State Dept. security chief resigns

Four State Department officials resigned under pressure Wednesday, less than a day after a damning report blamed management failures for a lack of security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, where militants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on Sept. 11.

The resignations came as lawmakers expressed anger and frustration over the findings of an independent review panel, and the State Department struggled to find a balance between protecting its diplomats while allowing them to do their jobs connecting with people in high-risk posts.


Obama administration officials said those who had stepped down included Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security; Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security; and Raymond Maxwell, the deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the Maghreb nations of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss personnel matters publicly.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the department had accepted the resignations of four people: Boswell as well as two others in the bureau of diplomatic security and one in the bureau of Near East Affairs. She would not name the other three officials.

Some of those who resigned may have the option of being reassigned to other duties, the officials said.

The department declined immediate comment on the resignation of the officials whose decisions had been criticized in the unclassified version of the Accountability Review Board's report that was released late Tuesday.

The board's co-chairman, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters that the board had not determined that any officials had "engaged in willful misconduct or knowingly ignored his or her responsibilities,"

But Mullen, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, added, "We did conclude that certain State Department bureau level senior officials in critical levels of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks in their responses to security concerns posed by the special mission."

Mullen said the mission's security fell through bureaucratic cracks caused in part because buildings were categorized as temporary. The report said that budget constraints had caused some officials to be more concerned with saving scarce money than in security.

Co-chairman Thomas Pickering, a retired ambassador, said the personnel on the ground in Benghazi had reacted to the attack with bravery and professionalism. But, he said, the security precautions were "grossly inadequate" and the contingent was overwhelmed by the heavily armed militants.

"They did the best they possibly could with what they had but what they had wasn't enough," Pickering said.

Pickering and Mullen spoke shortly after briefing members of Congress in private. Lawmakers from both parties emerged from the sessions with harsh words for the State Department.

"My impression is the State Department clearly failed the Boy Scout motto of 'be prepared,'" said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

"They failed to anticipate what was coming because of how bad the security risk already was there. ... They failed to connect the dots," he said. "They didn't have adequate security leading up to the attack and once the attack occurred, the security was woefully inadequate."

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) a member of the House intelligence committee, said security was "plainly inadequate, intelligence collection needs to be improved, and our reliance on local militias was sorely misplaced.

"These are not mistakes we can afford to make again," he said.

The House intelligence committee chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the report laid bare "the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad," and complained that no one was being held accountable.

Rogers also said he was dissatisfied with the lack of progress in finding the attackers.

Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security who was in charge of embassy protection, testified in October before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and defended the security measures.

"I made the best decisions I could with the information I had," Lamb said at the time. "We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi at the time of 9/11."

Pickering and Mullen set the stage for public hearings set for Thursday on Capitol Hill. Scheduled to testify were Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who is in charge of policy, and Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who is in charge of management.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to have appeared at Thursday's hearings, but she canceled after fainting and sustaining a concussion last week while recovering from a stomach virus. Clinton is under doctors' orders to rest.

Senate Republicans and Democrats said they hoped Clinton would testify on the Hill even though she is planning to step down from her Cabinet post.

In a letter that accompanied the transmission of the report to Capitol Hill, Clinton thanked the board for its "clear-eyed, serious look at serious systemic challenges" and said she accepted its 29 recommendations to improve security at high-threat embassies and consulates.

She said the department had begun to put in place some of the recommendations. They include increasing by several hundred the number of Marine guards stationed at diplomatic missions throughout the world; relying less on local security forces for protection at embassies, consulates and other offices; and increasing hiring and deployment of highly trained Diplomatic Security agents at at-risk posts.

Clinton agreed with the panel's finding that Congress must fully fund the State Department's security initiatives. The panel found that budget constraints in the past had led some management officials to emphasize savings over security, including rejecting numerous requests from the Benghazi mission and the embassy in Tripoli for enhanced protection.

House and Senate negotiators working on a defense bill agreed on Tuesday to fund 1,000 more Marines at embassy security worldwide.

The report singled out the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near East Affairs for criticism.