Benghazi Accountability Review Board (ARB)
Don’t worry, by the time we finish this series of blogs about the Benghazi Attack, you will know as much as Aaron Klein. Who is Aaron Klein you might ask? He’s the author of a book The Real Benghazi Story, one of dozens of books and reports about the attack and the politics of Benghazi which have taken place since September 11, 2012. Truth is you probably won’t know as much as he does but you will probably have a more unbiased approach to it.
The Accountability Review Board (ARB) produced the unclassified report which came out of the investigation started by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State to “examine the facts and circumstances surrounding the September 11-12, 2012, killings of four U.S. government personnel, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, John Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi, Libya”
The Pickering-Mullen report (aka ARB) said security at the Benghazi compound was “grossly inadequate” and that requests for security improvements were not acted upon in Washington. Subsequent congressional reports debunked various claims, including a “stand down” order to the military.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Benghazi committee’s senior Democrat, said the 22-month-old panel is “nothing more than a taxpayer-funded effort to bring harm to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
Republican insistence that the investigation is not politically motivated was undermined last year when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., suggested that the Benghazi panel could take credit for Clinton’s slumping poll numbers.
ARB Board Members
Four Board members were selected by the Secretary of State and one member from the intelligence community (IC) was selected by the Director for National Intelligence. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering served as Chairman, with Admiral Michael Mullen as Vice Chairman. Additional members were Catherine Bertini, Richard Shinnick, and Hugh Turner, who represented the IC. These are first-class government and intelligence servants. They have very strong credentials and did a great job in their investigation and analysis of what when wrong and what to do about it.
Thomas R. Pickering, Chairman of the ARB
His four-decade-long career in Foreign Service included ambassadorships in Russia (1993–1996); India (1992–1993); to the United Nations (1989–1992); Israel (1985–1988); El Salvador (1983–1985); Nigeria (1981–1983); and Jordan (1974–1978). Additionally, he served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 1997 to 2000. He holds the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. He was born in Orange, NJ in 1931 and served in the U S Navy and Naval Reserve where he was honorably discharged as Lieutenant Commander.
Admiral Michael Mullen, Vice Chairman
As a graduate of the U S Naval Academy, Adm. Mullen has commanded three ships and has also commanded Cruiser-Destroyer Group Two. Mullen’s last command at sea was as Commander, U.S. Second Fleet/Commander, NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic (COMSTRIKFLTLANT).
In 1985, Mullen graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School with a Master of Science degree in Operations Research, and in 1991, he completed the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.
As Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples, Mullen had operational responsibility for NATO missions in the Balkans, Iraq, and the Mediterranean. As Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, he was responsible for providing overall command, operational control, and coordination of U.S. naval forces in the European Command area of responsibility. He assumed these duties on October 8, 2004 and was relieved of them upon his becoming Chief of Naval Operations.
On August 3, 2007, the U.S. Senate confirmed Mullen as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
On March 18, 2009, Gates recommended that Mullen be re-nominated for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on September 25, 2009[] and began his second term on October 1, 2009.
Catherine Bartini
An American public servant. She was the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002. Currently, she is a Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University. She is a co-chair of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Global Agricultural Development Initiative and Chair of the Council’s Girls in Rural Economies Initiative.[2] She is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate.
Richard Shinnick
Past foreign service has included serving as deputy executive director of the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs and deputy director for operations of the Foreign Buildings Office, which is now the Overseas Buildings Operations
Hugh J. Turner III, representing the Intelligence Committee
Information about CIA and ex-CIA members, which is what Hugh Turner is, is hard to find.
A former deputy director of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations under George J. Tenet. He represents the intelligence community on the Board.
The Report Team’s Attitude
Pickering: “And I have to tell you, the five of us time and time again mentioned how important this was, how significant it was, to get it right, and how important it was to show no sense of political attachment on this particular issue. We wanted to do it in the best way we could.
Similarly, in his interview with Committee staff on June 19, 2013, Admiral Mullen stated that the independence of the ARB was its “most important” characteristic, and that he would not have agreed to serve as a Member had he not received assurances that it would be independent.
Admiral Mullen stated that he and Ambassador Pickering agreed that the investigation would follow the facts and that there would be no limits with respect to whom the ARB interviewed.
We would have to interview everybody up the chain of command, including the Secretary, and he agreed with that.
As part of its investigation, the ARB interviewed more than 100 witnesses, including security officers at the Special Mission Compound on the night of the attacks and a number of senior State Department officials.
ARB Findings
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT ACTIONS
ARB Found No Fault with Military Response
The DOD response was timely and appropriate. There was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans.
Admiral Mullen confirmed that he conducted two reviews of assets available to the U.S. military on the night of the attacks, as well as the logistics of moving those assets to respond: Admiral Mullen explained during his interview with Committee staff that no stand-down order was issued, but that the four-man team was directed to provide security in Tripoli and assist with the evacuation.
The four-man team also provided security for Tripoli, which was under uncertain threat that an attack could occur there as well. Admiral Mullen told the Committee that the four-man team represented a significant portion of the remaining security assets capable of guarding American personnel and the U.S. embassy in Tripoli from a possible attack.
The House Armed Services Committee also investigated whether the four-man military team was ordered to “stand down” and rejected the allegation Gibson was not ordered to “stand down” by higher command Rather, he was ordered to remain in Tripoli to defend Americans there in anticipation of possible additional attacks, and to assist the survivors as they returned from Benghazi.
STATE DEPARTMENT ACTIONS
The Board determined that DS (security) staffing levels in Benghazi were inadequate. Although a full complement of five DS agents for Benghazi was initially projected, and later requested multiple times, Special Mission Benghazi achieved a level of five DS agents for only 23 days between January 1-September 9, 2012.
State Department officials told Committee staff that, despite these requests, Charlene Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, decided in February 2012 to provide only three Diplomatic Security Agents to Benghazi. According to the Diplomatic Security Desk Officer, Deputy Assistant Secretary Lamb reportedly made this decision because she felt that Diplomatic Security Agents were being inappropriately used as drivers, a role that local staff could fill.
TALKING POINTS
Republicans have accused the President and other Administration officials of deliberately misleading the American people and engaging in a cover-up, citing in particular talking points used by Ambassador Susan Rice during her appearance on Sunday news shows on September 16, 2013.
Chairman Issa stated that “the American public was deliberately misled,” and that “Ambassador Rice outright read off of talking points that had to be knowingly false.” Rep. Rohrabacher alleged: “What is clear is that this administration, including the president himself, has intentionally misinformed, LIED, to the American people in the aftermath of this tragedy.”
Senator Inhofe stated that this was the “most egregious cover-up in American history.” After interviewing multiple officials involved in the immediate response to the attacks in Benghazi and the drafting of the talking points, the ARB Committee has identified no evidence whatsoever to support accusations that the talking points were drafted or altered in order to mislead the American people. To the contrary, during their transcribed interviews with Committee staff, numerous officials described the days before and after the attacks as an intensely dangerous, complex, and confusing week of protests and other violent episodes at U.S. facilities around the world.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The attacks in Benghazi were security-related, resulting in the deaths of four U.S. personnel after terrorists attacked two separate U.S. government facilities – the Special Mission compound (SMC) and the Annex.
Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.
Communication, cooperation, and coordination between Washington, Tripoli, and Benghazi occurred collegially at the working-level but were constrained by a lack of transparency, responsiveness, and leadership at senior bureau levels.
Another key driver behind the weak security platform in Benghazi was the decision to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility, not officially notified to the host government, even though it was also a full time office facility.
The Board found the short-term, transitory nature of Benghazi’s staffing to be another primary driver behind the inadequate security platform in Benghazi. Staffing was at times woefully insufficient considering post’s security posture and high risk, high threat environment. The end result was a lack of institutional knowledge and mission capacity which could not be overcome by talent and hard work alone, although the Board found ample evidence of both in those who served there. The situation was exacerbated by the lack of Locally Employed Staff (LES) who would normally provide a backstop of continuity, local knowledge, and language ability.
Furthermore, DS’s reliance on volunteers for TDY (Temporary duty) positions meant that the ARSOs (Regional Security) in Benghazi often had relatively little or no prior DS program management or overseas experience.
The Board determined that reliance on “February 17” for security in the event of an attack was misplaced, even though February 17 had been considered to have responded satisfactorily to previous, albeit less threatening, incidents.
Given the threat environment, the physical security platform in Benghazi was inadequate. Notwithstanding the proper implementation of security systems and procedures and remarkable heroism shown by American personnel, those systems themselves and the Libyan response fell short in the face of a series of attacks The Board found the responses by both BML and February 17 to be inadequate. No BML guards were present outside the compound immediately before the attack ensued, although perimeter security was one of their responsibilities, and there is conflicting information as to whether they sounded any alarms prior to fleeing the C1 gate area to other areas of the SMC.
The Board also determined that the lack of fire safety equipment severely impacted the Ambassador’s and Sean Smith’s ability to escape the deadly smoke condition.
The Board found the Libyan government’s response to be profoundly lacking on the night of the attacks, reflecting both weak capacity and a near total absence of central government influence in Benghazi.
Embassy Tripoli staff showed absolute dedication and teamwork in mobilizing to respond to the crisis, with the DCM, DATT, Political, and other country team sections reaching out to a wide range of contacts in Tripoli and Benghazi to secure support; the Public Affairs team monitoring social media sites and recording a log of Mission calls; the Embassy nurse providing invaluable guidance on caring for the wounded evacuated from Benghazi; and a Consular officer donating blood that helped save the life of a wounded colleague. Throughout the crisis, the Acting NEA Assistant Secretary provided crucial leadership guidance to Embassy Tripoli’s DCM, and Embassy Tripoli’s RSO offered valuable counsel to the DS agents in Benghazi.
The Board found that intelligence provided no immediate, specific tactical warning of the September 11 attacks. Known gaps existed in the intelligence community’s understanding of extremist militias in Libya and the potential threat they posed to U.S. interests, although some threats were known to exist.
The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two bureaus in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability appropriate for the State Department’s senior ranks in their responses to security concerns posed by Special Mission Benghazi, given the deteriorating threat environment and the lack of reliable host government protection.
Implementation of Recommendations
On the same day the ARB report was issued, then-Secretary Clinton embraced all 29 recommendations, urged all State Department employees “to cooperate fully,” and directed the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources to lead a task force “to ensure that the Board’s recommendations are implemented quickly and completely, as well as to pursue steps above and beyond those recommended in the Board’s report.”
On September 11, 2013, the State Department issued an update showing considerable progress on the implementation of all 24 unclassified ARB recommendations. For example,
• since the ARB issued its recommendations in December 2012,
• the State Department has filled 113 out of 151 newly created Diplomatic Security positions;
• established a High Threat Board to review the State Department presence at high risk, high threat posts;
• created a Deputy Assistant Secretary for High Threat Posts in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), who is responsible for ensuring that such posts receive the focused attention they need;
• established a panel that identified and developed 170 operational requirements,
• associated proficiency standards, and training plans needed by DS special agents
• operating in high-threat, high risk environments
• established a six-person panel to improve DS operations and management structure which produced 35 recommendations, of which 31 have been implemented
Britain Street Blog Conclusions
The Accountability Review Board was the State Department’s accounting for what happened at Benghazi, Libya on September 11 and 12, 2012. The five-member board was appointed by Secretary of State Clinton except for Hugh Turner who was appointed by the Intelligence Community. The board members are distinguished American citizens of impeccable credentials.
The Board had 60 days to investigate and report on their findings. No person including the Secretary of State was exempt from examination.
Members of the Board interviewed more than 100 people and came up with a detailed description of the attack. They also developed 29 recommendations for the State Department to prevent future attacks and/or minimize fatalities and damage.
Hillary Clinton accepted all 29 recommendations and committed to implement them by the end of her term as Secretary of State.
The House and Senate have conducted separate investigations and these will be reported on another blog.
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