Thursday, December 20, 2012

SECURITY - Benghazi Fallout and Statement of Witness to Event

"Report Finds State Dept. at Fault for 'Systemic Failures' of Benghazi Security" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 12/19/2012

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Three U.S. State Department officials quit today after a new report stated that security measures at a diplomatic facility in Libya were -- quote -- "grossly inadequate."

Jeffrey Brown has more.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The highly critical report came three months after the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired the outside accountability review board. They spoke at the State Department.

THOMAS PICKERING, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: Frankly, the State Department had not given Benghazi the security, both physical and personnel resources, it needed.

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN, former Joints Chiefs chairman: Certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership.

JEFFREY BROWN: Overall, the report found that, "Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies resulted in a security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."

Earlier, Mullen and Pickering briefed members of key House and Senate committees in private. Lawmakers on both sides endorsed the findings.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN, D-Ill.: There was a breakdown in Benghazi on September 11 that is stark and challenging to all of us in public life.

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO, R-Wyoming: Clearly, there were very poor judgments being made within the State Department. There was a failure of leadership.

JEFFREY BROWN: In a letter that accompanied the full report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it "a clear-eyed look at serious, systemic challenges that we have already begun to fix." She said she accepted all of the recommendations.

The report didn't single out specific individuals, but three State Department officials, Charlene Lamb, Eric Boswell, and Raymond Maxwell, resigned today.

And, last week, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice removed her name for consideration to become secretary of state. She'd been heavily criticized by Republicans for not immediately calling the incident a terrorist attack. There will be more tomorrow, as Deputy Secretaries of State William Burns and Thomas Nides testify at House and Senate hearings.


"Providing Appropriate Security at Embassies and Preventing Future Attacks Abroad" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 12/19/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: The State Department was held responsible for the lack of embassy security and accurately measuring risks that led to attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya. Jeffrey Brown talks to Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who say what's important is not who is to blame but how to prevent such attacks in the future.



"What I Saw in Benghazi" by Osama Alfitory, PBS Newshour 12/19/2012

Significant Excerpt

The teenagers were using a wall from a neighboring property for cover. I think they were the last of the attackers, the tail of the attack group, covering those who were leading the attack. I think their job was to stop people from getting any closer to the compound. I ran to the wall as well, to protect myself, to take cover. They saw me with my camera.

The first one said, "Don't use your camera, don't turn it on."

I said "No, I am a journalist. I am a Libyan, this is my country. I'm doing my job. Or do you feel that you are doing something wrong? Something that shouldn't be known about?"

The second guy said, "If you turn it on, I will break it."

A third attacker looked at the second guy and said, "Don't break the camera. If he turns it on I will shoot him in the head."

Then he told me to leave.

As I turned to go, one of the attackers mentioned the Muhammad film, the one from YouTube. He said that was part of the reason they were angry. But I hadn't heard of the film yet, I didn't know about it at the time so I just left.

IF this statement is true, it supports the first report that the attack was by Muslims angry over the YouTube film.

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