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© Photograph: Ibrahim Alaguri/APA room in the gutted US consulate in Benghazi.
State Department accused in Senate committee's report into deadly attack in Libya.

The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the US mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on Monday.

A report from the Senate homeland security committee on the 11 September attacks on the US consulate and a nearby CIA annex, in which Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans died, said intelligence agencies were at fault for not focusing tightly enough on Libyan extremists.

It also slated the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of improving security.

The committee's assessment, Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi, follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official resigning and three others at the department being relieved of their duties.

Joseph Lieberman, the independent senator who chairs the committee, said that in thousands of documents it reviewed, there was no indication that secretary of state Hillary Clinton had personally denied a request for extra funding or security for the Benghazi mission. He said key decisions were made by "mid-level managers" who have since been held accountable.

The attacks and the death of Stevens put diplomatic security practices at posts in risky areas under scrutiny and raised questions about whether intelligence about militant activity in Libya was adequate.

President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the US had "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks, but did not provide details. The FBI is investigating who was behind the assaults.

The Senate report said the lack of specific intelligence of an imminent threat in Benghazi "may reflect a failure" by intelligence agencies to focus closely enough on militant groups with weak or no operational ties to al-Qaida and its affiliates.

"With Osama bin Laden dead and core al-Qaida weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organisations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years," the report said. That trend has been seen in the Arab spring countries undergoing political transition or military conflict, it said.


Comment: Ah yes, even if the entirely created "al-Qaida" no longer poses a threat, the U.S. government must still keep its populace in fear of a monster under its bed. Maybe if the U.S. wasn't brazenly invading and occupying sovereign nations, there wouldn't be any violent extremists. Of course, that's exactly what they want so they can then send drones in to mercilessly kill and maim innocent civilians and spread even more fear and hate.



The report recommended that US intelligence agencies "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-Qaida or its main affiliate groups."

The Senate committee said the State Department should not have waited for specific warnings before improving security in Benghazi.

It also said it was widely known that the post-revolution Libyan government was "incapable of performing its duty to protect US diplomatic facilities and personnel," but the State Department failed to fill the security gap. "That was a grievous mistake."


Comment: That "mistake" was most likely intentional in order to create even more fervent anger towards Libya and non-Israeli middle eastern countries. Remember: nothing in politics ever happens by accident.


The Senate panel reviewed the changing comments made by the Obama administration after the attack, which led to a political firestorm in the runup to the November presidential election and resulted in Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton, who is stepping down.

Rice had said her initial comments that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film were based on information provided by intelligence agencies.