Congressional report highly critical of security at US Consulate in Benghazi

By Sean Federico-O'Murchu, NBC News

A Congressional report on the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is highly critical of the handling of security at the mission in the Libyan city, where four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed on Sept. 11 of this year.

NBC News obtained an advance copy of the report entitled “Flashing Red:  A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi” by the Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs. The report is due to be released Monday. The chairman of the committee, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, retires from the Senate on Jan. 2.

The Congressional report follows a separate investigationby the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB), which blamed State Department officials for “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” that led to protection for the Benghazi facility that was “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”  In response at the time, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said the problems highlighted by the ARB were unacceptable, "problems for which – as Secretary (Hillary) Clinton has said -- we take responsibility."

In a statement ahead of Monday's report, Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican member, said the Congressional investigation found that “terrorists essentially walked right into the Benghazi compound unimpeded and set it ablaze, due to extremely poor security in a threat environment that was ‘flashing red’ in the words of a high-ranking official.”

Collins said the State Department failed to take adequate steps to reduce the facility's vulnerability to a terrorist attack of this kind.  

“While the Department and the Intelligence Community lacked specific intelligence about this attack, the State Department should not have waited for - or expected - specific warnings before increasing its security in Benghazi, a city awash with weapons and violent extremists,” her statement said. 

The 31-page report paints a picture of a vulnerable outpost in Libya’s second-largest city, a place about which there was sufficient information available to U.S. officials to cause them to beef up security and where it was clear that the new post-Gadhafi government was unable to provide full protection to diplomatic staff.

“We are precluded in this report from discussing the information in detail, but overall, these intelligence reports … 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 policy-makers 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 report noted that as the security situation deteriorated in eastern Libya in 2012, “the Department of State did not provide enough security to address the increased threats and did not adequately support field requests for additional security.” 

Among the committee's recommendations:

• U.S. intelligence agencies need to “broaden and deepen their focus in Libya, and beyond, on nascent violent Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate groups.”
• If a host nation can’t provide adequate security for a diplomatic facility, “the Department of State must provide additional security measures of its own, urgently attempt to upgrade the host nation security forces, or decide to close a U.S. Diplomatic facility and remove U.S. personnel until appropriate steps can be taken to provide adequate security.”
• The State Department needs to establish a “mandatory process” to determine what security standards are applicable to temporary facilities, such as the Benghazi consulate, to ensure that they are “adequately protected.”