State Department’s fairy dust fails on Congress

I guess that the State Department thought they could could sprinkle their magic fairy dust on Congress like they can on the media and get everyone to ignore the facts of the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11th this year. Fox News reports that Congressman Issa claims that the State Department turned aside pleas from the embassy in Libya for increased security;

One witness Wednesday, Eric Nordstrom, is the former chief security officer for U.S. diplomats in Libya, who told the committee his pleas for more security were ignored.

Nordstrom addressed the diplomatic security issue in an Oct. 1 email to a congressional investigator. He said his requests for more security were blocked by a department policy to “normalize operations and reduce security resources.”

Nordstrom, though, also said in written testimony that he felt most of his resource requests were considered “seriously and fastidiously” by the State Department.

Then seriously and fastidiously rejected.

He stated that Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary for international programs, wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi artificially low. He said Lamb believed the Benghazi facilities did not need any diplomatic security special agents because there was a residential safe haven to fall back to in an emergency.

Lamb defended her assessment during the hearing, claiming that the team believed it had the “correct number of assets” in Benghazi at the time of the attack.

And yet, they didn’t. Funny, now, I’m no security expert, but when I planned combat operations, I always factored in more than what I thought I needed. More men, more ammo, more food. I never figured there was a minimum that I’d accept when we’re talking about people’s lives. But, that’s just me.

“No good is done to the security of the United States to politicize this tragedy,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.

That goes both ways, Gerry.

So, Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum is busy trying to cover for the Administration by blaming Republican budget cuts to the State Department for the attack, quoting Dana Milbank;

Ryan, Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan’s budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.

The problem is that the State Department pulled Army personnel out of Libya, not diplomatic security folks. So, cuts to the diplomatic security force had no impact in Benghazi. See how doing your reading on a subject changes the whole story?

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War