WASHINGTON — An independent inquiry into the attack on the United States diplomatic mission in Libya that killed four Americans on Sept. 11 sharply criticized the State Department for a lack of seasoned security personnel and for relying on untested local militias to safeguard the compound, according to a report by the panel made public on Tuesday night.
The investigation into the attacks on the diplomatic mission and the C.I.A. annex in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others also faulted State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests from the American Embassy in Tripoli for more guards and safety upgrades to the mission.
The panel blamed American intelligence officials for relying too much on specific warnings of imminent attacks, which they did not have in the case of Benghazi, rather than basing assessments more broadly on a deteriorating security environment. By this spring, Benghazi, a hotbed of militant activity in eastern Libya, had experienced a string of assassinations, an attack on a British envoy's motorcade and the explosion of a bomb outside the American Mission.
Finally, the report blamed two major State Department bureaus — Diplomatic Security and Near Eastern Affairs — for failing to coordinate and plan adequate security. The panel also determined that a number of officials had shown poor leadership.
"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus," the report said, resulted in security "that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."
The attacks in Benghazi and the Obama administration's explanation of what happened and who was responsible became politically charged issues in the waning weeks of the presidential campaign, and Republicans have continued to demand explanations since then. Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, took herself out of the running for secretary of state after Republicans criticized comments she made in the aftermath of the lethal attack.
The report affirmed there were no protests of an anti-Islamic video before the attacks, as Ms. Rice had said in her comments on several Sunday talk shows days after the attack.
While the report focused on the specific attack in Benghazi, the episode cast into broader relief the larger question of how American diplomats and intelligence officers operate in increasingly unstable environments, like those in the Arab Spring countries across North Africa and the Middle East, without increased security.
In response to the panel's findings, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a letter to Congress that she was accepting all 29 of the panel's recommendations, five of which are classified. "To fully honor those we lost, we must better protect those still serving to advance our nation's vital interests and values overseas," Mrs. Clinton said in the letter. Mrs. Clinton is already taking specific steps to correct the problems, according to officials.
They say the State Department is asking permission from Congress to transfer $1.3 billion from contingency funds that had been allocated for spending in Iraq. This includes $553 million for hundreds of additional Marine security guards; $130 million for diplomatic security personnel; and $691 million for improving security at installations abroad.
Noting that the Libyan militias in Benghazi proved unreliable, the report recommended that in future situations the United States must be "self-reliant and enterprising."
In recent weeks, teams of State Department and Pentagon security specialists have been sent to 19 "high threat" diplomatic posts around the world to conduct assessments.
The State Department last month for the first time also appointed a senior official — a deputy assistant of state — to ensure that embassies and consulates in dangerous places get sufficient attention. To that end, the department is revamping deployment procedures to increase the number of experienced and well- trained personnel serving in those posts, and to reduce the high turnover rate that the panel identified as a problem.
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