specific indications of an imminent attack” in Benghazi.32 The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) echoed this. In correspondence to the committee, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn reported that prior to September 11, 2012, DIA neither formally nor informally advised the Department of State or any other agency about any specific threat to the United States personnel in Libya.33 Indeed, General Dempsey noted that “[l]eading up to and throughout the day of the attack . . . I had received reports of possible threats to U.S. interests including in Sana’a, Khartoum, Islamabad, Peshawar, Kabul, Cairo, and Baghdad,” but he also emphasized that he “didn’t receive any specific reports of imminent threats to U.S. personnel or facilities in Benghazi.”34 General Dempsey told the committee the lack of a specific warning was critical in making threat assessments.35 The majority members note the absence of an imminent threat in Benghazi. But, it is commonsensical to assume that if the United States received greater warning about a specific impending attack, its forces would have been better prepared. In Benghazi, U.S. forces were confronted with the unexpected, and the committee is necessarily focused on how the nation’s military responded to this unanticipated scenario. Majority members also note that General Dempsey explained to the Senate that “U.S. facilities in many countries throughout the Africa Command and Central Command areas were operating under heightened force protection levels” on September 11, 2012.36 Thus, although the administration did not mandate any broader defense changes, the Department of Defense, apparently on its own initiative, instituted procedures meant to safeguard personnel at their duty stations outside the United States. Department of State’s primary responsibility for diplomatic security decisions
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 20:45:10 +0000
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