5 Lessons of Benghazi

Communication failed (and is still failing).

The Obama Administration has been under attack by the Romney campaign and others who?ve alleged that the government misinformed the public by claiming the attacks ware part of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islamic film rather than a "terrorist attack." But more recent accounts seem to demonstrate that administration officials, like Ambassador Susan Rice, weren?t aware of some intelligence intercepts until several days after her initial remarks. And that?s the really troubling fact: that the intelligence community reportedly needed days to vet those intercepts, which revealed the true nature of the attacks. Why isn?t such information passed on immediately? It was lack of information sharing among federal agencies that was highlighted as one of the reasons behind the failure of the U.S. government to prevent attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Eleven years later, Benghazi illustrates that information sharing is still far from perfect.

There should always be a contingency plan.

Press reports now say that a Predator drone was sent to Benghazi during the attack, and was even able to capture live video of the latter part of the battle. While the U.S. military was able to rush those reconnaissance assets to the vicinity, there was apparently no immediate plan for a rescue force. An administration official told ABC News that there were options for getting a military rescue mission to the scene "within 24 hours," but that was apparently not fast enough to prevent the four Americans from being killed.

The consulate didn?t have enough security.

A diplomatic security agent has told Congress that requests for more security at the consulate in Benghazi were rebuffed, a claim denied by a higher-ranking official. "[W]e had the correct number of assets in Benghazi at the time of 9/11 for what had been agreed upon," Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary of sate, told Congress, in defending the security situation. That answer misses a larger point: whatever had been agreed upon, the embassy clearly did not have the needed level of security. If it had, the attack would likely not have been as deadly.

Prediction is imperfect, but forecasting is possible.

"If people don?t behave, emit a behavior or talk or something else ahead of time to be detected, it?s going to be very hard to predict an exact attack and come up with an exact attack," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told an audience at a conference earlier this month. Clapper, who blasted the "rehashing" of Benghazi for political purposes, argues that it was impossible to predict the attack. Yet even as more facts come out to support the assertion that the attacks were opportunistic, they also paint a clearer picture of the chaos that consumed Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack. The State Department?s own cables, including those written by Ambassador Stevens, point to a tenuous security situation. It may have been impossible to predict an attack, but it was clearly possible to forecast the likelihood of a major incident.

"Expeditionary diplomacy" has risks.

The idea of sending diplomats, government officials, and experts to areas outside of fortified embassies to further U.S. foreign policy goals has been promoted in recent years as an important part of U.S. presence abroad. But sending representatives of the U.S. government into unstable areas comes with obvious risks. "We need to protect our embassies, consulates, and military advisory groups, but we cannot afford to turn them in to fortresses that lock our diplomats, aid teams, and military on the scene away from events and the people they are trying to influence," wrote Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, following the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. Stevens, Cordesman says, was "a man who clearly knew that America?s success required risk taking and action in the field."

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