Covering CIA’s rear

Yesterday’s hearing on the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans last September 11/12 failed to live up to hyped expectations.  Republicans are trying to demonstrate higher-level culpability for not foreseeing the attack, for its consequences, and for Susan Rice’s television appearances claiming it grew out of a demonstration and was not necessarily a terrorist attack.

Let me make clear from the start:  as soon as I heard Ambassador Rice’s account, I knew it was wrong.  So did the President, as he demonstrated in the third debate with Mitt Romney.  He had already referred to it several days before Ambassador Rice’s appearances as a terrorist attack.  And I disagree with Hillary Clinton, who asked “what difference does it make?” when testifying in Congress.  Of course it makes a difference whether the attack was a demonstration that went bad or a concerted terrorist act.

The higher-level culpability for the inadequate physical security at the Benghazi facility has already been established in the report of the Accountability and Review Board.  Diplomatic Security, the responsible part of the State Department, has moved several people as a result. That may not be sufficient, but it is hard to imagine that culpability for the height of the perimeter wall or the strength of the exterior gate extends to the Secretary of State.  There are few American diplomatic facilities anywhere in the world that could withstand an attack like the one that occurred in Benghazi.  But in most other places we can rely on the host government security forces to respond.

If you want to hold someone responsible for not foreseeing the attack, best to focus on the Ambassador himself.  He met with a Libyan political science professor that morning who had given me a few months before a thorough account of the radical groups in the Cyrenaica region (in which Benghazi is the principal metropolis).  I have no doubt the professor would have been at least as forthcoming with Chris Stevens, who will have spoken to him in Arabic, than he was to me in English.  But knowing that there are extremists in the region and anticipating an attack on a particular day are of course two different things.

The understandably emotional testimony of the deputy chief of mission (DCM) revealed little.  Yes, he had asked for military support, but it was not available in a time frame that would have been meaningful.  I dread to think what would have happened had the four special forces people available arrived from Tripoli in time to confront the dozens of attackers in Benghazi.  The death toll might have been higher.  But there was no way to get them there in time.  The DCM may have assumed it was a terrorist attack, but he knew little about it and only found out the Ambassador was dead when the Libyan prime minister told him so.  The embassy had thought him alive in a hospital.

The Republicans’ best shot at higher level responsibility arises from Susan Rice’s press appearances.  She used cleared talking points.  Why would she be given talking points that denied terrorist involvement, or at least offered a different explanation?

I don’t of course know.  But the Weekly Standard has published what I take to be an accurate account, with various drafts of the talking points.  In this, it is clear that CIA made the changes, the Weekly Standard would have you believe in response to State Department pressure.  But that is an interpretation.  It would be unusual.  If State wants changes, it usually suggests them itself.

CIA had its own reasons to reduce the references to extremists in the talking points.  The Benghazi facility was mainly a CIA station, not a consulate.  The State Department presence there was mid-level and minimal.  Fig leaf is the phrase that comes to mind.  The former prime minister of Libya (the same one who called the ambassador’s deputy that night) told me a couple of months ago that the Libyans had no idea how many people were at the facility, which was known to the Libyan government but undeclared.  They were astonished to discover that it was dozens.

CIA would not want it known publicly that terrorists had without warning attacked a place that housed dozens of its personnel.  What are they supposed to be doing if not detecting such efforts?  CIA stations are nominally secret.  No one would want to acknowledge this one (and to my knowledge no one explicitly has).

So what we’ve got here may include still unproven high-level distortion of the facts, but it likely also includes bureaucratic tail-covering.  I’ll know Congress is conducting serious oversight when it calls responsible CIA officials who made the changes and cleared Susan Rice’s talking points to testify.  Chairman Issa has said there is more to come.  Let it be that.

One more thing:  The DCM thinks he was punished with a desk officer job.  Considering the current over-staffing of state, someone coming home “off cycle,” as he did, is lucky to do that well.  I have no doubt the powers that be snubbed him–that’s what happens at State to people who aren’t regarded as being with the program.  He was not, and he is entitled not to be.  But an off-cycle desk officer job hardly constitutes serious retaliation.