The RAND Corp Reports on Durations of Attacks on Western Diplomatic Facilities

The RAND Corporation published an interesting little report last week that has quite a bit of relevance to the physical security of U.S. diplomatic missions. Read it here: Seizures of Western Diplomatic Facilities, Historical Timelines, 1979–2019.

It addresses these research questions:

What were the durations of attacks on Western diplomatic facilities since 1979, and how much advance warning was there of each attack? And,

What implications do historical timelines of duration and advance warning of attacks on diplomatic facilities have for efforts to respond to such attacks?

The report found there have been "33 successful seizures of Western diplomatic facilities since 1979 ... The majority of attacks culminated in two hours or less, and over 90 percent culminated in six hours or less ... the median attack duration was four hours, and the average was 4.8 hours." 

Mind you, those incidents were not only at U.S. diplomatic missions. My general sense of the history of these things is that you'd see a longer average duration if only U.S. missions were considered.   

RAND supposes that "the lengthening of this [attack] duration could offer wider windows of opportunity to intervene," such as, intervention by U.S. military forces. Hum. Does that sound likely?  

RAND is the Defense Department's think tank, so far be it from me to question whatever they say about the chances of U.S. military intervention to an attack underway at a U.S. diplomatic mission. But, I can legitimately point out that the last time there was such an intervention was in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Can you think of another? I can't. 

There was an attempted intervention in Iran in 1979 - operation Eagle Claw - but it failed. There has not been another one since, and for what should be an obvious reason. The U.S. military is not a police force, and a U.S. embassy cannot just call 911 and expect an immediate response from the SWAT team. 

The closest thing to a military SWAT team is the Crisis Response Force (formerly known as the Commander's In-Extremis Force) and those, as we learned from the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report, are prepared to respond to a crisis within six hours. On the night of the Benghazi attack, the closest In-Extremis Force was training in Zagreb, Croatia, and the attack was long over before they could have arrived.      

The realities of time and space make it completely unrealistic to expect a timely intervention from the U.S. military to an attack underway at any of the 270+ U.S. diplomatic missions around the world. The Select Committee on Benghazi heard testimony from both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to that effect. Does anyone doubt it? If so, then I think you read too much Tom Clancy and play too many video games. 

All that said, please do read about The China Relief Expedition Joint Coalition Warfare in China Summer 1900, which is even better than the Charlton Heston movie version.  

Did Gowdy Land a Glove On HRC After All?

Official or unofficial? No HRC email for that day has been released

Maybe Trey Gowdy managed to inflict a political wound on Hillary Clinton by accident. Not with his 800-page report full of of rehash and bombast, but with the incidental finding that Hillary had conducted all of her official SecState business over a private email server.

The New York Times story on the Benghazi Select Committee's final report makes that point (Unscathed by Report, Hillary Clinton Faces Emails as Final Benghazi Chapter):

A much shorter report issued last month by the State Department’s inspector general was arguably a bigger blow to Mrs. Clinton’s credibility than this one. It confirmed that her email arrangement violated State Department rules, showed the lengths to which her aides went to avoid setting up a proper account for her and disclosed that her home server was hastily shut down at least once because of fears it had been hacked.

That OIG report is non-partisan and has a dispassionate, measured, tone. Quite possibly, it presents a bigger political problem for HRC than anything Trey Gowdy accomplished in over two years of trying.

Rep. Gowdy Delivers His Report

Delivers, like Deliverance. See what I did there?

Well, that didn't take as long as I'd expected it would. Representative Gowdy released the Select Committee on Benghazi's Proposed Report just one day after the Committee's minority side released its own prebuttal.

It's only a proposed report at this time, meaning that the minority side will have the chance to review and comment before the full committee votes the report out. There's no telling when that might be, however, since the two sides don't seem to be on speaking terms.

For potential political impact on the 2016 election, see the last section of the report, Proposed additional views of Representatives Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo, which has a fairly devastating "Public vs. Private Timeline" of Hillary Clinton's conflicting statements in the days after the attack. Starting on page 18.

See also the astonished reaction of NEA Bureau officials to UN Ambassador Susan Rice's performance on all five Sunday talk shows on 16 September during which she absolutely insisted the attack in Benghazi was a spontaneous mob reaction incited by the Innocence of Muslims video.

On Monday, September 17, 2012, some State Department officials reacted with shock to Ambassador Rice’s claims. Specifically, the Department’s NEA Bureau press department—the experts on Libya—reacted with disbelief. The discussion began with NEA’s Senior Libyan Desk Officer reacting to draft press guidance that quoted the CIA talking points by saying, “I really hope this was revised. I don’t think we should go on the record on this.” This led to the Deputy Director, Office of Maghreb Affairs, NEA saying, “Not sure we want to be so definitive[,]”

NEA Spokesperson: The horse has left the barn on this, don’t you think? Rice was on FIVE Sunday Morning shows yesterday saying this. Tough to walk back.

Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, NEA: [Nuland] planned on walking it back just a bit, though.

Senior Libyan Desk Officer, NEA: I think Rice was off the reservation on this one.

Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, NEA: Yup. Luckily there’s enough in her language to fudge exactly what she said/meant.

NEA Spokesperson: Off the reservation on five networks!

Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, NEA: [White House] very worried about the politics. This was all their doing.

The White House was very worried about the politics? What's new about that? We are all very worried about the politics, aren't we? White House and Congress, majority side and minority, Trump and Clinton. It's what we all have in common. To quote Elwood Blues: remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive, and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same. You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody.

If Rep. Gowdy Hears Banjos, Will He Paddle Faster?

I'm reading through the report by the Democratic side of the House Benghazi Select Committee, and so far the best stuff is toward the end, where the minority Members unload on Chairman Gowdy.

For example, there is this list of the various unmet deadlines that Representative Trey Gowdy has, over the years, announced for completion of the Committee's business.

Chairman Gowdy has repeatedly postponed his estimates for when the Select Committee would conclude its investigation and issue its final report:

• In August 2014, Chairman Gowdy stated that he planned to complete the investigation by the “end of 2015.”
• In April 2015, Chairman Gowdy stated that the Committee’s report would not be issued until 2016.
• In January 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated that he would finish interviews “within the month.”
• In March 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated that he would release his report “before summer.”
• In April 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated that his target date was “mid-June.
• In May 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated the Select Committee’s work would conclude “before the conventions” in mid-July.

Do you think he'll keep that last promise to conclude by mid-July? Me neither. But he has to end this thing someday, and just maybe today's minority report will motivate him to paddle faster.

I like the recommendations at the end of the report, many of which address the need for Congress to keep budgeting for all the other recommendations that have already been made by the Benghazi Accountability Review Board and other parties.

Most of that funding pays for the continuation of the Capital Security Construction Program, which replaces old and vulnerable diplomatic facilities with purpose-built and secure new buildings. The recommendations section includes this highly pertinent quote from the testimony of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs:

Then there is there is [sic] the macro [funding] question, Congressman, and that is that the best defense is ability to construct the new facilities that you have provided us additional funds for. Subsequent to the attack on Benghazi there was a major attack on our compound in Tunisia and there was a major attack on our compound in Khartoum. Those buildings held out and not a single American was killed or injured for over 8 hours until host nation security forces mobilized to defend us. But those building, in Khartoum and in Tunisia, were the new, modern buildings that we have had the assistance of the Congress and the funding to build. It is just that on a macro sense, because of the increase in the value of the dollar and because of inflation worldwide, the program that we started after Nairobi and Dar es Salaam [were attacked in August 1998] we were building eight Embassies a year then. Because of the decrease in funding we were building three.

Building more Fortress Embassies isn't the answer to every overseas security problem. But it could very well be the solution to the problem of surviving prolonged incidents of political violence, with our own resources, until our host governments become willing and able to intervene. Isn't that enough?

A Review Of A Movie I Haven't Seen

I have not seen 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. But, do I really have to see it in order to post something about it? Naw.

Someone who has seen it wrote a very good piece for the military veteran website Task and Purpose refuting the movie's inaccuracies and distortions. Being a former Marine Security Guard, he gets his information from real life rather than Tom Clancy novels and Call of Duty video games, so he knows whereof he speaks. See As A Former Embassy Guard, Here’s What I Know ‘13 Hours’ Got Wrong. Highly recommended if you plan to see the movie.

Something else I highly recommend is background information on the CIA's Global Response Staff, the employer of those protection contractors in Benghazi. See this WaPo article from 2012 for a description of the GRS.

Above all else, read the Vox piece on how Michael Bay's 13 Hours promotes some of the worst Benghazi conspiracy theories. While the movie is a good action flick for teenage boys - which Michael Bay freely admits is what he makes - it ends up feeding fantasies and conspiracy theories. See this quote:

The point is not that this narrative is overly simplistic and wrong — of course it is — but rather that in trying to wedge the real-life story into this box, Bay ends up distorting what happened in ways that could end up misleading millions of American viewers who are still trying to figure out what happened in real-life Benghazi and how to feel about it. It also ends up dovetailing, deliberately or not, with some of the most common and most persistent conspiracy theories about the incident.

That is the heart of the matter. “No one will mistake this movie for a documentary,” a CIA spokesperson told the Washington Post, but he is quite wrong. Dramatization beats disembodied narrative every time. The public - voters - get their information about current and historical events from entertainment media and will indeed think that they watched events in Benghazi happening before their eyes. You could ask Senator Tom Cotton whether or not the movie validated his unfounded beliefs about what happened.

Regarding those most common and persistent conspiracy theories, Vox included links to the main Senate and House investigative reports on the Benghazi incident, which make for good reading on this snowy weekend. The Senate Intelligence Committee report directly contradicts the main dramatic moment in 13 Hours, which is the charge that the protection contractors were ordered by the Benghazi Chief of Base ('Bob') not to respond to the attack on the Special Mission Facility. Did not happen. See pages 4 and 5 of the report.

The House Armed Services Committee report says the same. Furthermore, it explicitly refutes the movie's other big dramatic theme, which is the purported withholding of U.S. military air support during the incident. At least one of the protection contractors says air support was available. On the other hand, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general who commanded U.S. Africa Command, and other general and flag officers and senior civilian defense offqicials have testified that it was not. You may decide for yourself which is the more reliable account.

This conclusive rebuttal of the air assets myth is on page 19 of the House report:

The Department of Defense had no armed drones or manned aircraft prepared for combat readily available and nearby on September 11. Secretary Panetta told the Senate in February 2013 that armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), AC-130 ground attack gunships, or other similar planes “were not in the vicinity.” Mr. Reid echoed this to the House Armed Services Committee in May 2013 when he declared “[g]iven the time and distance factors involved, dispatching an armed aircraft to Benghazi was not an option available to us at the time." As the result of a specific request from the committee, DOD accounted for the location of each of its AC-130 aircraft in the military’s inventory, DOD reported to the committee that no AC-130s were in the region in the days before the Benghazi attack, including for maintenance, crew rest, or merely transiting through the area. However, DOD also reported to the committee that some of these planes were deployed to “southern Europe” on September 14, in order “to support operations in North Africa.” Similarly, the U.S. Air Force F-16 fighters stationed at Aviano, Italy at the time were configured for training flights. None were on combat alert. Furthermore, unlike typical preparations during the Cold War, NATO allies also had no planes on war-fighting status. This meant other nations could not offer combat aircraft to respond on behalf of the United States.

It should not be surprising that no fighters or gunships were available. Tom Clancy aside, the U.S. is not perpetually at war with every country on earth. And that is before you consider the realities of time and space, logistical limits, manpower availability, the need for intelligence preparation, the wisdom of sending flights over a country where there were thousands of loose MANPADS, and other such grown-up things.

But, sadly, none of that outweighs the evidence of video games where airstrikes are always just a mouse click away. The public will not be convinced otherwise after they've personally seen 'Bob' tell our heroes to stand down.

Is 'The Benghazi Chill' Lifting in Washington?

I'm amazed that this article got published, especially in an election year.

A reasonable discussion of risk-aversion and diplomatic missions? One that doesn't make ridiculous statements about the Benghazi attack? And, most of all, one that suggests Washington politics is to blame for hobbling our efforts to advance our national interests overseas?

Read it here: Benghazi chill ripples through State Department:

A survey of 1,600 active-duty State Department employees released in April by the American Foreign Service Association found that more than half believed that "post-Benghazi, it is now more difficult for employees to effectively engage overseas." Twenty-five percent of diplomatic security agents said the same thing.

Hear a voice of reason:

The job “has always come with risk, which we are fully prepared to accept,” said Barbara Stephenson, the head of the American Foreign Service Association and a 30-year veteran of the Foreign Service.

“What we ask in return is a dedicated effort to mitigate danger where possible,” she added, “including through providing the resources needed to accomplish our mission safely while serving abroad.”

And the icing on the cake is a prediction by my favorite adult in the room, Ambassador Ronald Neumann:

“Rightly or wrongly, it has become a political issue for the Republicans,” said Neumann, the former ambassador to Afghanistan, who has been appointed to top posts by presidents of both parties.

“But I think it has made the issue of casualties so sensitive that that may carry over into the next administration — whichever party it is.”

Surely, the issue of casualties will remain sensitive. But, could this discussion be an indication that the political establishment is finally about to recover its equilibrium, and may be ready to once again accept the reality that diplomacy is an inherently risky enterprise?

Beyond Capitol Thunderdome: Can't Anybody Read?

I mentioned this before, on the evening of the first day of the marathon Benghazi Select Committee hearing - or was there only one day? It seemed like more - but it continues to bug me that there is so much confusion over the rather important question of whether or not the SecState waived legal requirements and security standards for the facility in Benghazi.

The mistaken impression that Hillary Clinton either waived or failed to waive the requirements of the law pertaining to the Special Mission facility in Benghazi appears to have set in as one of the few gotchas to come out of the hearing. That impression is mistaken because SECCA applies only to overseas diplomatic facilities that have been notified to the host government as diplomatic premises, such as chanceries and consulates. The policy for applying SECCA is established in Foreign Affairs Manual 12 FAM-300, which is publicly available. According to the report of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) - which is also publicly available - the facility in Benghazi was not notified to the host government as a diplomatic premise, therefore the law did not apply and it did not require a waiver.

Anyone interested in this matter can read 12 FAM 300 for himself and see what I'm talking about. Here's a tip: read the entire thing starting from the top, and don't skip the part that states how diplomatic facilities are defined for the purpose of applying SECCA. For some reason, journalists, Congressional staffers, and commentators who quote from it, are skipping ahead to the part they like, where the SecState has waiver authority that may not be delegated, and ignoring the all-important bureaucratic minutia of 12 FAM-313, paragraph b.

But what do I know? Here a report from Breitbart which quotes the back-and-forth between Rep. Susan Brooks and Hillary Clinton that constitutes the smoking gun of this false allegation:

Brooks asked, “Congress passed something referred to as SECA, the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act, which requires the secretary of state to issue a waiver if under two conditions if US government personnel work in separate facilities, or if US overseas facilities do not meet security setback distances specified by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. the law specifies that only the secretary of state may sign these waivers, and that requirement is not to be delegated. Was a waiver issued for the temporary mission in Benghazi, and the CIA annex after the temporary mission compound was authorized through December of 2012? And did you sign that waiver, Madame Secretary?”

Hillary answered, “T think that the CIA annex, I had no responsibility for, so I cannot speak to what the decisions were with respect to the CIA annex.” She did acknowledge she was responsible for the temporary mission compound before continuing, “I had no responsibility for the CIA annex, obviously. The compound in Benghazi was neither an embassy nor a consulate. Those are the only two facilities for which we would obtain a formal diplomatic notification, and those were the only kinds of facilities that we would have sought waivers for at the time, because we were trying to, as has been testified to earlier, understand whether we were going to have a permanent mission or not. That means you have to survey available facilities, try to find a secure facility, and the standards that are set by the inter-agency Overseas Security Policy Board are the goals we try to drive for. But it is very difficult, if not impossible to do that in the immediate aftermath of a conflict situation. The temporary mission in Benghazi was set up to try to find out what was going on in the area, to work with the CIA, where appropriate, and to make a decision as to whether there would be a permanent facility. So, we could not have met the goals under the Overseas Security Policy Board, nor could we have issued a waiver, because we had to set up operations in order to make the assessments as to whether or not we would have a permanent mission, whether that mission would remain open, and we made extensive and constant improvements to the physical security, some of which I mentioned before.”

Hillary answered the question correctly, i.e., the Special Mission facility was not a chancery or consulate and those are the only types of facilities that would need waivers. But then she rambled on about other matters until she seemed to be saying that the uncertain duration of the Mission was the main thing.

Another commentator who seems to have poor reading comprehension is Victoria Toensing, who is confused by both 12 FAM-300 and the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report.

This is Toensing's critique of Rep. Brook's inept questioning of the witness - By law, Clinton was required to waive the security in Benghazi and could not delegate that decision:

Repeatedly, the Committee allowed Clinton to claim she had nothing to do with security in Libya. Such requests “were rightly handled by the security professionals…. I did not see them. I did not approve them. I did not deny them.” However, the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999, SECCA, passed in the wake of the 1998 Embassy twin bombings in Africa when Bill Clinton was president, required her to rule on the substandard security in Benghazi.

As with Benghazi, an Accountability Review Board (ARB) for each African bombing was convened. The ARBs faulted the State Department for no accountability for the security in Kenya and Tanzania, and made specific recommendations for future Secretaries of State. But Congress went further. SECCA requires the Secretary to waive any situation where all the embassy buildings are not housed in one facility, as was the case with Benghazi, and states that the decision cannot be delegated.

For a long time, the Committee seemed to be aware only of the ARB language, quoting it extensively while ignoring the statutory mandate. Finally, during the dinner hour, Rep. Susan Brooks broached the issue but clearly did not understand the law. When Sec. Clinton demurred she did not sign a waiver because the Benghazi consulate was “temporary,” Brooks abandoned the subject. But Brooks’ acquiescence missed the point of the law. It was intended to cover such “temporary” facilities.

The Benghazi ARB admitted in its 2013 report that there had been a waiver, describing the Benghazi compound as being “excepted” under the law. Was no one on the Committee aware of that fact? An obvious follow up question: “But Ms. Clinton, who did the ARB refer to when saying Benghazi had been excepted?” And then: “If you did not sign the waiver, who did?” But the Committee let her escape an admission of violating the law by falsely claiming it did not cover a temporary facility.

Toensing is berating the Committee members and staffers for being unaware of this passage in the ARB report:

Another key driver behind the weak security platform in Benghazi was 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. This resulted in the Special Mission compound being excepted from office facility standards and accountability under the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999 (SECCA) and the Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB). Benghazi’s initial platform in November 2011 was far short of OSPB standards and remained so even in September 2012, despite multiple field-expedient upgrades funded by DS. (As a temporary, residential facility, SMC was not eligible for OBO-funded security upgrades.) A comprehensive upgrade and risk-mitigation plan did not exist, nor was a comprehensive security review conducted by Washington for Benghazi in 2012. The unique circumstances surrounding the creation of the mission in Benghazi as a temporary mission outside the realm of permanent diplomatic posts resulted in significant disconnects and support gaps.

Did the ARB Report really say that the SecState, or anyone else, had signed a SECCA waiver for the facility in Benghazi? Is that what the report means by "excepted" from the law?

No. The report clearly states that because the facility was not officially notified to the host government, SECCA did not apply, which resulted in the facility being excepted from both SECCA and overseas security standards.

Sorry, but there is no smoking gun here. And I say that as someone who does not have any personal, professional, or political fondness for Hillary.

Capitol Thunderdome: Two Political Careers Go In, One Comes Out

The House Benghazi Special Committee interviews Hillary Clinton tomorrow in a marathon public session that starts at 10AM and may run into late afternoon. To view it live, watch this space.

It will be Committee Chairman Harold Watson Gowdy III ("Trey") versus Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gowdy gets only one shot, since Hillary has agreed to a single session. When the hearing ends tomorrow afternoon, which one will go home victorious, and which one will just go home?

The Unicorn Eludes Trey Gowdy at Benghazi Hearing #3

I'm normally a 'plague on both your houses' guy when it comes to the U.S. Congress, but I have to say that the Democrat side won hands down at the third hearing of the House Select Committee on the 2012 attack in Benghazi.

There was not much reason for Chairman Trey Gowdy (Hysteric - SC) to call the hearing in the first place. He had only two witnesses, one of whom - the Congressional liaison from CIA - was asked almost nothing, and the other of whom - Congressional liaison from the State Department - served as Gowdy's whipping boy for Hillary Clinton.

Gowdy sang his usual aria of outrage for an opening statement, accusing Hillary State of stonewalling the Committee's requests for more and more documents and witnesses, but that fell flat very quickly when the Democratic senior member pointed out the Committee had waited from May to November before making its first request.

Elijah Cummings (D-MD):

Rather than blaming Federal agencies, we should acknowledge that the reason for the delay lies in the Committee's own actions. The committee waited six months before sending its first request for new documents. Six months. It took the Committee almost a month longer to request witness interviews from the State Department.

Who is stonewalling whom?

The hearing then devolved into accusations of Gowdy's one-sided management of the Committee's business. He has not convened an organizational meeting or created Committee rules, has given no notice to the minority side when the majority interviewed witnesses in private, and allegedly misrepresented to the minority what those witnesses said. He has ignored the Justice Department's concerns that witness testimony could effect its ongoing investigation and even denied, during his flaying of the whipping boy, that Justice has any such concerns. And, he has issued an open-ended request for "all" State Department documents without specifying particular topics, or dates, or facts in contention, or people other than Hillary "seventh floor principals", with the result that no number of documents State can produce will even be enough.

Representative Linda Sánchez (D-Cal) spanked Gowdy good and hard starting at the 54 minute mark of the video above. First, she produced a letter from Justice stating its concerns about witness testimony. Second, she credibly accused Gowdy of withholding witness statements that contradicted his narrative of State Department conspiracies to destroy evidence. Third, she summed up the inanity of holding yet another investigation of the Benghazi attack after eight previous Congressional investigations have found nothing.

Eight months later, our Committee still lacks that scope, transparency, and more than ever the credibility. Now, more than ever, I'm convinced that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are in search of this mythical creature, this Unicorn, and the Unicorn being some kind of nefarious conspiracy and that nefarious conspiracy they're looking for does not in fact exist.

The Unicorn of conspiracy may be mythical, but the political reason for holding Committee hearings through 2015 is quite real, and obvious. Once Hillary announces - if in fact she does - she will have to overcome her disastrous 'what difference does it make' outburst at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2013. Benghazi issues, both real and fictitious, will do major political damage to her campaign.