The attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi on Sept. 11 has sharpened congressional scrutiny of? the?State Department office that protects diplomats in the world's most dangerous corners, as lawmakers ask whether?it fatally misjudged the dangers of post-revolution Libya.
The little-known Bureau of Diplomatic Security saw its budget expand about tenfold in the decade after the deadly 1998 bombings
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Contributing to that growth were the U.S.-launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, with more diplomats moving into hostile territory.
Known as “DS’’ within the State Department, the bureau took pride in its work last year after the Arab Spring, including its rush to establish a safe diplomatic outpost in Benghazi following political upheaval in Tripoli, according to a report touting its successes.
But its handling of security in Benghazi, which will come under scrutiny on Wednesday at a House of Representatives committee hearing, is not the first time the bureau has come under review for costly mistakes.
In 2007, the bureau's director resigned after a State Department panel faulted its oversight of Blackwater and other private security contractors in Iraq after at least 14 Iraqi civilians were shot dead in Baghdad's Nisour Square.
In the Benghazi probe, the House committee expects to hear from at least two bureau officials – Eric Nordstrom, a regional security officer in Libya from September 2011 until mid-2012, and Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state for international programmes.
Another witness will be Lt.-Col. Andrew Wood, who headed a security support team at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli.
The hearing will examine whether the bureau responded properly to escalating concerns in the months leading up to the attack on
the Benghazi mission, which killed U.S. Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The committee is expected to ask why the State Department appeared to want to “normalise’’ security in Libya by using more
local staff and fewer Americans guards, a U.S. government official said.
Lawmakers have suggested that the personnel, infrastructure and logistics at the mission were inadequate, and that the bureau underestimated the threat, the U.S. official said.
He did not want to publicly discuss issues under investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The security provided was like “ordering in children's Tylenol for someone who has cancer,’’ the official said.
On a typical day, the Benghazi compound was protected by one or two American diplomatic security agents along with about four armed Libyans from the former rebel militia, the February 17 Brigade, the U.S. official said. (Reuters/NAN)