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.  

Benghazi and HRC's Culpability, the SECCA Time Around

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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.

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.

Friday Document Dump

Okay, technically it's a Thursday, but today is a Federal Friday by Executive Order, so this qualifies as a Friday document dump.

The Director of National Intelligence has made a 'proactive disclosure' of assorted Benghazi-related documents, none of them particularly interesting. You can read them here.

New Freedom of Information Act Request Documents Released by ODNI

December 24, 2015

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is one of seven federal agencies participating in a pilot program to make records requested via the Freedom of Information Act more readily available to the public, as reflected in the recently released Third National Action Plan for Open Government.

Over the course of the pilot, ODNI will note the release of new “proactive disclosure” documents here on IC on the Record. Documents posted to DNI.gov this week include:

- The revocation of American passport of Anwar al-Aulaqi by the U.S. Dept. of State and any criminal complaint by the Dept. of Justice against U.S. citizens Mr. al-Aulaqi or Samir Khan

- All emails and means of correspondence pertaining to the overall situation in and around Benghazi, Libya

- PDDNI memo – changes to the HUMINT Control System (HCS) May 20, 2014

- NCSC Director Bill Evanina’s appointment calendar January January 5-9, 2015

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?

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.

Select Benghazi Committee Holds First Hearing September 17

And awaaaaaay we go!

Summer is over, Congress is back in session, and tomorrow the new House Select Committee on Benghazi will pick up where we left off a couple months ago when it holds its first hearing. The hearing's topic is how the State Department has implemented the recommendations of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board, which seems like an easy one, a little warm-up before the really contentious stuff begins later on.

You can read the ARB report here, and view some additional documents here.

Tomorrow's witness panel will consist of Gregory Starr, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, and two members of the The Independent Panel on Best Practices, an outside panel of experts which critiqued Diplomatic Security operations in response to one of the ARB recommendations.

You can read the independent panel's report here.

The hearing will be on Wednesday, September 17, at 10:00am. You'll be able to view it live at the Committee's website. It will be Safe For Work, I think, although that might depend on where you work.

The Democratic side of the Select Committee has already put up a prebuttal website - Benghazi on the Record: Asked and Answered - to get its spin in place. It has a good collection of links to previous reports and public statements.

It's anybody's guess whether or not the Committee will resist the lure of this week's allegations of 'document scrubbing' by Hillary cronies and stick to its announced topic.

Not Someone Detached From the Details

The House Oversight Committee has released transcripts of its interviews with Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen, co-chairmen of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board. The interviews were conducted on June 4 and June 19, respectively. The Pickering transcript is here, and the Mullen transcript is here.

No big revelations in there, but it is clear the Oversight Committee majority was looking for an opening to go after Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy.

My favorite quote is on page 114 of Admiral Mullen's transcript, in which Mr. Castor, majority Chief Investigating Counsel, questioned Admiral Mullen about the extent of U/S Kennedy's involvement in making decisions concerning Temporary Special Mission Benghazi:

Q: Under Secretary Kennedy is not, by everyone's account, is not someone who is detached -

A: - correct -

Q: - from the details.

U/S Kennedy will be interviewed by the Oversight Committee himself later this week, I believe. Maybe we'll hear more then.

I Strongly Second This Motion

In the wake of today's news about the reinstatement of four mid-level officials who were placed on administrative leave after the Benghazi ARB report cited them for blame, Domani Spero cut to the chase: Dear Senior State Department Official – It’s Time to Go.

I think we all know who that senior official is. So, do we have a quorum? All in favor? All opposed? Overwhelmingly carried with no votes cast against the resolution.

I gladly bang the gavel.
  

The Embassy Security Bill Comes Due, And It's A Bargain

Typical U.S. Embassy Command and Control Hub, I think

I'd be willing to pay more than $1 million for a Command and Control Hub like that, the kind they have in every Tom Clancy-esque movie. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to pay more than a few thousand for a simple guard booth.

Whoever it was who came up with the term "command and control hub" for today's New York Times story (Additional Embassy Guards Will Come With a Steep Price) has a promising future in real estate sales.

I've noticed that the public imagination runs wild when it comes to Marine Security Guards. Almost everyone I know outside the Department, especially including those who have never visited a U.S. embassy, believe every embassy is protected by one or two platoons of Marine infantry who encircle the place to keep foreigners away.

Where do they get these crazy ideas? From movies like The Bourne Identity, in which about 100 Marines chase Matt Damon around the U.S. Consulate in Munich (an exceptionally unrealistic scene, but please enjoy), and Zero Dark Thirty, in which Marines in combat gear are shown outside the gate of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, rifles at port arms, shoving back any Pakistanis who come too close. Those are depictions of a normal day, not a riot or attack, or an emergency evacuation. Just the day-to-day for Marine Security Guards.

No matter how inaccurate that image may be, it will come in handy now that the taxpayers are getting the bill for setting up 35 new MSG Detachments. I predict there will not be one peep of discontent, since the taxpayers know they're getting $1.6 million worth of foreign-ass-kicking value from each of those Marines.

I see two take-aways and one bit of real news from the NYT story. First, the facilities needed to support this expansion - new Post 1 booths and Marine Houses - are where 90+ percent of the costs are. And second, the first new Detachment won't be in place until more than one year after the Benghazi attack, the incident which prompted the build-up. Lesson to be learned: nothing like this happens quickly or cheaply.

The story's last paragraph has the real news, which the Times might not have realized is news. SecState Kerry is quoted as saying that the priorities for Marine Security Guards have shifted, and their first responsibility is now to protect people, not classified information.

Most people probably thought that was always their first priority, but actually, it wasn't. (Indeed, the website of the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group still reflects the former, traditional, mission statement with its emphasis on protection of classified materials.) So now, maybe the public's high expectations of embassy ass-kicking will finally be met.

WASHINGTON — When the State Department fields the first of 350 additional Marine security guards at high-risk embassies and consulates around the world later this year, the price tag will be steep: about $1.6 million per Marine.

Why so much?

It turns out that about $525 million of the $553 million that Congress approved this year to deploy more Marine guards — fulfilling a recommendation of the independent review panel that investigated the attacks last year on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya — is going toward building new command-and-control hubs in the posts and living quarters for the Marines.

The department plans to send 35 new Marine detachments, with about 10 Marines each, to diplomatic posts over the next few years. The first 90 are expected to arrive by the end of the year, officials said.

-- snip --

The financing for the new facilities also covers living quarters, which would include bedrooms and common areas, as well as small gyms and cafeterias. The department prefers that the Marines live on the compound when possible, officials said.

-- snip --

[Department officials] said each of the new command centers and additional housing would be custom-designed, either as part of brand-new embassies or leased housing. The department is in the process of developing specific project plans for each of the new Marine detachments, with the first new facilities to be included in embassies under construction in Laos and the West African country of Benin.

-- snip --

Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday in outlining the recommendations from the investigative panel that the additional Marines would be added to the diplomatic posts that face the highest threats. “We’re making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials,” he said.

Credit WaPo With An Assist

I don't think Jay Carney really needs any help putting his protective spin on the Benghazi talking points story, but the WaPo has his back anyway.

The WaPo's headline about yesterday's White House press briefing is: "Benghazi e-mails show clash between State Department, CIA."

Here are the first two paragraphs:

New details from administration e-mails about last year’s attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, demonstrate that an intense bureaucratic clash took place between the State Department and the CIA over which agency would get to tell the story of how the tragedy unfolded.

That clash played out in the development of administration talking points that have been at the center of the controversy over the handling of the incident, according to the e-mails that came to light Friday.

It's just about two agencies squabbling over who gets the blame, you see. Distasteful, but nothing having to do with the White House.

You have to read 14 paragraphs into the story to find out that "White House officials were directly involved in developing the talking points through discussions with the CIA, the State Department, the FBI, the Justice Department, and elements of the Pentagon."

Let's hope nobody reads that far. Meanwhile, the WaPo will be scanning the sky for bogies while Jay Carney pursues a target.

In the words of @iowahawkblog, "journalism is about covering important stories - with a pillow, until they stop moving."

Talk Is Cheap, And Talking Points Are Even Cheaper

"The White Washing" did not go well

Jay Carney certainly earned his pay yesterday. He must have been dizzy from all that spinning he did for the White House press corps.

"Those were Intelligence Community talking points ... the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive ... this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators ... And if you look at the issue here, the efforts to politicize it were always about, you know, were we trying to play down the fact that there was an act of terror and an attack on the embassy ... I appreciate the question [by ABC’s Jonathan Karl, but] the things you’re talking about don’t go to the fundamental issues.”

I suppose that depends on what you think the fundamental issues are. Now that the mainstream press has discovered the twelve drafts of the Benghazi talking points, they seem to think it is a fundamental issue that Carney has been lying to them telling them untruthitudes for several months.

You can read all 12 drafts here.

From ABC News, Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions:

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were [sic] changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Parse that Official Spokesman language and you'll see that Carney can claim to not be lying, even as he does not tell the truth. To say "the White House and the State Department have made clear" that only a single change was made to those talking points is not the same as saying that, in truth, only a single change was made. If somebody else has been lying, that isn't Carney's concern.

Carney took offense at some impudent questions from the press corps and pointed the finger of blame back at them:

"This is an effort to accuse the administration of hiding something we did not hide - well, at least we aren't hiding it anymore, ever since the talking point drafts were published by ABC News yesterday" Carney said.

I made up that last part about 'we aren't hiding it anymore.' That is, I made a non-substantive factual correction to what Carney actually said. And I advise that you not get all wrapped up in the queston of what I may or may not have changed about what he said, because that would just be a distraction from the fundamental issue here.

The best seven minutes of yesterday's press conference are embedded below.

A Benghazi Witness Who Will Not Be At the Table Wednesday

The House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi that is scheduled for Wednesday promises to be the real deal, with bombshells and whistle blowers and all. Given the professional positions of the three named witnesses, and their essentially apolitical nature, this hearing looks like it will challenge the established narrative of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report.

Chairman Issa previewed some of the expected testimony during an interview on Face the Nation yesterday. (See the embedded video, above.) From the tidbits that have been released so far, it does not look good for at least one particular senior official, one who avoided the consequences suffered by a few middle managers after the ARB report was issued.

At the 10:50 mark of yesterday's interview, in the context of a question about where blame should be placed, Issa dropped the name of Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy, who was "at the center of knowing everything" about Benghazi. At the 11:17 mark, Issa said that Kennedy was "at the table during what we believe at this point is a misinformation campaign at best and a cover up at worst."

U/S Kennedy (right) at October 2012 hearing

Undersecretary Kennedy, of course, testified at the Committee's first Benghazi hearing in October 2012.

I notice that he did not take the center of the table that day. Quite the contrary. In fact, he left a whole lot of room between himself and DS's Charlene Lamb.

A Little Bit Of History Repeating

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

I've just been reading the last chapter in the Diplomatic Security Service's institutional history, which covers the period from the end of the Cold War to the restructuring of DSS into its current organizational form. If anyone in Washington is looking for some perspective on the present, post-Benghazi, crisis in overseas security, I highly recommend reading up on those olden days.

Nothing going on now in response to the Benghazi attack is new, not by any means. Deep cuts in security budgets, reduction of MSG Detachments, tenant agencies considering relocating outside of diplomatic premises in order to get adequate security? Terrorist attacks, review boards,  interagency security assessment teams? Battles with Congress and the Administration over appropriations for new overseas security programs and personnel? We have been there before, most recently in the 1990s.

Reading the history, it's striking how things never really change much. The Assistant Secretary for DS during most of the '90s was none other than Eric J. Boswell, then on his first time around in DS. He found his bureau's budget had been cut back so far that staff shortages left DS “unable to meet our most critical requirements.” Things had gotten so bad by early 1997 that Boswell told the Acting Under Secretary of State for Management that “asking this Bureau to take further reductions … is irresponsible and inconsistent with the intent of Congress.”

And who was the Under Secretary for Management back in that bygone era? Why, Patrick F. Kennedy, of course. Hasn't he always been? At least, I'm having a hard time remembering the last time anyone else held that job.

Back then, as again today, we had some tenant agencies who looked at State's sparse security budget and wondered if they couldn't find more secure facilities if they struck out on their own.

The Department of Defense became highly critical of the cuts to DS. With many military attachés and other military personnel working in U.S. embassies across the globe, the Department of Defense complained that the Department of State “unilaterally” decided to set aside physical security standards when it opened new embassies in the former Soviet republics, the former Yugoslav republics, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Also, Department of Defense officials disliked the fact that the Department of State had withdrawn Marine Security Guard (MSG) units from several posts, and had not assigned MSG detachments to many of the new embassies. The Department of Defense made clear to the Department of State that it was considering three options: “weigh[ing] the risk of operating in less than secure facilities, choosing not to locate in the host country, or, with DOS approval, constructing a DOD facility.” - History of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the United States Department of State, page 345

After the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the Department sent out interagency security assessment teams to look at selected high-threat posts and make urgent security upgrade recommendations. Sound familiar?

The assessment effort was extensive, with each team led by a DS officer and including members from DOD and several other agencies, as well as a specialist from State's Foreign Buildings Operations office. The teams visited 27 posts over the course of about one month and made many good actionable recommendations, including the immediate relocation of operations in Qatar and Dushanbe. But their most significant product was this observation:

In summarizing the ESATs’ [Embassy Security Assessment Teams] findings to Under Secretary Cohen, DS officials confessed that most of the 27 embassies required replacement facilities and that there were limits to what the United States could do to improve existing facilities.

I think that is the truest thing I have ever heard, or will ever hear, from all the interagency security assessment teams past and future. And I like the honest 'bucket of cold water' effect of confessing that we are stuck with the embassy facilities we have until they get replaced. I wonder if anyone will ever say something similarly candid to the Benghazi ARB follow-up bodies that the Department is forming now?

Bottom line: you can harden or reinforce an existing building up to its physical limits, but no further. If you want to ensure an office building can withstand a sustained ground attack, or a Nairobi-sized truck bomb, there is no substitute for constructing one expressly for that purpose. Even applying loads of money, assuming we have it, will not change that reality.

The Crowe ARB report on the Dar and Nairobi attacks was published in an unclassified version, and Admiral Crowe proceeded to light a fire under Congress and the Administration, resulting in an unprecedented level of new overseas security funding:

For its intensified effort, DS received the necessary money from Congress and support from senior Clinton Administration officials. Supplemental funding from Congress not only funded the Surveillance Detection Program and security upgrades at U.S. embassies, it also enabled DS to hire 200 new Special Agents ... 34 new technical security specialists, and 20 new couriers. The hires expanded DS by one-third, and the Bureau numbered more than 1,000. It also increased DS’s presence at overseas posts from 270 people to more than 400 ... The Department reinvigorated the long understaffed Mobile Training Teams and advised all Chiefs of Mission to “personally participate” in as many training sessions as possible. In his 1999 State of the Union message, President Clinton declared diplomatic security a national priority, and asked the nation to give U.S. diplomats the “support, the safest possible workplaces, and the resources they need so that America can lead.” - History of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the United States Department of State, page 355

The biggest of the Crowe Commission's recommendations was a new security-based construction program that targets the most vulnerable embassy facilities for expedited replacement:

The Crowe Commission’s proposal for a capital building program for the Department of State reflected Washington’s new appreciation of the terrorist threat. The Commission estimated that the sustained building program for new U.S. embassies would require $1 billion per year for 10 years, and an additional $400 million per year for security upgrades and new security personnel. The Clinton Administration had already asked for $3 billion over 5 years to rebuild embassies overseas, but budget caps prevented the Department from asking for more. Secretary Albright also tried to convince a hostile Congress to lock in a commitment for the five-year building program. Admiral Crowe now criticized Congress and the Department of State. He said that the Department was being “intimidated by Congress,” and he warned Congress not to appear as if it was “putting money in front of lives on the priority list.” By the summer of 1999, the Clinton Administration increased its request for FY 2000 by another $264 million, and by $150 million a year for the following 4 years. In an attempt to demonstrate the national commitment to security that the Crowe Commission had called for, Congress approved $1.4 billion for embassy security in 2000, more than what the Clinton Administration had requested. - History of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the United States Department of State, page 359

Well played, Admiral Crowe, well played.

And you, Ambassador Pickering, did you see how he did that? First taunt the Administration into asking for more resources than it had planned to do, then threaten Congress with political blackmail if they withhold anything, and in the end they'll appropriate even more new construction money than the $2.4 billion you recommended in your ARB report. Sweet!

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.

Risk Management "Going Forward"

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Well, Official Washington is finally back at work after the holidays. Hillary is scheduled to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee next week, and we may expect her to update them on how she is carrying out the recommendations of last month's Benghazi Accountability Review Board report. In her cover letter transmitting the ARB report to Congress she had stated her intention to have every recommendation well on its way toward implementation "by the time the next Secretary of State takes office," and that time will be real soon now.

So, how is that effort going? "Going forward" was the phrase we heard over and over at last month's hearings. Will embassy security get better "going forward" after Benghazi? Will any real improvements come out of that disaster?

It's all about risk management. Both the Accountability Review Board and the SecState talk a good game about managing risk. From the ARB report:

No diplomatic presence is without risk ... the total elimination of risk is a non-starter for U.S. diplomacy given the need for the U.S. government to be present in places where stability and security are often most profoundly lacking and host government support is sometimes minimal to non-existent ... American diplomats and security professionals, like their military colleagues, serve the nation in an inherently risky profession ... [The] Department should urgently review the proper balance between acceptable risk and expected outcomes in high risk, high threat areas ... [and adopt] an explicit acceptance of those costs and risks that cannot be mitigated.

From Hillary's letter to Congress:

Our diplomats cannot work in bunkers and do their jobs ... we must accept a level of risk to protect this country we love and to advance our interest and values around the world.

All of that is undoubtedly true, but I don't believe they really mean the part about accepting risk. If the Department actually accepted the risks that are inherent in the dangerous enterprise of having diplomatic missions in unstable and insecure places, then it wouldn't be necessary to find someone to blame after an attack, especially a one-off attack like the one in Benghazi, which was of a "ferocity and intensity [like] nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service" as the RSO in Tripoli described it in his written statement to Congress.

At least in theory, it ought to be possible to conclude after a future attack that all reasonable precautions had been taken, and that the damage inflicted on our mission and personnel could not have been avoided short of retreating into those bunkers from which diplomats "cannot work." We'll see if that ever happens.

The Accountability Review Board was just as good on the subject of setting strategic priorities:

At the same time, it is imperative for the State Department to be mission-driven, rather than resource-constrained – particularly when being present in increasingly risky areas of the world is integral to U.S. national security. The recommendations in this report attempt to grapple with these issues and err on the side of increased attention to prioritization and to fuller support for people and facilities engaged in working in high risk, high threat areas.

Risk management, once again. To set priorities means to select, or prefer, or rank-order, some alternatives higher than others, and to allocate resources accordingly. That's the definition of the word "priority" (allow me). A prioritized approach to the security of diplomatic missions will not result in even-handed treatment, or in all missions getting everything they ask for. How likely is that approach to be accepted as we "go forward" after Benghazi? Not so much, I think.

According to Hillary's letter to Congress, the Department will now prioritize resources on a list of about twenty specially designated high threat posts. All well and good. But, if the next attack happens at one of those posts, will we then blame middle managers in an office annex in Rosslyn for not having sent more money and manpower to High Threat Post A and less to HT Posts B and C? And if the next attack happens at one of the 250 or so other diplomatic missions in the world, will we blame the same managers for not having upgraded Post D to the high threat group? And won't every post in the world request every security measure it can think of "going forward" after Benghazi? Yes, yes, and yes. We can prioritize by risk, or we can cover our bureaucratic asses by spreading resources around evenly, but we can't do both at the same time.

By the way, what's up with that very odd term being used to describe those posts of special concern? High threat posts? As Diplopundit has noted, they are not literally the Department's high threat level posts, and the criteria for designating them has not been explained, so far as I know. The ARB used the phrase "high risk/high threat" posts but that's no better, not to mention kind of incoherent if you are a stickler for risk management definitions, since "threat" is only a component of "risk."

Why isn't the Department using the perfectly good term "Special Conditions" posts? That's already an established category of diplomatic post with its own special rules for applying security standards and providing resources under extreme conditions. You can find it in 12 FAM 057.3, which the department has made publicly available here. That would be a step forward in terms of clarity, at least.

The ARB recommendations include all sorts of interesting new resources to be applied to Fortress Embassies and others. I'll post some thoughts on all of that in a day or two.

Benghazi ARB Report Released; Finds Fault, Calls For More Resources

The Department released the unclassified version of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board report tonight. You can read it here.

Many of the report's recommendations come down to calling on Congress to provide more funding for security personnel and secure facilities. See this key paragraph from the report's introduction:

For many years the State Department has been engaged in a struggle to obtain the resources necessary to carry out its work, with varying degrees of success. This has brought about a deep sense of the importance of husbanding resources to meet the highest priorities, laudable in the extreme in any government department. But it has also had the effect of conditioning a few State Department managers to favor restricting the use of resources as a general orientation. There is no easy way to cut through this Gordian knot, all the more so as budgetary austerity looms large ahead. At the same time, it is imperative for the State Department to be mission-driven, rather than resource-constrained – particularly when being present in increasingly risky areas of the world is integral to U.S. national security. The recommendations in this report attempt to grapple with these issues and err on the side of increased attention to prioritization and to fuller support for people and facilities engaged in working in high risk, high threat areas. The solution requires a more serious and sustained commitment from Congress to support State Department needs, which, in total, constitute a small percentage both of the full national budget and that spent for national security. One overall conclusion in this report is that Congress must do its part to meet this challenge and provide necessary resources to the State Department to address security risks and meet mission imperatives.

The report's harshest criticism of the Department comes in two of its findings, this one:

Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”) resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.

... and this one:

The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two bureaus demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability in their responses to security concerns posed by Special Mission Benghazi, given the deteriorating threat environment and the lack of reliable host government protection. However, the Board did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.

There is a lot to absorb. More to come tomorrow.

ARB Benghazi At Last - Like Christmas Coming Early

After 60-some days the Benghazi Accountability Review Board has now completed its work, and we may expect its report, in both classified and unclassified versions, to be released to Congress as soon as Wednesday.

Now comes the hardest part, waiting until the ARB's recommendations become a matter of official concern that can be referenced from publicly available sources. After all the anticipation, it will feel like unwrapping a present when I finally see an official background briefing or a news story with named sources.

Good Questions About Tunis, Khartoum, and Sana'a

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I'll say this for the Benghazi Accountability Review Board - it is doing a great job of maintaining the secrecy of its proceedings. I don't think the least hint about its deliberations has leaked out into the public sphere. We'll just have to wait for the report, assuming it is publicly released.

In the meantime, please read Diplopundit's post of earlier today because it contains a good many excellent and extremely pertinent questions about what lessons we have learned from the other serious attacks of last September. I partially quote from a few of them below, because they go directly to the premises that underlie some of our overseas physical security practices (which, for the record, are described pretty well in GAO reports like this one).

• If a mob can scale 9-foot walls that easily, and help from host country authorities are slow or not forthcoming, what are the recommended options for the embassy staff short of getting into a safehaven and waiting to be roasted like ducks?

In the event we cannot expect a timely response from host country authorities, I can imagine extreme circumstances under which it would be preferable to evacuate the mission, even during an attack, rather than to go into the safehaven.

• If the safehaven rooms are to function as the embassy’s “safe haven” for employees under attack, shouldn’t these rooms require not only fireproofing but also be fully smoke sealed?

That GAO report I linked to above describes "five key Overseas Security Policy Board standards to protect overseas diplomatic office facilities against terrorism and other dangers" but none of them address fire and smoke used as a weapon. Maybe the OSPB should think about that.

• Is it more advantageous to continue the path of co-location of facilities and other agencies inside one hardened facility (and provide a single target) or does the policy of co-location provide more vulnerabilities than acceptable?

Is it better to put all your eggs in one basket, or to spread the risk by distributing them in several baskets? The only answer I've ever heard that makes sense to me is this: in places where the host government provides reasonable security, distribute your eggs in several baskets; in places where it doesn't, put your eggs in one basket and use all your resources to protect that basket.

• How did the protesters easily got on top of the chancery buildings? Were these buildings constructed with built- in ladders? If so, is it time to revisit this and if the built-in ladders are there for “aesthetics” maybe it is time to screw that? As a precaution, what has been done to the current buildings constructed with built in ladders?

The embassy in Tunis did indeed have what amounted to built-in ladders (evidently vertical window stacks running from ground to roof with hand- and foot-holds wide enough to climb).

According to a definitive source of publicly available information, New Embassy Tunis completed construction on November 1, 2002, which means that it predates by one year the Office of Overseas Buildings Operations era of standard embassy designs. So, at least that architectural ladder wasn't reproduced elsewhere. On the other hand, that means the ladder was there for ten years with no action taken to remove it. Hum.  

The Stairway to Heaven was a good song, if a bit slow to get started, but it is really bad defensive architecture.

• Has the State Department updated its use of force policy since the embassy attacks? If so, what red lines require the corresponding response of active use of force?

Assuming (1) we cannot expect a host country intervention for many hours, if ever, and (2) that we may have to evacuate the compound while under attack, and (3) that fire may be used as a weapon ... that adds up to a need to use deadly force in unprecedented ways.

That's a lot of good questions.

Benghazi Goes Back On The Front Burner

Now that that little interregnum is over, it's back to Benghazi. There are four separate House and Senate hearings scheduled for this week, the last I saw. Maybe more.

State Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy and Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell will provide classified briefings this week to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Republican chairmen and top Democrats of House committees.

A/S Boswell was missed at last month's House Oversight Committee hearing, so it's good he'll be able to make the hearings this week.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee asked Hillary to testify at an open hearing this Thursday. That would make for one extremely watchable hearing. But Hillary sent her regrets, as she will be traveling next week. I would not be surprised if Hillary spends even more time than usual on urgent overseas travel from now until the day she steps down.

Will General Petraeus testify at any of those hearings, even though he has stepped down as CIA Director? A couple Senators have said it is essential that he do so, and Representative King, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has said Petraeus will have to have to testify "one way or the other.” As in, either voluntarily or under subpoena.

I don't know if he'll testify or not, but I do know that there is nothing like a still-developing sex scandal to amp up press coverage and public interest. While I'm on that subject, isn't it remarkable that "Paula Broadwell" sounds like a double entendre name for a Bond girl? Could that be more perfect?

And so, Official Washington is off to the next round of congressional hearings on the Benghazi incident. That should hold us over until the Benghazi Accountability Review Board finishes its report, maybe next month. The Holiday Season looks like it will be jam-packed with political delights.