State Department Signs On to Security Industry Standards

The 'no rules' ethos ended badly for both Blackwater and State

You really should have some rules when you employ security guards and Blackwater-type protection contractors overseas. As the theme song for COPS has been asking for 25 years now:

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they work for you?

Well, one thing you might do when you hire bodyguards and such from private security companies is to require those companies to meet industry standards and model management practices.

The State Department's Office of the "Spokesperson" (to use her annoying gender-neutral title, which is not an improvement on "Spokeswoman" if you ask me) announced yesterday that State, and more specifically the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, will sign on to an international set of standards to govern its use of private security contractors.

On September 19th and 20th of this year, the Government of Switzerland will host the launch of the association to serve as a governance and oversight mechanism of the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC). The United States has expressed its intention to join the Association as a founding member and will participate in the launch conference.

The Department of State recognizes and appreciates the progress made on the development of the ICoC and the pending establishment of an ICoC Association. As long as the ICoC process moves forward as expected and the association attracts significant industry participation, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) anticipates incorporating membership in the ICoC Association as a requirement in the bidding process for the successor contract to the Worldwide Protective Services (WPS) program. DS also anticipates that the successor contract to WPS will require demonstrated conformance with the ANSI PSC.1-2012 standard.

The International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers is here, and the American National Standards Institute equivalent requirements for private security company operations is here.

My opinion is that requiring Bad Boyz Inc to sign on to these standards will do no harm. It's inevitable anyway, since all large security providers will surely sign on whether DS requires them to or not. Industrial codes of conduct and ANSI standards are primarily a device for businesses to lower their liability, and fear of liability absolutely rules private industry. (Not the public sector, though, at least not yet; but that will change the day a jury awards a U.S. government employee damages based on the USG's negligent failure to provide a safe working environment.)

Will it do any actual good? Maybe not, but that might not matter a lot. The big problems State had with Blackwater, et al, in the past seem to have been solved when it moved most of the contract protection specialists in-house by making them personal service contractors, and thereby easier to manage and discipline. Would that it had done that sooner.

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The Deeper Meaning of the Number 27 (High Threat Posts)

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Those lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer (a good song, BTW) have rolled on for quite long enough, and it is now time that I take up something that has been bugging me for a few weeks - the State Department's clumsy post-Benghazi term of art, "high threat post."

The Department has used the term pretty extensively, but has never explained what it means, at least not in any public forum that I've seen. Official spokesman have said there are 27 high threat posts, but they have not indicated how or why those posts were selected. The Department hasn't even said which posts they are, although there have been at least two news media reports that named names and claimed official sources.

Confusion reigns, as Department employees try to reconcile the 27 posts that the news media has named with their danger pay or hardship differentials, their unaccompanied status or - more often - its lack, and the strange absence from the list of some posts that are indisputably high threat by any common meaning of the words. Beirut, for instance. None of it makes much sense.

Domani Spero has framed the question nicely: State Dept Now Has 27 High-Threat, High-Risk Posts — Are You In One of Them? That's a good question, and the Department hasn't yet provided any good answers. Has the Department even informed the staff at those 27 posts of their special status? I don't know.

As for exactly which 27 posts it is that are so special, here's what the news media tells us.

CBS News reported on December 8, 2012 (here) that the following posts are now under the purview of the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for High Threat Posts:

The scope of the expanded High Threat Unit has widened to include Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen. Previously the only posts that fell under the High Threat designation were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

National Review On-Line reported on November 30, 2012 (here) that the mystery posts are:

The State Department said in an announcement that the new assistant secretary will be responsible for “evaluating, managing, and mitigating the security threats, as well as the direction of resource requirements at high threat diplomatic missions.” Those missions include American diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.

There are two minor inconsistencies between those lists. CBS listed Niger instead of Nigeria, and NRO listed Algeria but not Afghanistan. Putting that aside, just focus on the fact that both lists are of 17 countries. That's countries, or diplomatic missions, and not posts. The 17 countries have a total of 27 U.S. diplomatic posts between them (because Pakistan is one country but four posts, Nigeria has two posts, and so on).

So we have 27 posts that are of some special, but unspecified, security concern. If the 27 were referred to as "posts of special concern," or some such formulation, I think that meaning would be pretty clear. Unfortunately, the Department is referring to them as the "high threat posts," as in the name of the new office that will oversee them, and that naturally makes people assume the State Department has, literally, only 27 posts that are ranked High on its Security Environment Threat List. That assumption would be wrong.

Slight digression. The Security Environment Threat List has been described in multiple publicly available sources of information, such as this one by the General Accountability Office, so it's in the public sphere and may be mentioned by blogs such as mine. Here's how the GAO describes the SETL:

Diplomatic Security, in consultation with posts, other State bureaus, and other government agencies, uses these standards, called the Security Environment Threat List, to assign threat levels to each post. There are six threat categories: international terrorism, indigenous terrorism, political violence, crime, human intelligence, and technical threat. Each post is assigned one of four threat levels for each threat category. A post's threat level dictates what security measures should be in place. The levels are as follows:

• Critical: grave impact on American diplomats
• High: serious impact on American diplomats
• Medium: moderate impact on American diplomats
• Low: minor impact on American diplomats

If you think about the Security Environment Threat List, you might get even more confused by the term "high threat post." Are they the posts that are ranked High for all six categories of threat, or only for some categories? And what about the posts ranked Critical? Are they automatically included, as in high-threat-and-up posts? End digression.

Lately, I see official spokesmen have been referring to these 27 special posts as the "high threat / high risk" posts, which is a mouthful but also an improvement on the original term because it suggests that some kind of risk analysis went into the selection of those special posts.

The only public discussion I've seen of this matter was in the Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing of July 16, which featured testimony by the Acting Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, Gregory Starr, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for High Threat Posts, Bill Miller.



The hearing had low press interest, low attendance by committee members, and – maybe because of that – some uncommonly intelligent discussion about how the Department prioritizes its needs for new embassy construction, security upgrades, and security training. The entire hearing is worth listening to, but a ton of good sense and plain talk about risk management occurs between the 25 and 28 minute marks.

I noticed three particularly interesting things in the testimony of DAS Bill Miller:

• At the 1 hour 8 minute mark, he directly addressed the confusion over terminology. "High threat post," he said, is “a very often-used and not well-defined term," and he stressed that the 27 diplomatic posts which he oversees are not simply those that are rated high on the Security Environment Threat List.

• At the 19 minute mark, he testified that after the attacks of September, 2012, the Department selected certain posts for a higher level of security attention. “The Department weighed criteria to determine which posts are designated high threat / high risk, and there are now 27 posts which fall under this designation.” That statement appears on page 3 of his written testimony. He did not describe the selection criteria.

• At the 1 hour 6 minute mark, he gave a nice capsule description of the risk management process. The Department, he said, needs to constantly balance a host country's capability and willingness to provide security support to our missions with the local threats to those missions and the physical vulnerability of our mission facilities (for example, office buildings that are too flimsy to harden up against attack, or that are too close to surrounding streets, etc).

Considering the totality of DAS Miller's testimony, I think we can see how the 27 posts were selected. Their particular combinations of the big three risk factors - weak or unreliable host country support, high security threats, and physical vulnerabilities to those threats - made them stand out as Diplomatic Security's top tier of concern. Neither DAS Miller nor any other official spokesman has said that in so many words, but if one did, I would be satisfied with that explanation.

Assuming I am interpreting this correctly, a diplomatic mission could have one, or two, or even all three of those risk factors to varying degrees, and that wouldn't necessarily make it an official High Threat Post. But if a post has all three of those things to an exceptionally high degree, then it has won the trifecta of suckiness and gets to be an HTP.

If that's not a good enough explanation of the deeper meaning of the number 27, then I have some more. It's the only number that's a perfect cube (3 to the 3rd power). There are 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It was the age at which Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse all died. And there was that movie about 27 dresses.

But I think I'm right about the Trifecta of Suckiness theory. As I was typing this post this evening, I clicked on a press release about an appropriations bill introduced today to authorize next year's funding for Department of State operations and embassy security. Lo and behold, it includes a section requiring the Department to identify its high threat posts, and defines that term as follows:

The term 'high risk, high threat post' means a United States diplomatic or consular post, as determined by the Secretary, that, among other factors, is -

(A) located in a country with (i) high to critical levels of political violence and terrorism; and (ii) the government of which lacks the ability or willingness to provide adequate security; and,

(B) with mission physical security platforms that fall below the Department of state's established standards.

Ah, ha! The same big three risk factors that featured in DAS Miller's testimony before the SFRC. If that section makes it into the final bill, then next year we'll have an official notification of exactly which posts are HTPs and why.

Until then, if you are serving at a post that is experiencing pervasive suckiness of an exceptionally high degree, then you just might be at an HTP.

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ARB Benghazi: Quick Comment, Part 4

That's a nice wave

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In Part 3, I quoted a GAO report to note some of the practical limitations that prevent most of the Department's overseas office facilities from fully meeting security standards. In this post, I'll cite the Foreign Affairs Manual to the effect that certain types of overseas facilities are not required to fully meet security standards or to obtain waivers of unmet standards.

Now, to track down the Department's actual requirements for overseas facilities security and waivers thereof, you have to go deep into a Dork Forest of official paperwork and policy geek language. Misunderstandings are common, and one of those misunderstandings concerns the Special Mission in Benghazi. It did not 'meet standards.' But did those standards apply in the first place, and did the Mission need a waiver of unmet standards?

The written statement of former RSO Tripoli Eric Nordstrom to the House Oversight Committee concerning security measures taken and not taken in Benghazi (here) contains this key passage:

SECCA [the Secure Embassy and Counterterrorism Act] establishes statutory security requirements for U.S. diplomatic facilities involving collocation and setback. Under SECCA, the State Department, in selecting a site for any new U.S. diplomatic facility abroad, must collocate all U.S. Government personnel at the post on the site. Each newly acquired U.S. diplomatic facility must be placed not less than 100 feet from the perimeter of the property. New U.S. chancery/consulate buildings, solely or substantially occupied by the U.S. Government, must meet collocation and 100-foot setback statutory requirements; otherwise, waivers to the statutory requirements must be granted by the Secretary of State. Furthermore, in accordance with 12 FAM 315.5, the Secretary {of State} must notify the appropriate congressional committees in writing of any waiver with respect to a chancery or consulate building and the reasons for the determination, not less than 15 days prior to implementing a statutory collocation or setback waiver.

The requirement for a waiver might seem clear - it was required by law, and Hillary Clinton herself had to have signed it - but the key phrase is "U.S. chancery/consulate buildings." What exactly qualifies as a chancery or consulate?

All policy language is subject to definition. The first thing the FAM says about the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act is in 12 FAM 313. Note paragraph b:

12 FAM 313 SECURE EMBASSY CONSTRUCTION AND COUNTERTERRORISM ACT (SECCA)

a. SECCA establishes statutory security requirements for U.S. diplomatic facilities involving collocation and setback. (1) Site Selection (Collocation): The State Department, in selecting a site for any new U.S. diplomatic facility abroad, must collocate all U.S. Government personnel at the post (except those under the command of an area military commander) on the site.

(2) Perimeter Distance (Setback): Each newly acquired U.S. diplomatic facility must be sited not less than 100 feet (30.48 m) from the perimeter of the property on which the facility is situated.

b. U.S. diplomatic facilities are defined for purposes of the SECCA to include 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. It also includes offices subject to a publicly available bilateral agreement with the host government that recognizes the official status of the U.S. Government personnel present in the facility.

So for the purpose of applying SECCA, a "U.S. diplomatic facility" is an office that is notified to the host government, or is the subject of a publicly available bilateral agreement. Full stop.

The question then becomes: was the Special Mission in Benghazi so notified to the host government? If the answer to that question is yes, then it needed a waiver. If the answer is no, then it did not.

The Benghazi ARB report said the Mission was never formally notified to the Libyan government:

Although the TNC [Transitional National Counsel] declared that Tripoli would continue to be the capital of a post-Qaddafi Libya, many of the influential players in the TNC remained based in Benghazi. Stevens continued as Special Envoy to the TNC in Benghazi until he departed Libya on November 17, 2011, after which the Special Envoy position was not filled. Stevens was replaced by an experienced Civil Service employee who served for 73 days in what came to be called the “principal officer” position in Benghazi. After November 2011, the principal officer slot became a TDY assignment for officers with varying levels of experience who served in Benghazi anywhere from 10 days to over two months, usually without transiting Tripoli. In December 2011, the Under Secretary for Management approved a one-year continuation of the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, which was never a consulate and never formally notified to the Libyan government.

Assuming the ARB report is correct on that point, there was never a need for a waiver of security standards for the Special Mission in Benghazi. Therefore, various Congressmen can stop wasting their time in a futile hunt for that smoking gun in Hillary's hands.

They are in hot pursuit of it now. Here's Rep. James Lankford questioning Eric Nordstrom on May 8, at the second Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi:




The key exchange is:

(Lankford): "By statute, Mr. Nordstrom, who has authority to place personnel in a facility that does not meet the minimum OSPB [Overseas Security Policy Board] standards?"

(Nordstrom): "The OSPB standards go in tandem with SECCA, which is the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act, both of which derived out of the East Africa bombings, or were strengthened after that. It's my understanding that since we were the sole occupants of both of those facilities - Benghazi and Tripoli - the only person who could grant waivers or exceptions to those was the Secretary of State."

And with that, the hunt is on for the blockbuster withheld waiver memo that is assumed to exist.

I haven't seen the Department issue a statement of its own, separate from the ARB report, to clarify the status of the Special Mission in regard to SECCA's standards and waiver requirements. There are plenty of policy analysts and legal advisers in the building who could give Congress a definitive opinion, and the Department spokesmen would be well advised to use them.

The entire matter of Benghazi and its aftermath are traumatic enough already, and I'd hate to see people get even more emotionally invested in a waiver memo that doesn't exist.

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Benghazi ARB Follow-Up: Quick Comment, Part 3

Just waiting for a security upgrade

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In Part 2, I referred to the difficultly of upgrading the security of temporary, and/or hastily acquired, facilities. I also cited Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy (here) saying that at least half of the State Department's overseas office buildings fail to fully meet the standards established by the Overseas Security Policy Board.

Why is it so hard to upgrade those buildings until they meet standards? Is it insufficient funding? Lack of will? Total bureaucratic indifference? Technical incompetence?

Opinions about all of that will differ, but anyone who has actually tried to upgrade the security of one of those buildings has realized the inherent limitations of conventionally constructed buildings - that is, of the normal kinds of office and residential buildings that you find the world over. Unless and until you build a building to suit yourself, i.e., a Fortress Embassy, you will have to settle for something less than fully satisfactory.

The situation was explained very well in a General Accountability Office report from 2008, GAO-08-162, which was succinctly entitled "Embassy Security: Upgrades Have Enhanced Security, but Site Conditions Prevent Full Adherence to Standards." A few quotes from that report will do:

At the 11 posts we visited with ongoing or completed CSUP [Compound Security Upgrade Program] projects, we found that the projects had enhanced posts' compliance with State's physical security standards as detailed in the "Foreign Affairs Handbook" and "Foreign Affairs Manual." The projects we viewed added or enhanced pedestrian and vehicle access points, replaced perimeter fencing to meet anti-climb requirements, installed bollards and barriers at key points to meet anti-ram requirements, built safe areas for post officials in case of attack, enhanced the hard line separating post employees from visitors, and installed forced entry/ballistic-resistant windows and doors.

Nevertheless, without building a new facility, many posts are unable to meet all security standards for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of CSUP. We found that none of the posts we visited adhered fully with current security standards because of conditions that were outside the scope of CSUP projects. For example, most of the posts we visited were located in dense urban areas that prevented them from achieving a 100-foot setback from the street, one of the key security standards. OBO [Overseas Buildings Operations] and DS [Diplomatic Security] officials acknowledged that, at many locations, it is not feasible to increase the setback by acquiring land and closing off nearby streets. In other cases, officials stated the buildings themselves were not structurally capable of handling heavy forced entry/ballistic-resistant windows or other upgrades. And in other cases, officials commented that host nations or cities would not allow certain upgrades to be implemented, such as removing trees to create a clear zone around the embassy or changing the facade of historic buildings.

That's about the size of it. The U.S. government occupies hundreds of office buildings overseas, and has done so since the 1800s. Despite the pace of new embassy construction, which kicked into high gear only in 2000, many of the buildings we occupy today were acquired long before we had any type of security standards. We can upgrade them to a greater or lesser degree but can't make them Fortresses retroactively, for all the reasons the GAO noted - locations that lack significant setback distance from public streets, structures that can't support the weight of serious physical barriers, and host governments that won't permit certain changes.

The most serious of these reasons is structural limitation, which means that you can't add more weight to a building than its load-bearing structure will allow. The structural limitations of the typical building that you can acquire overseas might not be obvious, but trust me, adding Fortress-level amounts of concrete or steel to it isn't an option. (By the way, an excellent general-interest primer on this topic is Why Buildings Stand Up: The Strength of Architecture, in case you are really motivated to read into the subject.)

You can try this yourself at home. Steel plate of a useful thickness weighs 10 pounds per square foot, the forced entry/ballistic-resistant doors used in Fortress Embassies weight almost 1,000 pounds each, and equivalent windows weigh 44 pounds per square foot. (I take that information from the brochure of a company that sells Department-certified security products.) Call a building contractor and ask what it would take to plate your house in steel and replace the doors and windows with forced-entry/ballistic resistant ones.

Unless you live in something made of reinforced concrete, you'll probably find it isn't feasible. And in that event, you would most likely settle for something less. The U.S. government does the same.

I'll have one last quick comment in response to the Benghazi ARB, to be posted sometime this Memorial Day weekend.

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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.

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Benghazi ARB Follow-Up: Quick Comment Part 2

U.S. embassy life can be an endless series of temporary projects

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In Part 1, I commented about a couple of those Wise Men who are to shed their wisdom on the Department regarding best practices for security in high threat / high risk locations. Now, here's something else that I think is puzzling.

Recommendation 5 of the ARB report called for the Department to develop security standards expressly for temporary mission facilities. That makes great sense to me, since there is a vast difference between the sort of hasty facilities that we need to acquire and fit-out in expeditionary environments and the permanent Fortress Embassies that the Department might build in more stable places. 'Expeditionary' has to happen right now, making use of available materials and funds to improvise a minimum level of protection, whereas Fortress Embassies take several years to design and build and cost several hundred million dollars.

Two such different situations need two different sets of standards, right? You might think so.

Here's what the ARB recommended:

The Department should develop minimum security standards for occupancy of temporary facilities in high risk, high threat environments, and seek greater flexibility to make funds rapidly available for security upgrades at such facilities.

Here's how the Department's press release reported its action on that recommendation:

The Department has re-affirmed that Overseas Security Policy Board Standards apply to temporary facilities.

We identified flexible funding authorities to make improvements to our overseas facilities.

Aren't they talking past each other here? The ARB recommended the Department develop security standards for temporary facilities because, you know, it doesn't have any such standards now. The standards it has are intended for permanent situations.

To "reaffirm" that we'll apply the security standards we already have to temporary facilities seems to be a refusal to deal with the recommendation. Worse, it leaves those temporary facilities in the same bureaucratic limbo as Special Mission Benghazi, lacking the money and direction for serious security upgrades because they lack a permanent status.

To quote from the ARB report:

Special Mission Benghazi’s uncertain future after 2012 and its “non-status” as a temporary, residential facility made allocation of resources for security and personnel more difficult, and left responsibility to meet security standards to the working-level in the field, with very limited resources.

Having appropriate standards for temporary facilities - which means standards that aim for a lower, albeit more realistic and achievable level, of protection - would regularize what is now an ad hoc practice.

By the way, not all permanent U.S. diplomatic missions around the world meet those Overseas Security Policy Board standards that the Department just reaffirmed. Not even half of them do, according to none other than Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy.

As he told Congress:

More than half the U.S. diplomatic posts overseas may not fully meet security standards, a senior U.S. official told a hearing on Thursday that follows an attack on the mission in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans died.

Pat Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management at the State Department, told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee that the United States had a diplomatic presence at 283 locations around the world.

He said 97 safe and secure facilities had been completed since the 1999 passage of a U.S. law authorizing additional funding for security upgrades, including 70 full replacements of embassies or consulates, as well as some building of Marine guard quarters and office annexes.

"There remain approximately 158 posts that have facilities that may not fully meet current security standards," he said.

"Many of these facilities were built or acquired prior to the establishment of the current security standards, and others are subject to authorized waivers and/or exceptions."

The Department has completed many new construction projects since 2000, however, according to a publicly available presentation by the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, only one in four U.S. government employees overseas (about 20,500 out of a total of 85,000) works in a Fortress Embassy.

The other three out of four work in a wide range of facilities, some better than others, but all of them somewhat less secure than a purpose-built modern embassy. They are either grandfathered or "subject to authorized waivers" due to the impracticality of fully meeting security standards retroactively in buildings the Department did not construct.

If that's the situation for our permanent facilities, then surely our less-than-permanent facilities will likewise fail to fully meet Overseas Security Policy Board standards. Why not accept that reality and develop security standards that are suitable and achievable for temporary occupancies?

I'll have another quick comment tomorrow or Saturday about the practical limits of hardening up conventional buildings.

 

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One Week After, Details Keep Emerging

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

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

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

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

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

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

[snip]

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

[snip]

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

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

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

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

UK Guardian graphic

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

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

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

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A Little Bit Of History Repeating

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.  

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I Love the Smell Of Dip Notes In the Morning

Edward R. Murrow famously said of diplomacy:

“The real crucial link in the international exchange is the last three feet, which is bridged by personal contact, one person talking to another.”

Maybe Ed didn't know this, but the Claymore anti-personnel mine can do a lot better than three feet. It can extend the maximum range of interpersonal exchange all the way out to 270 yards, although its effectiveness is optimized at 55 yards, where it has a 30 percent chance of making personal contact with anyone standing in a 60-degree horizontal arc to its front.

After the September 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, I had a conversation with a casual acquaintance who asked me, in all seriousness, why U.S. embassies can't be defended with Claymore mines and concertinas of razor ribbon. Well, he was half right, since we do have razor ribbon in quite a few places. But, anti-personnel land mines? Really?

You might think - I used to think - that the practical, legal, and political consequences of that would be obvious. But, apparently they are not. In fact, I get the definite impression that many people conceive of a diplomatic mission such as the one in Benghazi as a military outpost in a war zone.

Since the September 11 attack in Benghazi, I have come to realize that nearly all of the voting, tax-paying, American public gets its information about embassies and diplomacy from ... oh, I don't know, really bad action movies, maybe.

Public diplomacy ought to start at home. Have there been any realistic depictions of diplomatic missions in American popular media? I can't recall any.

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A Couple Thoughts About the Benghazi Hearing

Which Assistant Secretary is missing from this panel?

That hearing was everything you would expect from a Congressional show trial on a hot button topic held three weeks before an election. 

Charlene Lamb certainly looked like the chosen sacrifice, someone the Department offered up to propitiate the angry Election Year Gods. The composition of the witness panel said as much. There are two links in the DS chain of command between Ms. Lamb and Under Secretary Kennedy, but those guys were nowhere to be seen. That's a bad sign.

If Ms. Lamb is forced to step down, it will be a travesty of accountability. The buck should stop at the top, not the middle. As Director of DS International Programs she has operational responsibility, meaning that she manages the resources she is given. But strategic responsibility lies above her level, with those two invisible presences that seemed to me to hover over the panel.

I bet Ms. Lamb will be treated much more fairly by the Accountability Review Board than she was by the Oversight Committee. Adults such as Ambassador Pickering understand that program managers must choose between competing needs. They've been there themselves, and I expect they'll empathize with her.

Despite the ineptness of Ms. Lamb's phrase about having "the right amount" of security in Benghazi, she isn't necessarily wrong. The big question is whether other diplomatic missions had a greater need for her limited resources at that same time, in the context of everything the U.S. government knew when she made that decision.    

The only new information to come out about the attack in Benghazi was released the day before the hearing. The details are astonishing: a company-size military attack with small arms, rockets, and mortars that overwhelmed the five armed Americans and four Libyan militiamen on site; arson to force barricaded people out of the buildings on the compound; DS agents escaping in an armored car under heavy rifle and grenade fire, carrying the wounded and the dead to the temporary safety of the mission's annex. The fighting went on for over six hours without effective host country intervention. Good God.

The Department described the attack as "unprecedented" in force and duration, but that language is too mild. I cannot think of another attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility that was remotely similar, or of any diplomatic facility that would have withstood the same attack under the same circumstances.

There are no feasible security countermeasures that could have been in place in Benghazi that would have prevented that tragedy. If anyone thinks the presence of another DS agent or two, or ten, or the retention of that military security support team, would have had any relevance against indirect fire weapons such as mortars, please tell me how.

That point was made a couple times by RSO Eric Nordstrom, the Committee's most valuable witness, and it is crucial. From his written statement:

"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."

Whatever requests the Embassy in Tripoli made, and however Washington answered them, would have made little or no difference to how things happened in Benghazi. The fact that our compound was overrun does not by itself mean that the security measures were inadequate. It just isn't that simple. By that logic, Camp Bastion in Afghanistan had even worse security when it was attacked on 14 September, and it had 30,000 military troops compared to Benghazi's dozen or so armed civilians.

That crucial point seemed to get lost in all the Congressional noise over the Administration's inconsistent stories about whether there was or wasn't an angry mob in Benghazi before the assault began.

And speaking of that noise, this guy must be the loudest individual in Washington since Chris Matthews. I can hear his voice even with the video muted, I swear. He needs a media adviser to tell him to dial it down a couple hundred decibels.

Even worse than the noise is his histrionic posturing. He spent one of his five-minute question periods working himself up in a riff about Susan Rice and the White House spokesman that would have embarrassed Elmer Gantry.



Here's hoping the ARB sessions will produce something much more serious than we got from our elected representatives this week.

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Benghazi - Not The Worst Place On The Planet

Representative Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, has been hitting the news shows hard today, giving us a preview of tomorrow's committee hearing on the security failures of Benghazi.

Rep. Chaffetz is evidently a hands-on kind of investigator, since he is just back from a fact-finding trip to Libya. He didn't get to Benghazi during that trip, however, as he related to Andrea Mitchell, he did visit the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli "for most of the day on Saturday." So, expect him to bring a bulging overloaded suitcase full o' facts to tomorrow's hearing.

I won't take issue with his facts. But I do question one thing he's been saying. In several interviews today, such as this one, he used the same line to emphasize how uniquely dangerous the environment in Benghazi was.

“Twice in the six-month lead-up to this attack and death of the four Americans — twice the British ambassador had an assassination attempt and twice our facility in Benghazi was bombed! No other place on the planet had that happen!”

Two attacks? Only two? Rep. Chaffetz should book his next fact-finding trip for Pakistan, and especially the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, if he wants to see U.S. diplomatic facilities that have experienced multiple attacks.

-- It was on September 3, barely one month ago, that four Consulate employees in Peshawar were very nearly killed by a suicide bomber who drove his bomb-laden vehicle into theirs. How soon we forget.

-- In May of 2011, two other Peshawar employees survived a roadside bombing that targeted their vehicle.

-- In February of 2010, three U.S. military personnel were killed by a suicide bomber at a girls school in in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province outside Peshawar.

-- In April of 2010, the Consulate office compound in Peshawar was attacked by a six-man Taliban team that employed RPGs, small arms, grenades, explosive charges, and three bomb-laden vehicles. That's three bombs in a single attack. And it happened on this planet.

-- In August of 2008, the Consul General in Peshawar survived an ambush on her vehicle.

And there is much more. In fact, almost every Pakistani government or military target in Peshawar worth attacking has been destroyed. For a summary of some recent attacks see this.

I won't even get started on the full history of attacks against the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. Suffice it to say that there were suicide bomber attacks against it in 2002 and 2006, plus a failed bomb attack in 2004.

None of this is to say that Benghazi is not a very dangerous place. However, some context is called for. We have even worse threat environments, and we haven't closed the U.S. missions in those places.

I assume our national authorities have determined that in those places, as in Bengahzi, our missions are serving vital interests that outweigh the danger of  keeping them in operation.

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