On September 11, 2013 Senator Susan Collins of Maine was granted permission to address the United States Senate regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. What she said was absolutely shocking!
“A year ago today terrorists with links to Al Qaeda attacked our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Despite a steadily escalating stream of threat reporting, and an obvious inability of Libyan security forces to protect our diplomatic personnel and our facilities, the State Department had denied urgent requests for increased security measures. Officials kept the woefully vulnerable Benghazi compound open, setting the stage for attackers to essentially walk right into the compound and set it ablaze.”
“Tragically we lost four brave, dedicated diplomats and security personnel that terrible day and night: Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, and Ambassador Chris Stevens. We laud their courage and we honor their memory, but we must also remedy the security failures and punish those responsible for their deaths”, she said.
Senator Collins was critical of the State Department for “downplaying the terrorist threat at Benghazi.”
“Last year, as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, former Senator Joe Lieberman and I conducted an investigation into the terrorist attacks at Benghazi. In our bipartisan report entitled “Flashing Red,” we found the State Department downplayed the terrorist threat in Benghazi despite numerous previous attacks on western targets, that they ignored repeated requests for additional security, and that they insufficiently fortified a shamefully ill-protected American compound. The Benghazi facility should either have been closed until security was strengthened or the threat abated”, Collins said.
“We identified changes that must be made, including greater attention to security at high-risk posts around the world and better management to ensure that the recommendations of previous security reviews are fully implemented. It was discouraging to read previous accountability review board reports after the attacks in Africa, for example, back in the late 1990s and see similar patterns of requests for security being denied in Washington.Second, Secretary of State John Kerry should hold personnel accountable for the problems identified in our committee report and by the Accountability Review Board. After our committee and the ARB identified systemic failures and leadership deficiencies that contributed to the grossly inadequate security in Benghazi, it is totally unacceptable for the State Department to hold no one responsible for the broader mismanagement that occurred prior to the attack”, she said.
Senator Collins voiced criticism of the Obama Administration for its failure to act to bring those responsible to justice.
“Finally, a year after the attack, the terrorists who invaded the Benghazi compound still have not been brought to justice despite repeated promises and pledges by President Obama to do so. After a long-delayed investigation, including a period of weeks when the FBI agents were not allowed to even access the Benghazi facility, Federal authorities have recently filed criminal charges against several suspects”, she said.
Senator Collins was critical of what she termed “the Libyan government failure to fully cooperate” in this matter.
“A major problem is the willingness–or lack thereof–of the Libyan Government to fully cooperate. I am told that the whereabouts of one of the prime suspects is known and that he is walking about fully, openly, and freely. Yet he has not been picked up. He has not been arrested. He has not been taken into captivity. Why not?”, asked Collins (source: Congressional Record, September 11, 2013 http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php).
It should be noted that Senator Susan Collins is a member of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (source: http://www.collins.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/committee-assignments).