby restaurant. By this time, the crowd was swarming inside the American Center building. They set the lower floors of the building on fire.

The invaders then climbed to the library, destroying books and furniture. Huge black clouds of smoke traveled to our offices on the third floor and then circulated in the air-conditioning ducts. The smoke was so great, they started to jump out of the building. Some of them were injured. After a while, the leaders of the mob announced that all Pakistanis should come down and promised we would not be harmed. However, the Americans would not be spared. Since there were no Americans in the building, we evacuated without any trouble.

Twenty years have passed since this incident, but I still think about what would have happened if an American officer had been with us in the building. None of us would have wanted to leave an American in a life-threatening situation. I always thank God that no American was in the building at that time.

Was that really all that bad? Yes, it was, and it would have been much worse for the U.S. and local employees as well as the Library patrons if the Americans had not been out at lunch when the attack began.

The American employees were present when the American Center in Islamabad was attacked by a mob in 1989:

Five demonstrators were shot and killed Sunday and 80 people were seriously injured when Pakistani riot police opened fire on thousands of protesters attacking the U.S. cultural center here after a demonstration against the British novel "The Satanic Verses" turned into a rock-throwing anti-American melee.

None of the three Americans or 15 Pakistani employees inside the center at the time were hurt, but thousands of dollars in damage was done to the building, which houses an American library and sponsors cultural events designed to reinforce U.S.-Pakistani ties.

"It was a peaceful demonstration that went wrong," said Kent Obee, head of the U.S. Information Service in Pakistan. Obee was inside the building waiting to receive a petition from the protesters when the riot erupted.

A key factor in the survival of our employees in that attack was that the Center had been physically hardened up Fortress Embassy-style by USIA's in-house security element. Nevertheless, five protestors were shot to death literally on the door step of the American Center on that occasion.

Ten years later, the same American Center in Islamabad was fired on with incendiary and fragmentation rockets, injuring a local guard and nearly killing a Library employee. Not long after our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Center was closed - given up on as an indefensible location and a magnet for attacks - and public diplomacy operations moved into the U.S. Embassy compound inside Islamabad's diplomatic enclave, where they basically withered away.

Of course, all that and more happened in Pakistan, and Pakistan is an especially difficult situation. I'd be curious to know how many physical attacks - drive-by shootings, mobs, bombs, arson, and so on - have occurred at all of our public diplomacy platforms around the world over time. I'd be even more curious to know whether those platforms have suffered attacks out of proportion to whatever percentage they are of all U.S. mission non-collocated facilities. If, just to make up numbers for the sake of illustration, they are ten percent of our non-collocated facilities but account for twenty percent of all attacks on those facilities, then that would tell us something about their comparative risk. Couldn't the ACPD collect those statistics? That might help them more than a White Paper full of old arguments when it comes to engaging the State Department on ways to preserve stand-alone American Centers.

To return to Whirled View's post, it concluded with this plea:

Wouldn’t it make more sense for economic and commercial functions to be located in financial and business districts? After all, one fifth of all American jobs now depend on international trade.

A cultural section in an American Center near major educational and arts institutions, information sections close to Fleet Streets and political officers as close to the Foreign Ministries, presidential offices and parliament as possible? Even with the Internet, the most important business takes places directly and confidentially between people - not transmitted to the world via wifi.

In short, “American Diplomacy at Risk” provides the opening for a foreign affairs discussion that needs to begin now. It is nearly 14 years since 9/11. Will anyone listen?

Now, 9/11 had nothing to do with the “explosion" of Fortress Embassies. The Capital Security Construction Program was mandated by a law that was passed in 1999, although it wasn’t until 2001 that new construction kicked into high gear. See this publicly available source of information, pages 11 and 12, for a concise summary of that program. And, even though security was the prime motive, that program also addresses a long-term problem of decrepit and unsafe diplomatic office buildings; ones that are too small, too old, too expensive to maintain, fire traps, and seismic risks. Haiti and Kathmandu are just two posts that have benefited from new offices and residences that didn’t fall down when earthquakes struck.

And by the way, can we please stop exaggerating the remoteness of all those new embassies and consulates? After browsing the nineteen press kits for completed new embassies that are available on OBO's website, I see that few of them describe new missions in distant suburbs or outer reaches of the universe. At least six of those new embassy locations sound like they are very accessible.

In Rabat, the new embassy is located three miles from the city center on a major thoroughfare. In Vientiane it is south of downtown, but with a stand-alone American Center in the downtown core. (How about that? Someone must have requested a waiver of the collocation requirement.) In Belgrade it is south of the city center. In Cotonou “the new Embassy will be located on an 8.8 acre site along one of the town’s main thoroughfares - Boulevard de la Marina. The site is in close proximity to other diplomatic facilities and ministerial buildings near the town center, and 2 kilometers away from the airport and seaport.” In Guangzhou it is in the central business district adjacent to the Pearl River.

Additionally, the new embassy that is now under construction in London is inside the city, although on the edge. In Pristina, OBO is breaking ground on a new embassy inside the central city.

In Mexico City, which is the biggest project OBO has going on after London, the new embassy location is just as centrally located as the current Embassy and American Center. The embassy's press release noted that "the Polanco site was chosen due to its location, with proximity to government offices, services, and major residential areas."

Google maps tells me the construction site is only 4.5 km from the current embassy. Would any prospective Public Diplomacy client in Mexico City find it any harder to get to the New Polanco site than to the current Ben Franklin Library in the Zona Rosa? I can't see how.

Thirty years after the first Fortress Embassies were built, it is high time to acknowledge that OBO has refined the process and greatly improved its product.

In fairness to OBO, it seems that it has listened. Now, it's time for our public diplomacy advocates to say something new.

History of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security

As we lead up to the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1916, the in-house history of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the United States Department of State has been made available in E-Book formats:

The new Diplomatic Security history, professionally researched and written by the State Department Historian’s Office, is an authoritative reference source and an archival record of the many critical duties, milestone events, prominent personalities, and worldwide locations with which DS has been associated over the past century. The first comprehensive, detailed history ever prepared, it is dedicated to the men and women who have served the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and its predecessors – the Office of Security (SY) and the Office of the Chief Special Agent of the U.S. Department of State – from the inception in 1916 up to the present. A Table of Contents and a master Index make the book easy to search for specific information purposes.

Click the link above for MOBI, EPUB, and AZW3 formats, or click this one for the PDF version.

You do realize, of course, that this document makes it possible to reference quite a few Matters of Official Concern from a publicly available source?

Fraudulent Document Training For Icelandic Airlines Pays Off

Iceland's catch of the day (State Dept. photo)

Here's a good-news story, and we can use one now, coming as it does after a week of news about returning jihad volunteers committing atrocities in France and their cleanskin accomplices crossing borders with the greatest of ease.

The U.S. government provides training in fraudulent document detection to foreign air carrier personnel, and this week it got an immediate return on that training. According to a State Department press release this afternoon, Embassy Training for Airline Personnel Yields Rapid Results in Reykjavik: Fraud Suspect Busted with Altered Passport:

Just one day after receiving U.S. Embassy-sponsored training in detecting fraudulent travel documents, an Icelandair ticket agent in Reykjavik, Iceland identified a suspicious traveler with an illicit passport and took action that prevented the imposter from flying to North America.

Elvar, the ticket agent, was among some two dozen staffers of airlines and security firms operating at Keflavik International Airport in Reykjavik who had received the training the previous day from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel.

"Elvar." That's a good Viking name if I've ever heard one.

The CLP [Carrier Liaison Program, see this] session in Reykjavik came after months of planning by the U.S. Embassy’s regional security officer (RSO), a former U.S. Border Patrol agent himself. The RSO notes that there was good reason to bring the training to Keflavik.

“Iceland is fast becoming a significant transit point for travelers flying to Canada and the United States,” he says.

The number of passengers transiting Iceland grew by nearly 20 percent in the first eight months of 2014 compared to the same period last year. Airlines departing Keflavik International Airport currently serve nine U.S. cities. By the summer of 2015, those airlines will provide scheduled passenger service from Reykjavik to a total of 14 major U.S. cities.

-- snip --

Following the airline’s security protocol, the ticket agent allowed the passenger to check in, but alerted the Icelandic Border Police, who arrested the passenger at a departure checkpoint. Icelandic Border Police subsequently determined that the suspicious passenger was a Georgian national traveling on a bona fide Israeli passport, with an altered bio-page. The traveler’s intended destination was Edmonton, Canada.

Now, that was some tax money well spent.

Foreign Affairs Security Training Center Might Get A Home Someday, But Where?

It's Congressional jump ball, VA versus GA

The Foreign Affairs Security Training Center (see the FASTC project fact sheet) has been a vital need in search of a location for many years now. So I was pleased to see a press release by Virginia's Senator Kaine applauding the announcement that Fort Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia, "has been chosen" as the FASTC site.

Wonderful news! Only, nothing followed that announcement. No confirmation, no congressional vote, no funds, not even a press release from the State Department itself. The "announcement" consists, so far, of nothing except a statement made by SecState Kerry:

In response to a question from Senator Kaine last week during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “The Department is 100 percent determined that Fort Pickett is the best site … The coordination with the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community - Fort Pickett is the site.”

Well, now, just last December, U.S. Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia sent SecState Kerry a letter telling him that he knows of a better site than Fort Pickett:

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center can more than handle security training for the State Department and save taxpayers millions of dollars in the process, the congressman whose district includes the center in Glynn County says.

Kingston supports strong training programs for State Department personnel but is opposed to spending an estimated $1 billion on the development of a Foreign Affairs Security Training Center - or FASTC - at Fort Pickett at Blackstone, Va.

- snip -

Funding for a new training facility was included in a budget submitted by the State Department for the new fiscal year in October, but it was taken out after Kingston and members of the U.S. Senate questioned the lack of a feasibility or impact study.

"As you know, a variety of federal agencies have sought to establish new, separate training centers for their agencies over many years - sometimes inspired by members of Congress whose states they viewed as the ideal setting, other times by an earnest desire to provide the best training possible," Kingston wrote Kerry.

Say, Representative Kingston wouldn't be one of those members of Congress who views his own state as the ideal setting for FASTC, would he? I sure hope he's one of the other kind, the earnest ones. I always assume the best of our elected representatives.

I hope Senator Kaine tips this political jump ball his way. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is probably a wonderful place to learn handcuffing skills and such, as you can see from the training programs described here, but that isn't at all what foreign affairs security training is supposed to be about.