Before I wrote my "Foreign Service Family" post, I
jotted down a list of possible topics to address concerning matters which I believed must
arise from the Benghazi 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.
The topics were:
“Haste to Narrative,” “Calendar,” “War On Terror,” “Free Speech,” “Video,”
“Intelligence Failure,” and “Security Decisions.”
Over the following weeks, most of these themes
were addressed, in one fashion or another, by other bloggers, pundits, and
commentators all around the blogosphere and in professional print and online
media (to say nothing of TV and radio bloviators, bloviatrices, and bloviatrics). Among others, I would direct you to We Meant Well, Diplopundit, DiploMad, and Life After Jerusalem.
Longtime friend and colleague TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat has covered topics relating to actual matters of security
quite well. Specifically, I commend for
your reading the following: "Did I Miss Much While I Was Gone?,""About That Non-Standard, Un-Fortress, Not-A-Consulate In Benghazi," "A Futile Exchange of Letters On Benghazi, But A Bit Of News About The ARB,""How Many Fortress Embassies?,""Benghazi - Not The Worst Place On The Planet,""A Couple Thoughts About the Benghazi Hearing," and "I Love the Smell Of Dip Notes In the Morning."
A great deal of confusion, unintentional if not
otherwise, has cascaded from the events of last month. Among those are the somewhat existential
questions relating to the U.S. facility in Benghazi which was attacked and
ultimately destroyed. More than one TV
talking head (but I repeat myself in a redundancy) called Benghazi an “embassy.” An honest mistake, and one which is perfectly
understandable given the miserably low levels of education and sophistication
evident in today’s media “personalities.”
The U.S. Embassy in Libya is located in
Tripoli. A history of that mission may
be found here.
There are no public links for the Benghazi
facility but an article at the AmEmb Tripoli page calls it a “mission.”
I know:
what’s the difference?
Well, take it from me that there are a range of
security standards and protection measures that apply to State Dept. facilities
overseas. While most are not actually
classified, the standards and other regulatory documents themselves are not
available for public dissemination.
Within the State Dept., there are two sets of
documents which serve as regulations for how things are done. They are the Foreign Affairs Manual(s) or “FAM” and the Foreign Affairs
Handbook(s). Essentially, the FAM sets
out the regulations and the FAH explains in greater detail how to implement
those regulations.
Matters pertaining to diplomatic security are
covered in the “12 FAM."
The specific handbook explaining physical
security standards for overseas diplomatic facilities is 12 FAH 5. Its contents aren’t for public dissemination
but if you’re a State Dept. reader you already knew that or can research it on
your own.
As TSB has pointed out, the procedures for
obtaining waivers to security standards are explained in 12 FAM 315.
The point of all this errata is that several
somebodies at various levels across more than one bureau (within State Dept.)
had to go on record at various times to accomplish such things as deciding to
have a DOS facility in Benghazi in the first place and then to sign-off as to
what security standards were appropriate to that type of facility.
As as to “type,” that includes not just its
purpose but whether its an existing facility (which it apparently was) or
whether State built it “to code” (i.e., the highest possible security
standards).
Reality rears its ugly head with regards to
existing buildings. There’s only so much
that can be done to make a building more robust and attack-resistant. And there are lots of ways to attack a
facility, with there being to guarantees of absolute security no matter what
you do to prepare.
Some of it can be boiled-down to just two
bullet-points, PowerPoint-style.
- Ultimately, the host government is responsible
for protecting diplomatic facilities within its sovereign territory. Blather about embassies and consulates being “sovereign
U.S. soil” are so much b.s. Under treaty
and customary international law, embassies are “inviolable.” They are not extraterritorial.
- Security measures, whether they are physical,
electronic, active, passive, or armed, can only provide a measure degree of
safety in terms of delaying an attacker until host government forces can
restore order. If the host government
doesn’t have effective control of the location in question, than some hard
decisions need to be made about whether to have a diplomatic facility there in
the first place.
