I have a feeling more of these types of exchanges will come to light now that House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has taken on the case and whistle blowers are stepping up. Jake Tapper reports on an internal State Department email that shows officials rejecting a request for a DC-3 airplane from the Libyan embassy security team in May:
ABC News has obtained an internal State Department email from May 3, 2012, indicating that the State Department denied a request from the security team at the Embassy of Libya to retain a DC-3 airplane in the country to better conduct their duties.
Copied on the email was U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in a terrorist attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012, along with three other Americans. That attack has prompted questions about whether the diplomatic personnel in that country were provided with adequate security support.
As Tapper points out, it’s not clear that the DC-3 have been of any use during the terrorist attack. From the reports, it sounds like the consulate needed a lot more security personnel and Marines who were trained to respond to potential militia attacks. Plus, the requested plane was supposed to support the embassy in Tripoli. Still, this is another indication the State Department may not have been taking the security concerns of diplomats in Libya seriously.
As the drip-drip-drip of bad State Department news comes in from the media investigations, the FBI finally made it to Benghazi to carry out an investigation of its own. And it appears the three-week delay might have been caused in part by foot-dragging from Foggy Bottom:
A team of FBI agents arrived in Benghazi, Libya, to investigate the assault against the U.S. Consulate and left after about 12 hours on the ground as the hunt for those possibly connected to the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans narrowed to one or two people in an extremist group, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Agents arrived in Benghazi before dawn on Thursday and departed after sunset, after weeks of waiting for access to the crime scene to investigate the Sept. 11 attack. …
U.S. officials also suggested that there may have been some disagreement between the State Department and the FBI over whether or not the FBI team would use Libyan security or seek approval for the U.S. military to handle the mission. The U.S. Army Delta Force troops flew into Benghazi with the FBI team on three C-130 transport aircraft.
Attorney General Eric Holder said people should not assume that “all that we could do or have been doing” in the investigation is restricted solely to Benghazi.
It does seem bizarre that the State Department left the consulate completely unsecured for so long after the attack, as WaPo reported in a chilling dispatch from Benghazi. By the time the FBI arrived yesterday, I wonder how many documents that could have been critical for this investigation (and potentially embarrassing for State) had already “walked away.”
It's time for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to accept ultimate responsibility and resign her office.
This is a travesty that we lost an Ambassador – this is an attack that was on American Soil – I also think that it’s criminal that we didn’t take him out Libya before he was slaughter/killed by a terrorist attack. This attack had nothing to do with that moronic video trailer…
THREE WEEKS after the rampage, killings, and pillaging?!? Pffft. Why bother? This is a travesty.
hobama needed his lover silenced. Everyone knows reverend right married the two of them.
It looks like the State Dept. wanted important documents and clues to walk away. I think the stupid video story was the State Department's rouse or excuse for ordering classified documents at other embassies in the Middle East to be destroyed. There has been something very stinky about this whole story from day one on the US side of things. The US can always anticipate an attack on US assets on Sept. 11. My theory is that the State Dept. intentionally chose not to anticipate one because it wanted all these documents and records to be destroyed or compromised in Libya and at other embassies but maybe thought they either wouldn't be there or would get out a live. But it looks like the Ambassador or someone there suffered terribly before they died so I think this is probably something worse than a travesty and the 4 Americans killed there were sacrificial lambs, pretty much treated like expendable, worth whatever the State Dept. wanted destroyed or compromised because no agency could un-intentionally mess up this bad on Sept. 11 of all days of the year.
It is the responsibility of the host country to provide embassy and consulate external security. A DC-3 would have not changed the dynamics. Any increase of security personell by the US would probably not have made much difference. This is the US security personnels mission. n nThe primary mission of the MSG is to provide security, particularly the protection of classified information and equipment vital to the national security of the United States at American diplomatic posts. This is accomplished under the guidance and operational control of a civilian federal agent of the Diplomatic Security Service, known as the Regional Security Officer (RSO) who is the senior U.S. law enforcement representative and security attaché at U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. [4] In addition, MSGs provide security for visiting American dignitaries and frequently assist the RSO in supervising host country and/or locally employed security forces which provide additional security for the exterior of embassies. The MSGs fall under operational control of the RSO and are administratively controlled by the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group. The secondary mission of Marine Security Guards is to provide protection for U.S. citizens and U.S. Government property located within designated U.S. Diplomatic and Consular premises during exigent circumstances, which require immediate aid or action. nMSGs focus on the interior security of a diplomatic post's building(s). In only the most extreme emergency situations are they authorized duties exterior to the building(s) or to provide special protection to the senior diplomatic officer off of the diplomatic compound. MSGs carry a certain level of diplomatic immunity in the performance of their official duties.[5]