Senior State Department officials
acknowledged to Congress on Wednesday that they had turned down requests to
send more U.S. military personnel to guard diplomatic facilities in Libya
shortly before the Sept. 11 attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three
other Americans.
But Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant
secretary in charge of diplomatic security, argued that security at the U.S.
mission in Benghazi was appropriate for known threats related to the 11th
anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
"We had the correct number of assets
in Benghazi at the time of 9/11," Lamb testified. She said the mission had
five diplomatic security agents, plus several U.S.-trained Libyan guards and
members of a local militia on standby, when the attack occurred.
The testimony came during a politically
charged four-hour hearing of the Republican-led House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee that focused on whether warnings were ignored before the
attack, an issue that has put the Obama administration on the defensive in the
heat of a presidential campaign.
Eric Nordstrom, the State Department's
former regional security officer in Libya, testified that a few more armed
Americans would not have repelled the organized nightlong assault by dozens of
heavily armed extremists, which he called unprecedented in its "ferocity
and intensity."
But Nordstrom, who left Libya in July,
sharply criticized his supervisors for ignoring his concerns about the growing
risk of armed militias and extremist groups in Benghazi.
Nordstrom said he was frustrated by "a
complete and total absence of planning" to improve security. "When I
requested assets, I was criticized.… It was a hope that everything would get
better."
Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, who headed a 16-member
U.S. military team assigned to protect the embassy in the Libyan capital,
Tripoli, said decision makers in Washington did not appreciate how security had
deteriorated in Benghazi, an eastern coastal city.
Wood noted that the British Consulate in
Benghazi was closed after assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the
British ambassador's car in June. The United States was the last Western nation
to operate a diplomatic mission in the city that was the base for the armed
uprising that toppled and killed Libyan ruler Moammar Kadafi last year.
"I almost expected the attack to
come," said Wood, a member of the Utah National Guard. "We were the
last flag flying. It was a matter of time."
Wood's team left Libya in August after Lamb
had refused to approve extending its assignment for a second time. She said the
State Department planned to turn over most basic protective duties to a Libyan
guard force, part of a decade-long shift away from using U.S. Marines to
protect embassies.
Lamb said the mix of State Department
officers, Libyan guards and militiamen "could do the same function"
as the U.S. military.
Republicans on the committee repeatedly
criticized the Obama administration for initially describing the attack as a
spontaneous outbreak of mob violence following an anti-American protest of an
Internet video denigrating the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
"This was never about a video,"
yelled Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). "This was never spontaneous. This was
terror, and we have to ask why we were lied to."
Speaking to reporters later Wednesday,
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that administration officials,
including United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, had relied on preliminary
information from U.S. intelligence agencies when they gave their initial assessments.
"From the beginning we have provided
information based on the facts that we knew as they became available and based
on assessments by the intelligence community — not opinions, assessments by the
intelligence community," Carney said. "And we have been clear all
along that this was an ongoing investigation, that as more facts became
available, we would make you aware of them as appropriate, and we've done
that."
Carney would not comment directly on
allegations that the administration had denied requests to improve security at
the diplomatic center in Benghazi.
"There is no question that when four
American personnel are killed in an attack on a diplomatic facility that the
security there was not adequate to prevent that from happening," he said.
"It is not an acceptable outcome, obviously."
Republican presidential nominee Mitt
Romney's campaign used the testimony to hammer the Obama White House for what
it called "incomplete and indirect responses."
"There are many questions about
whether or not the administration properly heeded warnings, provided adequate
security, or told the American people the whole truth in the aftermath of the
attack," Lanhee Chen, Romney's policy director, said in a statement.
"On an issue of this importance, nothing short of full and complete candor
is acceptable."
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