As
noted on Reason 24/7
earlier today, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has
released a report on failures surrounding the terrorist attack in
Benghazi on September 11^th.  The committee
concluded that although there may not have been specific warnings
about the 9/11 attack in Benghazi, there were plenty of warning
signs. Intelligence reports available to the committee (but
classified, of course) “provide a clear and vivid picture of a
rapidly deteriorating threat environment in eastern Libya–one that
we believe should have been sufficient to inform policymakers of
the growing danger to U.S. facilities and personnel in that part of
the country and the urgency of them doing something about it.”

The committee veers into
questions of funding, pointing out that Congress did not give
the President what he wanted for the diplomatic security budget.
(Or, as the committee found, “Congress’ inability to appropriate
funds in a timely manner has also had consequences for the
implementation of security upgrades”) Funding fell $127.5 million
in 2011 (before, the Senate report notes, the Senate “restored” $38
million of that) and $275 million 2012. Nevertheless, the committee
admits “the Department of State’s base requests for security
funding have increased by 38 percent since Fiscal Year (FY) 2007,
and base budget appropriations have increased by 27 percent in the
same time period.” The funding would have been irrelevant anyway,
as the committee’s very next finding was that “[t]he Department of
State did not adequately support security requests from its own
security personnel in Benghazi.” Further, the committee finds that
the Benghazi facility’s “temporary status also made it difficult to
procure funds for security upgrades” from within the State
Department itself. The State Department, in fact, relied on the
February 17 Brigades (a local militia) and “unarmed Libyan guards”
from a private security contractor in Benghazi, as officials were
aware of the Libyan government’s inability to meet its treaty
obligations of securing diplomatic facilities. The report notes the
U.S. requested security support for Ambassador Chris Stevens’
September visit to Benghazi; the Libyan government posted a police
vehicle “which sped away as the attack began”.

The report also addressed the Administration’s

meandering characterization of events in the Benghazi attack’s
immediate
aftermath, including statements by Susan Rice on the Sunday
talk shows. It pointed out that while some officials were immediate
in identifying the incident as a terrorist attack, and that the
government knew as much almost immediately, the president’s
comments in the days following, including on the Late Show with
David Letterman and to Joy Behar on The View were
more equivocal. “When terrorists attack our country, either at home
or abroad, Administration officials should speak clearly and
consistently about what has happened,” the report recommends.

Finally, the committee blamed a weak link between Al-Qaeda’s
primary affiliates and extremists groups operating in Libya on
their having “received insufficient attention from the IC
[intelligence community] prior to the attack.” Nevertheless, for
Joe Lieberman’s committee, the most pressing questions about the
Benghazi terrorist attack are “how best to protect the brave men
and women who serve our country abroad and how to win this war [on
Islamist extremism tktk] that will continue for years to come” and
not how foreign interventions
helps to create situations that are used to call for even more
intervention, as this Senate report does.

Interestingly, on multiple occasions the committee references
previous congressional inquiries (the 1985 Inman report and the
1998 report following the bombing of embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania) and similarities between the committee’s recommendations
and recommendations already made, as well as between failures in
the run up to Benghazi and systemic failures found previously.
 

Read the whole Senate report here (pdf)