Benghazi thoughts

The Benghazi story certainly seems to have heated-up again this week, with three “whistle-blowers” reportedly coming forward to testify before Congress.

CAA has a few thoughts and observations, but first the caveats and digressions.

Caveat #1:  CAA has neither personal involvement nor knowledge about the Benghazi attack, events leading up to it, and the aftermath/cover-up (beyond, that is, what’s available to all from what we like to call “open sources”).

CAA has read the (unclassified) ARB report on Benghazi; CAA assumes there’s (at least one) classified version.  If I can ever allocate some free time and share some thoughts on the ARB report itself, I’ll do so.

There are so many aspects and questions left begging by the Benghazi attack that it’s hard to know where to start.  DiploMad provided a handy list of some of those here.  

--What was that facility meant to do?--Why was it so poorly protected?--Why did the Ambassador go there on September 11 of all dates?--What was he doing there on that date that was so important?--Why did he meet a Turkish diplomat there of all places on that of all dates?--Why was political hack Susan Rice sent out to do the Administration's cover up?--Why was it so hard for the media to "discover"who wrote Rice's talking points?--Why were the people present during the attack not made available for the press or others?--Where was Hillary Clinton throughout this mess?--Where was the President?--What was the President told? What did he say? 

But I have some thoughts I’d like to meander though a bit.

Leading up to the attack, there are several issues.  WTF we were doing at a facility in Benghazi is certainly a relevant question, given that it was not a consulate (no consular services were being provided there so far as anyone can tell) and the U.S. embassy had re-opened in Tripoli subsequent to the fall of Qaddafi’s government.  It’s a good question; what were we doing in Benghazi that was sufficiently important that we had U.S. personnel in a risky security environment, but since I don’t know myself beyond educated guesswork I’ll only address that in a general way.

“The Gee” (or U.S. government) has more than 260 diplomatic posts open abroad at any given time.  Countries with which we have full diplomatic relations generally merit a U.S. embassy headed by an ambassador (although some smaller countries make do with having a U.S. ambassador accredited to them who is actually resident in a neighboring or nearby country).  Important inter-/transnational organizations such as the UN, NATO, or the EU get a U.S. mission, also headed by a U.S. ambassador.  Within quite a few larger countries, or where there are particular economic or historic reasons to do so, there are various consulates and consulates general that fall (almost always) under the authority of a particular U.S. embassy (and U.S. ambassador).  (The differences between a consulate and a consulate general are technical and mostly seem to have to do with a post’s size.)

Many embassies (or consulates/consulates general) will also have consular agencies at locations remote from them where it’s useful to have a sort of branch office to offer consular services to U.S. citizens in that location.

Speaking of branch offices, those sometimes exist, as do “liaison offices,” and a host of other odd facilities mostly having to do with what State likes to call “tenant agencies.”

“Tenant agencies” are simply those U.S. federal agencies which operate overseas under the umbrella (and authority) of a chief of mission (COM; i.e., a U.S. ambassador in charge of a country mission).  In larger missions those can be a virtual alphabet soup as quite a few federal agencies have one international focus or another.  To give some common examples, the FBI, DEA, and the U.S. Marshal Service (USMS) are all law enforcement agencies with a need to station their people abroad, as are several of the agencies which comprise DHS such as ICE or CBP or even USCG (the Coast Guard).

Much of the time, these folks work out of their embassy’s chancery or other office facility on or near the embassy compound.  In other instances, it’s not unusual for a “tenant agency” to have a building or compound of its own.  One example of that is U.S. Embassy Cairo, which has (or used to have) not only a group of folks from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) keeping an eye on potential epidemics but some representatives of the Library of Congress (LOC), presumably on a permanent book-buying mission.  Both of those “tenant agencies” had their own building or compound nowhere near the embassy itself.

So after all that explanation, let’s just say it’s a reasonable enough assumption to make that the “facility” in Benghazi was housing one or more tenant agencies.

(Digression #1 - A detour of thought:  CAA has had a Top Secret clearance or the equivalent for more than 30 years.  It was over 20 years ago when I realized that, on certain subjects, even my educated guesses on certain subjects were, themselves, classified.  So don’t hold your breath waiting for me to get all speculate-y about the purpose of our Benghazi facility.  It either was or was-not a classified activity.  CAA doesn’t work that part of the world currently, isn’t read-onto anything related to the Benghazi facility, and reads many of the same open source articles that you do.  In the absence of any actual knowledge, I’m not going to guess in a public forum.).

Caveat #2 - CAA doesn’t know what the Benghazi facilities’ purpose was.  It might have been classified in nature, but that’s not terribly remarkable by itself either, even in a diplomatic facility.  Classifications and classified activities have to do with national security, which is not limited to military secrets but extends far beyond that to include much of the inside work of diplomacy and international relations.

Digression #2 - Another digression, this one about security classifications, national security, and diplomacy.  In the U.S. government, information is classified at one of three levels, depending upon the degree of damage to national security that its compromise or inadvertent release would cause.  “Unclassified” means simply that and isn’t, technically, a security classification.  The three levels of classification are Confidential. Secret, and Top Secret.

When it comes to deciding who gets to know what about classified matters, there are two principles employed:  level of access (i.e., security clearance) and need-to-know (NTK).  The second principle, when applied in a formal and regulated manner, is what gives us things like “codeword access,” “special access,” and “compartmented information.”

Backtrack a moment to the bit about damaging national security.  CAA isn’t going to go out on a laughably long limb and suggest that national security and security classifications have never been misused to avoid political embarrassment.  That assertion would be silly.

So let’s talk, briefly, about what security was provided in Benghazi before the 9/11/2012 attacks.

Physical security measures (walls, alarm systems, &tc.) required for U.S. diplomatic facilities are fully specced-out by existing law and regulation, in this instance Volume 5 of the 5 series Foreign Affairs Handbook (FAH) or 12 FAH 5.  Whenever physical security doesn't meet those standards, someone at a very high level is on the hook for having signed a waiver or exception, either temporary or permanent.  Hindsight being 20-20, CAA isn't going to sharpshoot those decisions if the procedures themselves were followed, as the ARB (IIRC) suggests they were.

(For those interested in the topic of physical security as it applies to U.S. embassies, I recommend regular visits to The Skeptical Bureaucrat.  TSB worked in that field long before I ever came to it and remained in it long after CAA went off to the consular salt mines.)

But I will suggest that the standards and procedures, if they haven't been already, might need a fresh going-over in light of the Benghazi experience.  And here's why:

Back in the time period leading up to the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, physical security standards at individual embassies were different depending upon the security threat levels for terrorism in that particular country.  So, since Kenya was at that time a Low or Medium Threat (for terrorism) country, our embassy in Nairobi was only believed to require the security measures for a Low/Medium threat.

Nature abhors a vacuum, water flows downhill, and bad actors will seek out more vulnerable targets, whether they are pickpockets, rapists, or international terrorists.  The thing we hadn't yet internalized about international terrorists was just how international they were prepared to be.

So we changed how did things; security standards became more uniform and applied broadly around the world.  This made sense in a couple of other ways too.  Embassies and consulates are big-ticket items with working life-cycles many decades long.  I think a modern office building can expect at least a 60 year life cycle (figure on at least one renovation/refurbishment in that timeframe) and the sort of robust, purpose-built security architecture involved in our embassies probably extends that lifetime to something closer to a century.

So during a 60-100 year building life, it's not unreasonable to predict that security conditions and threat will fluctuate some, and it's really hard to make a building more robust and security decades after you built it.

CAA won't be around to see it, but I fully predict that many of our recently-constructed "fortress embassies" will outlast the countries in which we've built them.

Getting back to Benghazi, the DS bureau is probably taking a serious look at how physical standards were applied in Benghazi and considering whether it's time for another paradigm shift.

That's the physical security piece, in a nutshell.  As for requests for additional security officers (DS agents), DoD security details, and the like, clearly (in hindsight) some of post's requests for additional security should have been approved rather than disapproved or ignored.  Easy to say in hindsight and we've already seen a systemic change within DS as to how those sorts of requests are going to be handled in the future.  Greg Starr, the likely next DS assistant secretary is a retired RSO with long experience in this area and is someone who can, if others don't get in the way, be trusted to make needed changes.

As for those who made the wrong calls, I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of the sort of Employee Efficiency Rating (EER) they're likely to get this year.  But a mistake in judgment is not the same as a crime.  Transfer or retirement may be the appropriate sanctions.

Now, today's testimony before Congress may have answered some questions (and raised even more) about what happened when, who made what decisions to act or refrain from action, and so forth.  The testimony went on for several hours so I expect the transcripts will amount to a considerable vein of information that will be mined extensively, and blogged-to-death, over the next few days.

Some CAA opinions:  First, CAA was never so embarrassed as an FSO as when then-SecState Clinton said:

"What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Up to that point, CAA (no Clinton partisan he) would honestly state that Sec. Clinton's tenure at the Department had not been so bad as he'd feared, that she had done some good things (her positive interest in the welfare of American citizens abroad was widely known and remarked-upon in consular circles), and that while some of her policy focus went beyond what's passed as traditional diplomacy (women's issues, LGBT, &tc.) that shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone.

That was then.  After her it-just-doesn't matter rant, I couldn't really say that anymore.  The true Clinton colors had been unfurled from mothballs and political viability and presidential electability was again the name of the game.

We shall see what we shall see, in the coming months and years.

re: "A Kind Word For Fortress Embassies, From A Surprising Source"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat (" In the words of Dr. Evil, "the details of my life are quite inconsequential." However, I will say that I work in a small branch office of the foreign affairs department of the Washington DC area's largest employer. ") was surprised by support for robust embassy security (from an unlikely source).

Money quote(s):

"The Washington Diplomat had an article on embassy architecture versus security the other day (America’s Embassy Building Boom Fortifies Diplomacy, Security Abroad), which I thought was only mildly interesting until I got to the obligatory quote from Jane Loeffler. She is our foremost - only? - historian of diplomatic architecture, and premier critic of Fortress Embassies, and no article on the subject would be complete without her remarks.

Normally in an article of this sort, Dr. Loeffler provides unrelenting criticism of defensive embassy architecture, and then it's left to some poor Department spokesman or project architect to put up a weak rebuttal about the need for security. But this time, Dr. Loeffler played for the other team."

CAA has Dr. Loeffler's book. She raises perfectly valid points about the tension between wanting attractive architecture, suitable for the day-to-day working of diplomacy, and the onerous needs for security measures.

There will always be a tension between the ideal, which would be, I suppose, a sort of park-like campus without walls, and what's necessary to hinder bad actors from murdering our staff and guests.

"(T)he risks of terrorism can be high even in purportedly low-threat countries such as Latvia and Malta. For example, that new secure embassy in Malta replaced one that was located inside a multi-tenant commercial office building, a type of property in which it would never have been able to achieve satisfactory security.

If we are serious about moving our people out of high-risk situations and into better and more secure buildings, then our new embassies will inevitably have to have certain fortress-y characteristics. I'm not saying we need to go medieval and do the whole castle-on-an-island, but our embassies will need features such as setback distance from surrounding streets if they are to be reasonably well-protected against physical attack."

4/2

re: "UN's Compound In Mazar-i-Sharif Was Not Well Protected "

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") gives a professional evaluation of the site security at the scene of this massacre.

Money quote(s)

"(T)he UN Mission relied on the presence of local police and their own (third country national) armed guards to deter mobs. They evidently did not put up the kinds of physical barriers - high perimeter walls and gates, entry control facilities, protected guard booths and police fighting position, etc., - that would have delayed and channeled the mob, and made it more feasible for the armed presence to prevent anyone from entering.

Without that element of physical delay, guards and police can't be fully effective."

"Inside the UN compound, the headquarters building likewise lacked physical security relevant to a mob attack."

"While most people will assume that any wall, door, or window that was built to resist bomb blast will also resist small arms fire and forced entry, that is not at all the case. In order to protect people against a prolonged mob attack that uses small arms and improvised hand tools ("hammers or whatever they could find") you need products that were specifically designed for that purpose, like the ones that U.S. embassies use.

FYI, for a detailed description of how those embassy products are tested, and I do mean detailed, see this article in an old issue of a construction trade journal."

&

"(T)he international community might want to take a lesson from our Fortress Embassies"

This last might be more difficult than you'd think, since it would require a mental shift from the "we're the UN, everyone loves us" to "some of our ungrateful public may try to kill us" mindset.

Also, there's a reason for all those security features we saddle ourselves with, they're really not there just to employ hardware manufacturers in favored congressional districts.

re: "New Design for London Embassy"

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") is willing to accept the risks of diplomatic service overseas, but doesn't counsel foolishness either.

Money quote(s):

"So much of the debate of "fortress embassies" has portrayed the issue as either-or. We can either keep our diplomats safe or we can have attractive, inviting embassies. And much of what I have seen has fallen on the side of "we are really being paranoid...we need to be more inviting." Sorry, but since I don't get a gun or bullet-proof vest, and since terrorists DO like to target diplomats overseas, I like safe embassies."

Too much of the criticism of our "fortress embassies" comes from those who will never work in them nor ever deploy overseas with the proverbial bullseye of U.S. government service emblazoned on their backs.

"(L)ike our soldiers, I know that serving my country is dangerous. And like them, I want to be able to control the amount of danger as much as possible."

re: "U.S. Embassy in Mexico City Annexes a Street (For Mexico's Own Good)"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") explains things for those with too-short memories.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Mayor may or may not know why the practice of blocking access to Rio Danubio started, since it goes way back to 1986, but it was, in fact, for the purpose of providing better security to the visa applicants who line up outside the embassy.

The section of Rio Danubio in question is a one-block stretch that runs between the embassy office building and the Marie Isabel Sheraton hotel."

&

"In 1986, the embassy's consular section was located in a lower level of the embassy office building and visa applicants queued up along Rio Danubio to be admitted into the embassy, one small group at a time, via a side entrance that was roughly in the middle of the block. The street had a fair volume of vehicle traffic, some of it associated with a side entrance into the Sheraton, and it was not unusual for cars to be parked there.

In May 1986 a group calling itself the Commando Internacionalista Simon Bolivar parked a carbomb on Rio Danubio next to the hotel's side entrance. That put the bomb directly opposite the routine daily queue of visa applicants; clearly, it was an attempt to cause mass casualties. Fortunately, the bomb was discovered and rendered safe by the police (if I recall correctly, the bomb's crude homemade timer had failed), so no one was injured."