BREAKING: Senate report: Attack on U.S. compound in Benghazi could have been prevented

Posted: January 15, 2014 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Breaking News, U.S. News, War Room, White House | Tags: Benghazi, Central Intelligence Agency, Libya, Saxby Chambliss, State Department, United States, United States Department of State, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence |2 Comments

STR/AFP/Getty Images - A vehicle and the surrounding area are engulfed in flames inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi late on Sept. 11, 2012.

STR/AFP/Getty Images – A vehicle engulfed in flames inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi, Sept. 11, 2012.

Reporting by by Adam Goldman and Anne Gearan: A long-delayed Senate intelligence committee report released on Wednesday spreads blame among the State Department and intelligence agencies for not preventing attacks on two outposts in Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

The bipartisan report lays out more than a dozen findings regarding the assaults on Sept. 11 and 12, 2012 on the diplomatic compound and a CIA annex in the Libyan city of Benghazi. It says the State Department failed to increase security at the sites despite warnings, and faults intelligence agencies for not sharing information about the existence of the CIA outpost with the U.S. military.

The committee determined that the U.S. military command in Africa didn’t know about the CIA annex and didn’t have the resources to defend the diplomatic compound in an emergency.

“The attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya—to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets—and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission,” the panel said in a statement.

The report also notes, chillingly, that the FBI’s investigation into the attacks has been hampered inside Libya, and that 15 people “supporting the investigation or otherwise helpful to the United States” have since been killed in Benghazi. The report says it is unclear whether those killings were related to the investigation.

[Read the report.]

Much of the document recounts now-familiar facts about deteriorating security conditions in Benghazi in 2012, a year after the fall of longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi. It fills in new details about the relationship between the CIA building and the State Department compound about a mile away, and details the rising concern among many intelligence specialists about the growing potency of Islamist militants in the city.

“In spite of the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and ample strategic warnings, the United States Government simply did not do enough to prevent these attacks and ensure the safety of those serving in Benghazi,” said Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The report is based on dozens of committee hearings, briefings and interviews—including with survivors of the attacks—and on thousands of pages of intelligence and State Department materials collected between September 2012 and December 2013.

The account sheds little light on the most politicized aspect of the incident — questions about whether the Obama administration deliberately played down the terrorist origins of the attacks. The committee described the attacks as opportunistic, and said there was no specific, advance warning that they were about to be carried out….

Read the rest…

The Washington Post