[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BENGHAZI: WHERE IS THE STATE DEPARTMENT ACCOUNTABILITY?
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 18, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-93
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESS
The Honorable Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management,
U.S. Department of State....................................... 4
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Patrick F. Kennedy: Prepared statement............. 6
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 80
Hearing minutes.................................................. 81
The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York: Material submitted for the record....... 83
The Honorable Steve Stockman, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Texas: Prepared statement......................... 84
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement.......... 85
Written responses from the Honorable Patrick F. Kennedy to
questions submitted for the record by:
The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California, and chairman, Committee on
Foreign Affairs.............................................. 89
The Honorable Matt Salmon, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Arizona......................................... 98
The Honorable Jeff Duncan, a Representative in Congress from
the State of South Carolina.................................. 99
The Honorable Steve Stockman, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Texas........................................... 102
The Honorable Ted S. Yoho, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Florida......................................... 106
BENGHAZI: WHERE IS THE STATE DEPARTMENT ACCOUNTABILITY?
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:12 a.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. The hearing of the committee will come to
order at this time.
Since September 11th of 2012, the committee has been
focused on the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, where terrorists
killed four Americans that day, including our Ambassador, the
first U.S. Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979.
The focus of today's hearing, which is our fourth, is the
troubling lack of accountability we have seen within the State
Department since that time. The bottom line is that over 1 year
later no State Department personnel have been held accountable
for the Department's failure to protect the Benghazi consulate
and the U.S. personnel there, not one.
As we know, there were so many things with the State
Department's decision-making before the fatal attack. In the
face of a glaring need, with violence in Benghazi mounting,
critical security requests from the field were denied at State.
The Department was asleep on 9/11, and this led to the
Accountability Review Board to find, in their words, systemic
failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior
levels within two State Department bureaus. But no State
Department personnel have been fired or even disciplined. No
one has missed a paycheck.
Accountability can be painful. Those making bad decisions
may have long and otherwise good records. But the Department
cannot have a culture of accountability, which is what any
well-functioning organization needs, and which is essential to
protecting its personnel, if no one, literally no one, is held
accountable for the mismanagement and poor leadership the ARB
itself identified.
Now, let's look at how the Department's review process has
played out. The ARB failed to interview the Secretary of State
and, improbably, kept responsibility at the Assistant Secretary
level. Four officials have been placed on administrative leave
in a process that appears to have violated State Department
personnel policies. The former Secretary ceded her authority to
take action against the four individuals, or others, to a new
Secretary for his review. And finally, four officials on paid
leave were reinstated and reassigned into unspecified positions
at this review's conclusion, while at least one individual
connected with failed management policies has received a
promotion.
I wish I did, but I just don't see the level of
accountability that Benghazi warrants, indeed that Benghazi
demands. And meanwhile not one terrorist perpetrator has been
captured, not one terrorist perpetrator has been killed despite
the President saying that that was a highest priority.
The terrorist threat in much of the world, unfortunately,
is only increasing. U.S. facilities, obviously, are tempting
targets. The State Department, with this committee's
encouragement, has undertaken some important Embassy security
reforms. We have put many of those reforms into legislation
passed out of the committee, which also authorized the
administration's full funding request for Embassy security.
But no amount of money will ever overcome poor management
and poor management is a given without accountability. I would
ask all committee members, are you comfortable with this
process that has no State Department official being held
accountable in any meaningful way?
Other committees have been working on other aspects of
Benghazi. Many questions have been answered. This committee
will continue to focus on accountability, including legislation
to reform the Accountability Review Board process so that it is
truly independent and future Secretaries of State, of either
party, cannot stack the deck. I would hope to have bipartisan
support for that.
As we hold this hearing we should focus on the facts, we
should ask the difficult questions, but work in a way that is
going to lead to the most productive outcome, and that is
learning from mistakes and improving the security of U.S.
diplomatic personnel serving overseas--many, by the way, in
increasingly threatening surroundings. That is a committee goal
I know we can all agree upon.
And I will now turn to Ranking Member Engel for his opening
statement.
Mr. Engel. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And as
I have said many times before, I would like to commend you for
the bipartisan way that you have presided over the committee
this year and that we have worked together in a very bipartisan
way. Unlike some other committees, our members have
consistently conducted themselves with dignity and decorum. And
I hope we can really continue that today despite the strong
feelings that many of us have, different opinions on both sides
of the aisle.
All of us agree that the deaths of four brave Americans in
Benghazi on September 11th, 2012, were a terrible tragedy. In
the aftermath of the terrorist attacks Secretary Clinton
convened an Accountability Review Board, or ARB, to determine
what went wrong and to make recommendations to improve security
at our diplomatic posts. Among those chosen to serve on the ARB
were Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen, two
men with impeccable reputations and unparalleled experience.
In its report submitted last December the Board found that
there were, ``systematic failures and leadership and management
deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus at the State
Department,'' that led to inadequate security in Benghazi.
Secretary Clinton took personal responsibility for the attacks
and accepted all of the recommendations of the ARB. The State
Department, now under the leadership of Secretary Kerry, has
implemented or is in the process of implementing all of the
recommendations.
To support the work of ARB and the efforts of the State
Department I introduced the Embassy Security and Enhancement
Act of 2013. This noncontroversial legislation, much of which
was incorporated into the State Department authorization bill
that the committee recently passed, would help improve
diplomatic security planning, strengthen physical security, and
enhance security training.
Mr. Chairman, our committee has a responsibility to ensure
that our brave diplomats and aid workers have the security they
deserve. At the same time, we must recognize, as Ambassador
Chris Stevens surely did, that there is a certain amount of
risk inherent in these occupations and that effective diplomacy
cannot be conducted from behind the walls of a fortress. And I
have heard a lot of things said about personal blame of
President Obama, but let me say this: Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton are no more responsible for what happened in Benghazi
than George Bush was for what happened on 9/11 or that Ronald
Reagan was for what happened to the murder of over 200 of our
military personnel in Beirut. The Congress cut funding for
Embassy security. There are lots of fingers to be pointed all
the way around. But I think we shouldn't point fingers, we
should try to get to the bottom of it, hopefully in a
nonpolitical way.
I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witness,
Under Secretary of State Pat Kennedy, for whom I have
tremendous respect, on how we should best manage and mitigate
risk in our diplomatic posts around the world. I would also
like to hear from him about the progress made in implementing
the recommendations of the ARB and about the Department's
decision regarding the employment status of the four State
Department officials identified in the ARB.
Mr. Chairman, in closing I would like to reiterate my hope
that we can manage a high level of civility in our discussions
today and that we don't engage in gotcha politics like some
other committees do. And I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel.
This morning we are pleased to be joined by the Under
Secretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy. As Under
Secretary for Management he is responsible for the people,
resources, facilities, technology, financial operations,
consular affairs, and security for Department of State
operations, and is the Secretary's principal advisor on
management issues.
Ambassador Kennedy welcome.
Without objection the witness' full prepared statements
will be made part of the record. The members will have 5 days
to submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for
the record. And I would like to remind everyone, including our
witness, that today's hearing is part of this committee's
continuing investigation and review on these matters, thus any
willful misrepresentation or false statement by a witness is a
criminal offense under 18 U.S. Code Section 1001. Indeed, that
is the case at all of our hearings.
So I look forward to a full and frank exchange during our
proceedings today. And, Ambassador Kennedy, would you please
summarize your remarks at this time?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PATRICK F. KENNEDY, UNDER SECRETARY
FOR MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Kennedy. Thank you very much, Chairman Royce,
Ranking Member Engel, distinguished members. Thanks for
inviting me to testify about the tragic events of September 11,
2012, in Benghazi, Libya.
The Department maintains a robust global presence at 285
locations, many in challenging security environments where U.S.
national security interests are at stake. Every day we work to
protect our people and missions by constantly assessing threats
and our security posture. In all the discussions on overseas
security over the past year one strong point of agreement is
that America needs to have a robust presence abroad to advance
our national security interests, even in dangerous places. The
Department fights terrorism, enhances the rule of law, fights
disease, and promotes fair trade.
These myriad of activities are often accomplished by the
whole of the United States Government. Over 30 different United
States Government agencies have a presence overseas in a
facility that the State Department manages and secures. Almost
as long as the United States has sent its diplomats out into
the world there have been those who abhor the freedoms that
America represents and those who seek to do us harm. The
attacks in Benghazi in September were a tragedy for the family
and loved ones of these four patriots, for the Department of
State, and for our Nation. As the President has made clear, the
United States is committed to bringing the perpetrators to
justice.
We are also committed to taking necessary steps to prevent
such tragedies in the future. While we can never eliminate all
risk, our constant goal is to mitigate risk to the maximum
extent possible. As described in my written statement, the
Department mitigates risk in large part through two major
security programs: Physical security upgrades and construction
of new facilities by the Bureau of Overseas Buildings
Operations, and technical, physical, and procedural security
programs implemented by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
Following the September attacks President Obama and
Secretary Clinton immediately called on the State Department to
review and improve security. State, with the assistance of the
Department of Defense, deployed interagency security assessment
teams to 19 high threat posts to identify security improvements
that could be enhanced and implemented both in the near and
longer term. Per statute an independent Accountability Review
Board was convened. On December 19, 2012, the ARB presented its
findings and 29 recommendations to the Secretary of State.
State has already addressed almost all of these recommendations
and is working diligently with Defense and others to implement
those that remain, those that require more time and resources,
such as deploying the full contingent of Marine security
guards.
Of note, the Department has already created a Deputy
Assistant Secretary for High Threat Posts who is responsible
for focusing attention on those particular locations; ensured
all high threat posts have adequate life safety equipment;
design an intensive 10-week Arabic alert language course
specifically for personnel in the security field that will
begin next month. We are reinforcing throughout the
Department's workforce the predicate that security is
everyone's responsibility. Over the past year we have been
working with Defense to establish 35 additional Marine security
guard detachments to increase the size of existing Marine
security guard detachments and to establish a rapid
augmentation force in Quantico to add additional Marines to
posts as the situation warrants.
Following the ISAT efforts in the autumn of 2012 and the
ARB report, the Department requested authority to transfer $1.4
billion from one account to another for an increased security
proposal, and in the 2013 continuing appropriations act
Congress funded this request, for which we are deeply grateful.
These funds are being used to provide facilities for the
additional Marine guard detachments, as well as for Embassy
construction and security renovations. We have also begun the
recruitment of 151 additional diplomatic security personnel,
and 113 have already been hired.
We have made implementing the recommendations of the ARB a
priority so that we can better prevent similar tragedies in the
future. That is where we are focused at the State Department,
and I know this is your priority as well.
The unfortunate fact is our diplomats and facilities abroad
will face attacks again, as they just did last week in Herat,
Afghanistan. Since the tragic attacks in Benghazi the tempo of
threats and attacks against us has not diminished. We will do
everything we can to deter and mitigate the effectiveness of
any attack, but we will not, even with the most willing and
capable governments as partners, ever stop terrorists or
extremists from mounting attacks against us in all cases. And
we must continue to operate in places where host governments
may not always be as willing or capable of fully defending us
as we would wish. The risks to the United States as a Nation,
however, are greater if we withdraw than the risks that the
brave U.S. diplomatic, development, and military personnel on
the front lines of our foreign diplomacy efforts face.
I appreciate that there is interest in Benghazi from
security to ARB implementation to accountability, and I am here
today to answer your questions. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:]
----------
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. I would like to
focus on the Benghazi Accountability Review Board, and I think
the administration likes to characterize that as an independent
board. But was that ARB board really independent? Because the
Secretary of State selected four of the five members, the
chairman of the Board, Ambassador Pickering, has told
congressional staff that you asked him for recommendations as
to who else might serve with him on the Board. Is that correct,
you asked Ambassador Pickering for his recommendations as to
who else might serve on the ARB board?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct, sir.
Chairman Royce. There has also been reports that you played
a role in selecting and assigning those Department employees
who staffed the board and assisted with this investigation. Did
you, in fact, supervise the assignment of State employees to
assist?
Ambassador Kennedy. I had absolutely nothing to do with the
assignment of staff to the Board, sir, absolutely nothing.
Chairman Royce. Well, I thank you. But here is a concern
that we have in terms of the way it was staffed: A well-
conducted investigation demands that there be sensible
limitations on who can serve as an investigator, and the
Benghazi ARB members and staff had too many ties, very close
working relationships with those officials that they were
charged with investigating.
Consider, I think, these points. The Assistant Secretary
for Near Eastern Affairs, Elizabeth Jones, not only worked with
Ambassador Pickering at the State Department, but also served
with him on two nonprofit boards. The ARB's lead staffer, also
known as the ARB's Executive Director, had previously served as
Chief of Staff to Deputy Secretary William Burns and had worked
closely with a number of other senior Department officials.
These relationships can affect impartiality. And many State
Department employees, including some who have testified before
this Congress, have questioned the ARB's ability and
willingness to conduct a truly unbiased investigation. That
goes to the question of whether this really was an independent
report. And the other aspect of this that is concerning is the
way it has been packaged: Packaged as independent.
I think that in light of these facts it is important going
forward, given the Department's lack of accountability, that we
change the procedure for the ARB so that, in fact, we have
independent voices on it. Otherwise, you undermine the credible
claims of independence and you create an environment that is
too clubby. And I think that the legislation that we have put
forward will change that. I wanted your observation, support,
or opposition to the measure that we are proposing in order to
change the way in which ARB boards are conducted in the future.
Ambassador Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, I believe that this was
an independent investigation. If one reads, as I know you have,
the very, very hard-hitting and very, very critical comments of
the Accountability Review Board, as you noted in your opening
statement, it is hard for me to accept the fact that the Board
was stacked as a State Department-favorable Board when they
rendered the very, very critical opinions that they did reach.
Three members of the Board, Mr. Chairman, had no relationship
at all with the State Department. All of the members of the
Board had decades of experience working for both Republican and
Democratic Presidents over the period of time.
It is impossible, I believe, to find someone with State
Department senior expertise who could be a member of the Board
with the gravity of someone with many years of experience and
who is retired who had not worked with people at the State
Department.
Chairman Royce. Well, could I interrupt you just for a
minute here?
Ambassador Kennedy. Certainly.
Chairman Royce. We are here today because at the end of the
day no one is held accountable, and so that is contradictory to
the thesis that you are advancing here. No one is held
accountable.
Ambassador Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully disagree
about the subject of accountability. Four employees of the
State Department were relieved of their senior positions as
Assistant Secretaries or Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State
and are no longer holding those senior positions. I submit,
respectfully, Mr. Chairman, that accountability includes being
relieved from your job and assigned to other positions. To me
that is serious accountability.
Chairman Royce. Well, the reassignment--no one missed a
paycheck, all right, no one has been held accountable, and the
Board did not take this to the upper levels of management,
where clearly for those who are observing from the outside many
of these decisions were made. And indeed that is why we are
here, is in order to try to change a system in which you have a
hand in suggesting who does the investigation.
It would be far wiser, and this is one of the most
frustrating parts about dealing with this State Department, you
went 4 years without the appointment internally of an
investigator that would take on this responsibility. And in
this process, we go through an ARB process in which you choose
who is going to do the investigation, afterwards you move
people from one position to another, they are on the paycheck,
they are on the clock, whether they are working or not, through
all of this, and there is no accountability in the process from
our perspective in it. The idea that no one is held accountable
at the end of the day is the problem, and reassignment just
doesn't cut it in terms of addressing that issue.
We are going to go to Mr. Engel.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am more concerned with preventing another Benghazi-type
attack in the future rather than worrying about who was brought
to justice, so to speak, for what they did or didn't do. I want
to make sure that we do everything we can so that there are no
future Benghazis. The State Department, led by Secretary
Clinton and now Secretary Kerry, has put forward a lot of
effort to improve how it plans and provides resources for
diplomatic security over the past year. Bottom line, is the
State Department doing a better job, in your opinion, at
protecting the men and women serving around the world in
dangerous locations than it was a year ago? And explain why.
What have you learned? Obviously things were problematic. What
have we learned from our Benghazi experience that could not be
repeated today because we have made changes?
Ambassador Kennedy. Congressman, I think that one of the
things that the Accountability Review Board called to our
attention which was very critical was a question inherent
potentially in the culture of the State Department, and it is,
is the focus of security only a management responsibility or
should the culture of responsibility extend to all elements of
the State Department? In other words, is security everyone's
responsibility?
I think, as the Accountability Review Board pointed out,
that was an issue. And we have taken steps there through
assigning diplomatic security agents to brief the Assistant
Secretaries every day to be part of the Assistant Secretaries
for the regional offices morning staff meetings, officers from
all the regional bureaus attend the Diplomatic Security
Director's morning briefings that lays out all the security
issues that we are facing around the world. We appointed a
Deputy Assistant Secretary in Diplomatic Security for high
threat posts so that we can focus specifically on those posts
that are particularly endangered, so to speak, because of the
world events in that part of the world. And that obviously is
not a static situation. The world conditions change and our
focus here has to be changed. And so we have also built in an
institutional program so the regular review of what are the
highest and most threatened posts so that we can change our
focus as the situation requires.
Thanks to this Congress, we have achieved additional
funding levels and we are deploying. We have already deployed a
number of Marine security guard detachments in endangered
periods. And working with the United States Marine Corps we are
well on the road to increasing the number of Marine security
guards to 35, and we have enhanced our training programs as
well.
So I think that there was a bell that was rung by the
Accountability Review Board, and the State Department is taking
many and varied steps to improve what we are doing, and many of
those activities are already in place.
Mr. Engel. Let me ask you this. The Pickering-Mullen panel
called for the establishment of multi-bureau support cells when
opening or reopening a post, and legislation which I introduced
which was included in the authorization bill passed by our
committee last month reflects this procedure. Can you tell us a
little bit about this?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir. It is clear that when you are
going to open a post in an endangered area, to achieve security
with a small ``s'' it requires logistics, it requires
construction, it requires telecommunications, it requires the
right personnel with the right training. And these multiunit
support cells have already been established and there is one
already that it is working on the situation, for example,
should we have to go back into Syria at some point, the multi-
concept support cell has already stood up and working on that
question.
Mr. Engel. Let me ask you one final question. In your
written testimony you quote from a report completed by the Best
Practices Panel led by the former head of the Secret Service
Mark Sullivan, and one of those recommendations is that the
Diplomatic Security Bureau be elevated and a new Under
Secretary for Diplomatic Security be created. A similar change
approved by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
following the east Africa bombings in the late 1990s. However,
changes were not made. What do you think about this
recommendation? And if a new Under Secretary is not created
should the Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security report
directly to the Secretary?
Ambassador Kennedy. In the sense, Congressman, all
Assistant Secretaries report directly to the Secretary. But
given the demands on the Secretary of State's time, which is
not infinite, there are a number of Under Secretaries in the
State Department who assist the Secretary of the State
Department in various channels, whether they be international
political affairs, international economic affairs, arms control
and security. And so the Under Secretaries, in my humble
opinion, form an important assistance function to the Secretary
in order that he or she has the right amount of time to focus
on the most critical issues.
We are still reviewing the results of the Best Practices,
the Sullivan panel. But I might make one comment on the
rationale for the current structure in the State Department.
Security is not just the responsibility of the Bureau of
Diplomatic Security. Security needs new facility construction,
it needs security enhancement, it needs medical support, it
needs telecommunications, it needs training, it needs
logistics, it needs the right kind of recruiting tools. All
those activities that are carried on in the State Department
under the auspices of the Under Secretary for Management form
the platform that provides a robust security capability at a
post. And I believe it is very important that there be, on
behalf of the Secretary of State, a coordinator. That is why
the Department has organized itself as it has.
But we will be looking at the recommendation of the
Sullivan panel. But that is the reason why the Booz Allen
Hamilton report, which was really a report on intelligence and
security, and that report, when it said an Under Secretary
would have also taken the Bureau of Intelligence and Research
and the Counterterrorism Office and Diplomatic Security and put
it all into one.
Mr. Engel. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. We go to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is indeed pathetic that still no one has been held
accountable for the disastrous decisions that were made at the
State Department before, during and after this terrorist
attack. State continues to merely shuffle the deck chairs and
employ officials who were part of the management deficiencies
and systematic failures that were tragically made. Earlier this
year two senior officials resigned over the IRS scandal, yet no
one has resigned, no one has been fired at State for the
misguided decisions related to the September 11th, 2012,
terrorist attacks. This is unacceptable and it is appalling.
The administration is asking us to trust it when it says
that it is doing everything it can to hold our people
accountable for their pathetic roles in this tragedy and will
bring those terrorists responsible to justice. Really? Who
believes this? This is the same administration who deliberately
politicized the talking points, set out a false narrative
denying that this was a terrorist attack and attributing blame
to a video maker. Secretary Panetta has said that there was
little communication with the White House and President Obama
during the night of the attack.
In this time of great need was the President missing in
action? The White House has failed to answer the question of
where the President was, what he was doing during the attack,
and why he failed to call for military backup. Greg Hicks, the
former Deputy Chief of Missions in Libya, testified that the
administration gave a stand-down order to prevent a rescue team
from going into Benghazi to help. Who gave that stand-down
order? Can you describe the coordination between the White
House, Secretary Clinton, and Secretary Panetta to give our
personnel immediate support and assistance? Did anyone even
lift a finger?
Libya was a high threat post and this should have made
continued security requests of our personnel an urgent priority
within the Department and those requests should have been
granted immediately. It was not a question of funding or
capabilities. Their requests were not granted because people
failed to do their job.
What assurances can you give us that another high threat
post as we speak is not currently urgently asking for
additional security, additional support, and that they are
being ignored as well? What protocols are now in place to
prevent this from happening again? The ARB recommended that
State establish a panel of outside independent experts with
experience in high risk, high threat areas to identify best
practices and evaluate U.S. security platforms. What are those
recommendations?
In January I asked Secretary Clinton for an itemized
funding layout and justification of how the Department was
going to enforce and implement, as she said, all of the 64
recommendations from the ARB. I have not received that detailed
report.
This summer, as we know, the Department closed over 20
Embassies and consulates in the Middle East and North Africa.
We should condition aid to host nations based on their full
cooperation with the U.S. on implementing a plan that will
protect our Foreign Service officers and Ambassadors overseas.
So I ask you, sir, what about the stand-down order? What
was the coordination between the White House and Secretaries
Clinton and Panetta? And what about the implementation of the
recommendations, all 64?
Ambassador Kennedy. Thank you very much.
I hesitate to speak for the President of the United States,
but what I have been briefed on is that this is what the White
House has outlined: As soon as the President learned of the
attack on our temporary mission facility in Benghazi he
immediately acted to ensure that our military and national
security staff could secure and assist our Embassies around the
globe and reinforce our----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Can you answer who give the stand-down
order? Do you have any information?
Ambassador Kennedy. There was no--there was no----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. What about the coordination?
Ambassador Kennedy. If I could, ma'am, there was no stand-
down order. I would be glad to----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you. What about the coordination
between the Department of State, the White House and Secretary
Panetta?
Ambassador Kennedy. There was coordination all night. The
call came in at about 3:45 p.m. in the afternoon Washington
time. And the State Department----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And who decided that there was no reason
to help, or they had no capabilities, or they had no resources
to help?
Ambassador Kennedy. The U.S. military was put on alert, a
FAST Marine platoon from one location.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. How long did this fire fight take place,
this terrorist attack, how many hours?
Ambassador Kennedy. The attack on the temporary mission
facility----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Was it 8 hours?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, the attack on the temporary mission
facility was about an hour, and then there was about a 6-hour
lag, and then there was about a 15-minute second attack on the
annex.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. So 7 hours-plus.
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And so during that time?
Ambassador Kennedy. The nearest U.S. military forces were
in Djibouti.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And in 7 hours----
Ambassador Kennedy. The distance from Djibouti----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Really?
Ambassador Kennedy [continuing]. To Benghazi is about the
distance from Washington to Dallas, to Dallas, Texas.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. So it would have been impossible----
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, there were no--there were no----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. In 7-plus hours----
Ambassador Kennedy [continuing]. There were no----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [continuing]. There was nothing that we
could do. So that is the message that we are sending to our
Embassies. When you are in trouble----
Ambassador Kennedy. No.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. [continuing]. 7-plus hours, we are in the
1930s, we can't get to you.
Ambassador Kennedy. No, no, Congresswoman. We have been
working with the Department of Defense, but there are only so
many Department of Defense military installations around the
world and the distances from those installations--the reason
why that that is relevant and important goes to our request and
help in increasing the funding to allow----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much. As was pointed out,
and I know I am over, this was not a problem of funding. And
that ARB states it and every witness has said it, it was not a
problem of lack of funding. It was a problem of lack of resolve
to do something about the problem that lasted more than 7
hours.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. We will go to Mr. Meeks of New York.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And unfortunately, Ambassador Kennedy, all of what we have
just heard in the line of questions that you just had we have
heard it. They have been asked before at other hearings that we
have had. ARB has covered it. So here we go again with the same
questions, the same thing again. And you were cut off, I don't
know, so to just give you an opportunity if there is something
else that you want to say. I know you have heard these
questions a thousand times and people just don't want to know
the correct answers, but if there is something else that you
want to add on to that please do so.
Ambassador Kennedy. Thank you, sir. I would like to cover
the funding question, if I could. The Accountability Review
Board was correct about funding, but there are two types of
funding. There is sort of microfunding and macrofunding. The
State Department responded to every single one of the requests
for increased security enhancements in Benghazi, and I would be
glad to submit for the record a list of all the security
enhancements that we put into place in Benghazi. Increasing the
wall. Alarm systems. Cameras. Barbed wire. Drop arm barriers to
make sure that bomb-laden vehicles could not crash into the
buildings. So all the micro-enhancements for Benghazi that they
requested were attended to.
Then there is there is the macro question, Congressman, and
that is that the best defense is ability to construct the new
facilities that you have provided us additional funds for.
Subsequent to the attack on Benghazi there was a major attack
on our compound in Tunisia and there was a major attack on our
compound in Khartoum. Those buildings held out and not a single
American was killed or injured for over 8 hours until host
nation security forces mobilized to defend us. But those
building, in Khartoum and in Tunisia, were the new, modern
buildings that we have had the assistance of the Congress and
the funding to build. It is just that on a macro sense, because
of the increase in the value of the dollar and because of
inflation worldwide, the program that we started after Nairobi
and Dar es Salaam we were building eight Embassies a year then.
Because of the decrease in funding we were building three.
Thanks to your help the funding is now back up to 8.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you. Now let's just try to move forward a
little bit. I mean, and I wish that this hearing was about
moving forward and talking about how we can make sure that we
can support our diplomats in a better way. And as the
Department continues to implement recommendations of the ARB I
was talking a number of diplomats seem to be worried about some
of the new security protocols that may inhibit or limit their
ability to engage with the local community, reach out to key
contacts, and establish much needed relationships to do their
jobs well. How can we balance the need for more security
precautions and the ability of diplomats to reach the local
community and do their jobs?
Ambassador Kennedy. I think that is something that the
State Department works very hard on. And there have been a
number of articles in the popular press over the last few years
that describe fortress Embassies that are unavailable to the
local populace. I think they have actually the purpose and the
operating style of an American Embassy and our diplomatic and
other agencies abroad absolutely backwards. Our diplomats go
out of the Embassy. We don't, except for consular operations,
we don't demand that people come to see us in our homes, we go
to their home. We go to the Foreign Ministry, we go to the
Ministry of Education, we visit the journalists. So our people
go out all the time.
But if there is a crisis brewing in a country that comes up
overnight, a coup or other dangers, what we need is a place
that our diplomats can in effect hunker down in, and those are
the new Embassy compounds that we have been building with your
money. So the new steps we are taking, sir, combined with
additional diplomatic security professionals and additional
armored vehicles, will continue to allow our people to go out,
but have a safe base.
Mr. Meeks. And let me just ask this in the few remaining
seconds I have left. What about working, have we changed or
have we--we have to work with host governments.
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Meeks. And has the Department changed or implemented
any new procedures in working with these host governments,
because they have some responsibility for security also,
especially how do we mitigate the risk of work in the country
where there is ongoing conflict or instability?
Ambassador Kennedy. We work very closely with host nations.
That is one of the principal responsibilities of our Regional
Security Officers. We also partner with the Department of
Defense, which has a number of programs which train local host
nation security forces. The State Department also has under the
Antiterrorism Assistance Program training programs between the
Bureau of Diplomatic Security that brings foreign national
police leaders to the United States for training. So this
partnership is ongoing and we are working to enhance it.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Chairman Royce. Go now to Mr. Smith of New Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ambassador, welcome. Let me ask you a few questions, if
I could. Were you or Secretary Clinton aware of the compelling
need for more diplomatic security? And this would parallel
Secretary Madeleine Albright's repeated denial of security
requests which led to our Nairobi Embassy being bombed, as well
as our Embassy in Dar es Salaam. As you recall, Ambassador
Bushnell repeatedly asked for assistance and did not get it.
The ARB did not interview Madeleine Albright, it did not
interview her senior staff. It did interview you because you
were Assistant Secretary at the time. And it seems to me that
we stop at the Assistant Secretary level when the people who
probably have even more knowledge and certainly are to be held
for responsible accounting of what they did or did not do.
I asked the Secretary of State a very straightforward
question and she said the information did not come to her
attention about the security needs. Is that true? And did you
know about any of the requests through any means, whether it be
cables or conversations about Ambassador Stevens' request and
others at the Embassy for more security help? You weren't aware
of it?
Ambassador Kennedy. Congressman, except for one request,
which I will touch on in a second, all the requests that were
filed by our Embassy in Tripoli on behalf of the temporary
mission facility in Benghazi were met. They asked for funding
for concrete Jersey barriers to increase the perimeter, they
asked for four steel drop arms in order to make sure that cars
could not crash through the gate, they asked for increased
compound lighting, they asked----
Mr. Smith. Who knew about these requests? That is my only
question, not what they asked for, who knew about it?
Ambassador Kennedy. These requests, since they were all
met, I believe I was generally aware that they were----
Mr. Smith. So there was no request that went unanswered you
are saying?
Ambassador Kennedy. Except for one. There was a request
that was debated about whether or not we should erect massive
guard towers.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Did the Secretary of State know about any
of that?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, because the requests were being
met.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, why wasn't the senior staff
and why wasn't the Secretary of State interviewed by the ARB?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is a question----
Mr. Smith. We have asked it. We have gotten poor answers
from Ambassador Pickering.
Ambassador Kennedy [continuing]. Congressman, you will have
to ask the ARB.
Mr. Smith. So did you convey any emails or any information
you might have had to the ARB in any way?
Ambassador Kennedy. Other than the reference of talking to
Ambassador Pickering after he had been named chairman.
Mr. Smith. So you were interviewed informally?
Ambassador Kennedy. There are press reports that I was
never interviewed. That is categorically false. I was formally
interviewed, I think, for almost 2 hours.
Mr. Smith. Then why wouldn't they include that. Are you
listed on the list of interviewees?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Let me ask you, if I could, the deployment
of foreign emergency support teams, who made that decision not
to deploy? Was a request made, and who made the decision not to
deploy?
Ambassador Kennedy. I was asked did I, in my role as the
management official of the State Department, need the FEST to
be deployed, and I said no for two reasons. One, the FEST is
not a military response unit, it is a command-and-control
airplane, the kind that we did send to Nairobi after----
Mr. Smith. So was a request made, and did you approve it or
deny it?
Ambassador Kennedy. The decision is an interagency
decision. I was simply asked do I need the capabilities of the
FEST. And since it did not bring any military assets to bear,
it was based in the U.S. and would have taken at least 16 or 18
hours to get there, there was no need for it.
Mr. Smith. Okay, because I don't have much time, Mr.
Ambassador, why was the CIA security team repeatedly ordered to
stand down after the attack began? And who made that decision?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am not aware of any CIA security team
being ordered to stand down, sir.
Mr. Smith. So why weren't assets that were in close
proximity to the attack deployed to try to assist our
beleaguered and now murdered Ambassador.
Ambassador Kennedy. There was no stand-down order, sir,
there was never a stand-down order.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you a question. How many Benghazi
survivors were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements?
Ambassador Kennedy. The State Department does not tell
people to sign nondisclosure agreements.
Mr. Smith. Are you aware of nondisclosure agreements and
how many are there?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am not aware of any nondisclosure----
Mr. Smith. Can you tell us where the Benghazi survivors
are, since access to them has been very, very difficult?
Ambassador Kennedy. One Benghazi survivor was seriously
injured in the second attack and is still in the hospital. The
other four have resumed duties around the world.
Mr. Smith. Can I ask you with regards to those who, as my
colleagues, particularly Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the chairman,
have so eloquently stated, four people get censored, they
apparently keep receiving a full pay for a vacation. You know,
there was that famous scene in the fictional ``Clear and
Present Danger'' where the President tells, in the Tom Clancy
novel, it is the old Potomac two-step, people at a lower level
take the hit while other people who were in the know or should
have been in the know walk and are never even interviewed.
How do you respond to that? I mean, to the American public
and to members on both sides of the aisle we are concerned that
the lessons learned, because I chaired the hearings on the ARB
and actually wrote a law to beef up our Embassy security, I was
the prime sponsor of it, and it is law, and yet we still have a
situation where we haven't learned more than a dozen years
later and the very people who should be held accountable aren't
even interviewed. That is appalling.
Ambassador Kennedy. There are several questions there. Let
me try to take them in sequence.
You ask about accountability. With respect to the four
individuals, I believe that they were held accountable by
relieving them of their position. One of them actually resigned
as Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security.
Mr. Smith. So they got paid the whole entire time of their
resignation? Where did they work? What did they do? Did they go
home? Did they come to the Department every day?
Ambassador Kennedy. Congressman, it is, I believe, an
essential element of American fairness that I know this
committee fully supports, because I have seen many of the
legislation pieces that you have authored, that say that a
person is entitled to review. And what Secretary Kerry did was
engage----
Mr. Smith. Now, did they initiate a review? You know, I am
out of time. They themselves, did they initiate a review to say
we have been fairly censored?
Ambassador Kennedy. Not that I am aware of, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. We go to Mr. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before the clock
starts ticking I would request that I be granted the same
amount of time as my colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Smith.
Chairman Royce. Without objection.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair. I also want to thank the
chair for the tone in which he began this hearing with a very
thoughtful statement. He is quite correct. All committees of
Congress, it seems to me, ought to follow your advice, which is
try to understand what happened and try to make sure we take
whatever measures we can to prevent this recurrence, not to
exploit it for partisan political gain.
I have been involved in this town for a long time. I was on
the Senate committee staff when the tragedy of Lebanon
occurred, where our Embassy blew up not once, but twice on
Ronald Reagan's watch. I don't remember people calling for
heads to roll, I don't remember an ARB review of what happened,
although there should have been one. We understood that was a
national tragedy and we came together. I wish more of our
colleagues would follow the spirit in which you have set the
tone of this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for doing
so.
I would ask unanimous consent also that my full statement,
including the appendix, be entered into the record at this
point.
Chairman Royce. Without objection.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair. And by the way, part of
that is a statement called ``Fact Versus Fiction'' prepared by
the Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff that lays
out many of the common, commonly repeated accusations about
Benghazi that just aren't true.
By the way, my good friend from Florida, Ms. Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen, would have us believe money played absolutely no role
in the decision about security allocations around the world.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. If the gentleman would wield, that is not
my statement. Those are the witness' testimony and the ARB
report itself.
Mr. Connolly. I would remind my colleague that she and I
were actually at a briefing together where I put that very
question to Ambassador Pickering, and he most certainly did
acknowledge that of course money plays a role. Sometimes when
people say it is not about money, it is about money.
Let me just ask, Mr. Kennedy, have I got my facts right? In
Fiscal Year 2011 this Congress cut $327 million from the
request for diplomatic security, construction, and maintenance?
Ambassador Kennedy. I believe that is the correct figure.
Mr. Connolly. $327 million. The following fiscal year this
same Congress cut another $183 million from the request. Is
that correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. I believe that is the correct amount.
Mr. Connolly. And then in Fiscal Year 2013 it cut $145
million. Is that correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. I believe that is the correct amount,
sir.
Mr. Connolly. And we kind of came to our senses only after
the tragedy of Benghazi and restored some of those fundings and
gave the State Department more flexibility in the end. Is that
correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct and deeply appreciated.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. The idea that money
doesn't play a role is simply not true.
The chairman indicated in his opening statement that--and
he is quite right about accountability, and I think all of us
are a little troubled about that--but he also was talking about
the follow-up to the Benghazi tragedy and he said no one has
been captured or killed. And I deeply respect the chairman of
this committee, but I find it ironic the implicit criticism of
an administration that did what the previous administration
could not do for 7 years, they captured and killed the man who
perpetrated the tragedy of 9/11, the memorial of which we just
remembered.
What is the status of the Benghazi follow-up that you can
share with us? We talk about accountability within the State
Department, how about accountability for the terrorists who
perpetrated this heinous crime and engineered the death of our
four brave fellow Americans.
Ambassador Kennedy. As the President and the Secretary have
said, we are engaged in every effort to bring the terrorists to
justice. This is under the purview of the FBI, assisted by the
State Department and by the Intelligence Community. And from
the briefings that I have received, which, unfortunately, I
cannot go into in detail in this setting, the FBI and others
are engaged in a full court press on this, no one is leaving
any stone unturned to bring these individuals to justice.
Mr. Connolly. What about Libyan security? Part of the
problem on that terrible day was, frankly, Libyan security, the
responsibility of the host government, kind of dissolved. What
is the status of that?
Ambassador Kennedy. The State Department and the Department
of Defense are working with the Government of Libya to get them
a security force that it is capable of doing the job that they
are required to do under the Vienna Convention. But in the
interim period of time, we have reinforced our Embassy in
Tripoli with a significant number of State Department personnel
and a significant number of U.S. military personnel, who are on
scene now.
Mr. Connolly. And the status of our mission in Benghazi?
Ambassador Kennedy. Our mission in Benghazi is closed.
Mr. Connolly. Is that because of the security status?
Ambassador Kennedy. It is because of the security
situation. There is nothing that we could do at the moment to
mitigate the security risk of a reopened presence there, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I think I still have more time.
Yes, thank you.
With respect to the ARB in your opinion this was a rigorous
and hard-hitting report. Is that correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Is there anything with respect to the
recommendations or findings that the State Department is not
following up on and not trying to implement?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. We are working through every
single one. There are 29 recommendations, and as the
representative from Florida indicated, we have broken that up
into 64 different tasks in order that we can manage the process
as efficiently and effectively as possible. And we are working
through every single one of them. We have completed many of
them. Others take time because they involve construction or
other matters. But there is nothing that we are lagging on.
Mr. Connolly. By the way, this issue of whether an order
was given to stand down the U.S. military, preventing the
military from responding, and I have heard you say several
times not true, no such order was ever given. I would just like
to make a point for the record that our colleagues on the House
Armed Services Committee this summer issued a press release
from the majority staff that said in his testimony LTC. Gibson
clarified his responsibilities and actions during the attack.
Contrary to news reports, Gibson was not ordered to stand down
by higher command authorities in response to his understandable
desire to lead a group of three other Special Forces soldiers
to Benghazi.
Ambassador Kennedy. That statement has also been
corroborated by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Dempsey, who has also testified that there was no stand
down order given.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your courtesy.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Connolly.
We go now to Mr. Rohrabacher of California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, before my time starts
running here, I would request to have the same amount of time
as my good friend----
Chairman Royce. May I suggest that members on the
Democratic and Republican side, I have kept copious notes here
and I know exactly how much time everyone has gone over and we
are dead even. And because we have a lot of freshmen on this
committee, we are now going to hold everyone to 5 minutes. But
I am going to start the clock right now.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let us hope that this hearing is a step
forward in our effort to break down what I consider to be a
wall of deceit and denial and an attempt to hide the truth from
the American people about this Benghazi attack. It has been
over a year and the American people have a right to know the
truth and they deserve to know it. And this idea that there has
been a full-court press going on. It is over a year now since
our Ambassador was murdered, along with the other brave
Americans who died that night. And don't tell me that is a
full-court press when we haven't even pointed our finger at the
people, at the organization, and the finger at the people who
actually murdered these people. I don't know what a full court
press means with that.
About funding, with all due respect to my friend from
Virginia, Assistant Secretary Lamb, who was responsible for
making the decisions as to security level in Benghazi,
testified here, and I know because it was my question
specifically, did budget considerations play any role in the
decision as to what level security would be at in Benghazi. She
said no. And just for the record, she, by saying no and making
sure that it was a matter of policy and not budget, she has
been one of the ones relieved of her position. Wonder why she
got relieved of her position after she was able to testify
something like that before Congress.
Mr. Ambassador, we need to know a number of things. I am
going to go through some questions for you. You know, was there
an autopsy conducted on Ambassador Stevens' body? Yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes. It was conducted by the U.S.
military at Dover Air Force Base, sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. When there are homicides committed
against American citizens, are those autopsies then permitted
to be made public to, for example, congressional
investigations?
Ambassador Kennedy. The autopsy was turned over to the FBI,
which was the investigating agency. I was informed by the FBI
at one point that he died of smoke inhalation.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am not asking what he died of. I am
asking right now, if there is an autopsy, is that being kept
from congressional investigators?
Ambassador Kennedy. I will take that question back to the
FBI, sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. When you talk about military
units not being dispatched, that there was no stand-down order,
but they weren't sent because there wasn't enough time, let me
put myself on the record on this point. And that is, no one
knew how long this attack was going to exist and go on, how
long would this attack last. Anybody who did not dispatch
troops or dispatch aid or assistance of some kind to our
Ambassador who was under attack had no idea whether it was
going to be a 1-hour battle, a 4-hour battle, or a 2-day
battle. And for not dispatching help, that is a dereliction of
some type of responsibility.
You keep saying our military team was not ordered to stand
down. Were there other American Government employees, perhaps
of the CIA, in Benghazi at that time who could have gone to our
Ambassador's assistance? Were they ordered to stand down?
Ambassador Kennedy. There was a team from the annex that
did go to the temporary mission facility and did relieve the
pressure on that facility subsequently----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yeah. And apparently those Navy Seals that
got there were ordered not to go. Is that correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir, I am not aware of that at all.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Ambassador Kennedy. A quick reaction----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Not aware doesn't mean no.
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. I mean no. A quick reaction
team went from the annex to the temporary mission facility main
building, and then--all of them--and then the annex was
reinforced by the five State Department security officers.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So there was no stand-down order even to
CIA personnel who were there. Okay.
Now, who made the choice to create this fictitious
narrative that it was a demonstration that got out of hand and
not a terrorist attack? Now, we know from the first minutes of
this attack, we have been told they knew that this was a
terrorist attack. Yet for a full week we had top-level people
in this administration claiming it was a movie rage when a
demonstration got out of attack. Who created that narrative?
Ambassador Kennedy. I don't know if I can answer the
question of who created. I can tell you, though, sir, that the
narrative about the movie did cause an attack----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay, fine. You can't answer the question.
Ambassador Kennedy [continuing]. On the American Embassy in
Cairo.
Mr. Rohrabacher. You can't answer the question.
Chairman Royce. We are going to have to go to Mr. Cicilline
from Rhode Island.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Ambassador Kennedy, for being here. And I have
had the opportunity as others to listen to the testimony of
Ambassador Pickering and Chairman Mullen, to review the report
and the recommendations and to hear testimony in these last
several hearings. And I thank you for your testimony today and
for being here.
And my first question is, the 29 recommendations that
involved 64 different tasks, which seem to me very
comprehensive, I agree with your assessment that this was a
hard-hitting report and really do respect the work that was
done and the thoroughness of the report. And as those
recommendations are being implemented and those tasks are being
completed, are there any things we can do, Congress can do to
facilitate the implementation of those recommendations or are
there any obstacles presently in the way that we should respond
to to be sure that the work you are doing, the Department is
doing to implement those can continue appropriately?
Ambassador Kennedy. I think the most important thing is to
pass the President's budget request for Embassy construction
and security that is in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request.
That will give us the resources to continue implementing the
ARB's recommendation, including the necessary new construction
and upgrades we need to protect our people.
The second is we have the authority only in certain
locations around the world do what is called best value
contracting for guards. We now are forced in many locations to
take the lowest bidder. Having that in an authorization bill
that I know that this committee is working on would be very,
very helpful to the Department and getting the best kind of
local security force as possible.
Mr. Cicilline. You know, every time we have a hearing on
this issue we have to always begin remembering the brave
American heroes whose lives were lost and I think our solemn
obligation to do everything that we can to prevent this kind of
tragedy from ever occurring again and protecting individuals
who are representing our country all over the world.
And to follow up on my friend from Virginia's point, the
panel in this report found, and I quote, ``a more serious and
sustained commitment from Congress''--and called on ``a more
serious and sustained commitment from Congress to support State
Department needs which in total constitute a small percentage
both of the full national budget and that spent for national
security.'' One overall conclusion in this report is that
Congress must do its part to meet this challenge and provide
necessary resources to the State Department to address security
risks and meet mission imperatives.
And as an aside, in Fiscal Year 2011 the budget passed by
our leadership on the House side provided $327 million less for
State Department security than was proposed by the Senate, and
in Fiscal Year 2012, the year of this attack, the House
Republicans proposed almost $200 million less for State
Department security than the Senate. So this notion that
resourcing is important in keeping our diplomatic corps safe is
something that was identified in the report, correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Cicilline. And finally, would you address for a moment,
you know, the Department is obviously operating in very high-
risk, high-threat locations all over the world, including
places with a lack of clearly defined and capable security
support from host nations and all of the problems that arise
from that. And this raises security risks for our diplomatic
corps and development experts, but also imposes particular
strains on our existing resources.
And should we as a Congress begin to think differently,
working with the executive, about ways that we plan and
appropriately manage these requirements, sort of in the
changing landscape of the really high-risk, high-threat
locations that we now serve all around the world?
Ambassador Kennedy. I think this is an effort that has to
be undertaken jointly by the executive branch and the Congress.
The State Department--and I believe it is outlined in my longer
statement--has made changes on how we look at high-threat,
high-risk posts. And I think the two things that are needed
there, as was pointed out, we need to continue to work with
host nations to help increase their capability through
additional training of their security forces in their capital
cities or other places, and we need additional appropriations.
And the bill that is passed out of the Appropriations
subcommittee in the House does exactly that. Because if we can
construct facilities of the like that we had in Khartoum and in
Tunis in the attacks that took place right after 9/11, those
buildings held off the attackers and our people will remain
safe.
Mr. Cicilline. You know, it is important that we hold the
terrorists responsible for this activity accountable, the State
Department personnel who were relieved of their duties, but
also Congress has a responsibility to fulfill our obligations
in assuring that the resources are available to keep our
diplomatic corps safe. And I thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. We are going to go now to Mr. Steve Chabot
of Ohio.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to get right to some questions, but I do want to
address something that has troubled me for some time. I am
speaking about the hoops that this committee has had to jump
through to get the facts surrounding the murders of four of our
finest public servants. The State Department significantly
delayed coming forth with information on this matter. When we
were finally presented with some relevant data a few months ago
it clearly amounted to what many would call a document dump.
Thousands of pages of paper in wide disarray and in no
particular order either in terms of relevance or chronology,
making it very difficult to actually locate documents that were
helpful. I brought this up with Secretary Clinton. She wasn't
particularly responsive. You are welcome to weigh in if you
would like to.
Ambassador Kennedy. As I understand it, sir, the State
Department was asked for every document that it possessed which
was relevant to Benghazi. And when we receive such requests, we
try to give out everything for fear, to be blunt, of being
accused of holding something back. So this generates, when you
have worldwide security efforts in something as complex as
Benghazi, this generates many, many cubic feet of documents----
Mr. Chabot. All right. It was a total mess and not
particularly helpful. Let me go on because I have limited time.
On August 23rd the State Department sent a letter to the
committee which stated the ARB was ``very clear that the only
people responsible for the lethal attack on our special mission
compound in Benghazi were the terrorists who orchestrated the
attack. These terrorists must be brought to justice. The entire
U.S. Government remains committed to doing just that.''
Now, no one will argue who was directly to blame for the
attacks that resulted in the death of those four Americans. But
as the ARB and numerous congressional hearings have revealed,
there are other people who need to be held accountable for the
fact that the terrorist attacks succeeded. By the language of
this letter, does the State Department really want us to
believe that the Department's bureaucracy could have done
nothing more to protect our diplomats?
Ambassador Kennedy. That was not the finding of the ARB.
And in the actions that are referenced in the August 23rd
letter, sir, we are essentially reaffirming the findings and
the recommendations of the ARB. Four individuals were held
accountable because they were relieved----
Mr. Chabot. All right. Well, we will get into that in a
minute.
Ambassador Kennedy [continuing]. They were relieved of
their positions and one of them resigned.
Mr. Chabot. All right. When former Secretary of State
Clinton testified in January, she stated repeatedly and took
responsibility for the attacks. In fact, she stated, ``As I
have said multiple times, I take responsibility and nobody is
more committed to getting this right.'' Do you believe
Secretary Clinton has been held truly accountable for failures
under her watch?
Ambassador Kennedy. I think what the ARB did was take from
the original intent of the Congress, which established the ARB,
because the Congress in the legislative history made it----
Mr. Chabot. That is not what I asked you. I asked you if
you thought that Secretary Clinton has been truly held
accountable. Yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. She said she was responsible, and I am
not going to challenge her statement.
Mr. Chabot. Where is the accountability, though?
Ambassador Kennedy. There is in every organization, every
Cabinet department, every agency in effect a line of authority.
There are people who set the policy and there are those who
then implement that policy or go back up to senior leadership
and say the policy cannot be implemented.
Mr. Chabot. All right. Let me move on. Admiral Pickering
described four State Department employees as having ``failed in
the performance of their duties'' with respect to Benghazi.
Now, let me get this straight. I know this has been covered
before, but I think it is very important. The only disciplinary
action meted out to the four who failed in the performance of
their duties was being put on administrative leave for a while,
then reassigned to other positions within the State Department.
Now, their benefits as Federal employees continued during that
time. Of course, they are going to be subject to Obamacare, so
arguably that benefit is worse. They haven't missed a paycheck.
Is that about right? I mean, it seems like pretty pitiful
discipline to me.
Ambassador Kennedy. Sir, I believe that being an Assistant
Secretary at any Cabinet office or being a Deputy Assistant
Secretary to any Cabinet office is a senior position of grave
and great responsibility. To be relieved of your position in
that regard I believe is a serious act of accountability.
Mr. Chabot. Let me conclude by saying that I think that
failing to call Secretary Clinton to actually interview her was
a gross oversight by the ARB and it is really almost
incomprehensible that they didn't call her as a witness. You
don't need to respond.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Just point of clarification, because this
was brought up with Secretary Kerry when he was here. The
comment that Mr. Chabot made about the documents--and this I
think affects us all on the committee--we are still in a
position where those documents, as you know, a copy is not made
available to us. We can't copy those documents. You can go down
there, somebody can see a document. But we can't make copies of
them. We have asked for a set of those documents. And when we
asked the Secretary of State, Secretary Kerry said that is no
policy of mine when we raised our objection to this. This is
one of the reasons this is ongoing, because we don't have
copies of those documents. So again, we would like to have
copies of the documents turned over to this committee.
Thank you, Ambassador.
We go now to Mr. Alan Grayson of Florida.
Mr. Grayson. Ambassador, I would like to ask you a few
questions about Benghazi, the scandal that never was. Who
decided that Ambassador Stevens go to Benghazi on September
11th, 2012?
Ambassador Kennedy. It was the Ambassador's decision, sir.
Mr. Grayson. Now, was Secretary Clinton responsible in any
way for reviewing and approving the in-country movements of
U.S. Ambassadors, either Ambassador Stevens or anyone else?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. Under-departmental policy,
Ambassadors only need Washington permission if they leave their
country of assignment, not the capital city.
Mr. Grayson. Now, did the Ambassador when he went to
Benghazi have a normal security detail in accordance with the
State Department procedures and rules at that time?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir. He had two Diplomatic
Security special agents who accompanied him from Tripoli to
Benghazi.
Mr. Grayson. Benghazi was a diplomatic post, not an
Embassy, right?
Ambassador Kennedy. It was a temporary mission facility,
yes, sir.
Mr. Grayson. All right. Is it even possible to provide the
same kind of security at a temporary mission facility as we try
to provide at our Embassies.
Ambassador Kennedy. We can never achieve the kind of
perfect security that we need, other than a purpose-filled
Embassy. We have a series of standards, and we were working
through those standards. We are consistently adding. As I think
in response to the gentleman from Virginia, I offered to submit
for the record a list of all the improvements that we had made
to the temporary mission facility in Benghazi.
Mr. Grayson. Was there any money that was appropriated for
the purpose of improving that post that was unspent at that
time?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. There was no specific money
appropriated for Benghazi, we were simply taking money from
other locations. But all the requests that they put forward, as
I mentioned, save one, which is the guard towers, which were
determined to be unnecessary and potentially too attention-
getting, all of their requests were fulfilled.
Mr. Grayson. Now, with regard to the attack itself,
approximately how long was it between the time that the attack
began and the time of the Ambassador's unfortunate death.
Ambassador Kennedy. I would say it was probably somewhere--
it was definitely under 90 minutes.
Mr. Grayson. Now, was there any kind of military force,
substantial U.S. military force close enough to even engage the
attackers within that 90-minute period?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Grayson. Was there any force, even if there had been
more time, that could have rescued the Ambassador, given the
actual situation on the ground as it was?
Ambassador Kennedy. Tragically, no, sir.
Mr. Grayson. Did the White House ever ignore any reports
regarding this attack?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir, not that I am aware of.
Mr. Grayson. Did Secretary Clinton ever ignore any reports
regarding this attack?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. I personally spoke to
Secretary Clinton that evening, and Secretary Clinton was being
constantly briefed by our operations center all evening.
Mr. Grayson. If you have been the President of the United
States on that night, would you have done anything different?
Ambassador Kennedy. What I know that the President did was
to say to the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff: Do everything that you can. And I think
that is probably what I would have done, was turn to my senior
military command authority and tell them to do whatever was
necessary, which is what he did.
Mr. Grayson. Regarding the Accountability Review Board
report, did the Accountability Review Board find Secretary
Clinton in any way liable for any kind of misconduct?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Grayson. Did the Board find the President liable for
any kind of misconduct?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Grayson. Was it, in fact, within their powers to have
done so if they felt that that were the case?
Ambassador Kennedy. They certainly could have found the
Secretary of State, because their charge is to review State
Department operations. I am not sure that their writ
legislatively, legally extended outside the State Department.
But it certainly extended to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Grayson. Ambassador, are you familiar with the term
second-guessing? Have you heard that term before?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Grayson. What about the term 20/20 hindsight? Have you
heard that term before?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Grayson. And how about the Monday morning
quarterbacking? Have you heard that term before?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Grayson. Good.
I yield the rest of my time. Thank you very much.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
We will go now to Mr. Joe Wilson of South Carolina.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Royce, for your leadership
to seek explanations for the murders of four heroic Americans
in Benghazi. It is imperative that we fully understand where
the systemic breakdown occurred within the State Department so
that no more American Foreign Service members die while serving
our country. I agree with Congressman Rohrabacher of
California; there has been deceit and denial.
Mr. Kennedy, I appreciate your attendance today. At a
Senate hearing previously you acknowledged that you denied an
extension of a 16-person security support team, SST. Is that
correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir. That was the team that was
based in Tripoli, not in Benghazi, sir. It was a Tripoli
assignment. They were never assigned to Benghazi. And if I
might--I don't want to take your time.
Mr. Wilson. No, no, please.
Ambassador Kennedy. When we first went back into Tripoli,
our Embassy had been burned out in Tripoli so we turned to the
Department of Defense and asked them for assistance. Two of
their officers went in with two of ours and we did a survey. We
then asked for 16 Department of Defense personnel. And over the
course of standing up the Embassy, those individuals worked
themselves out of a job. And in fact, they sent medics, they
sent communications personnel. We replaced them with State
Department personnel. They sent someone to do helicopter
landing zone surveys and to look for unexploded ordnance. They
did their mission and, therefore, there was no mission left for
them to accomplish.
There were eight, in effect, security personnel. The State
Department also replaced those security personnel with
personnel on the State Department rolls. However, on the night
in question, even though this is Tripoli, not Benghazi, six of
those positions were still based in Benghazi performing--sorry,
in Tripoli, in Tripoli, excuse me--performing other missions.
And those are the six that several members have referred to.
And so the six were still there.
Mr. Wilson. And indeed we are talking about people within
the same country. It is just really sad to me that there was
not protection given or defense to the four Americans killed.
Additionally, the security support team's commander, Lieutenant
Colonel Andrew Wood, testified before Congress last year the
team was created ``to meet the demanding security challenges
facing the Department of State'' and that they loaned
considerable support to the State Department security position
in this uncertain and volatile environment. Additionally, on
October 2012, Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom stated
that retaining the security team was a primary issue until
other security resources became available.
Given this testimony, what justification do you have for
the denial of the extension of the security support team, given
the commander and regional security officer's belief that the
team was a necessity?
Ambassador Kennedy. It is exactly what the regional
security officer said: Until other resources became available.
And the State Department replaced the security part of that
team with State Department regional security officers and
trained other personnel that we had on the Embassy compound. So
they worked their way out of a job, which is the case when we
borrow personnel from the Defense Department and then we
replace them with State Department assets.
Mr. Wilson. Well, it is hard to imagine they worked their
way out of a job when four people died.
Ambassador Kennedy. But that was Tripoli, sir, not in
Benghazi.
Mr. Wilson. Same country.
Ambassador Kennedy. We are not in Benghazi.
Mr. Wilson. Same country, and the availability should have
been made possible. Additionally, I am very appreciative that
Chairman Ed Royce has introduced an Accountability Review Board
Reform Act of 2013, H.R. 1768. It is for effectiveness for
future Accountability Review Boards. What is the State
Department view of Chairman Royce's bill?
Ambassador Kennedy. We have provided comments back, and I
will be glad to make sure that I make a copy of that available
to you, sir.
May I say one more thing about Benghazi?
Mr. Wilson. Yes, please.
Ambassador Kennedy. If anybody had asked me to reassign the
SST from Tripoli, 400 miles away, to Benghazi, I might have
considered that. But since no one ever asked for that
relocation, it was the question is had they completed their
mission in Tripoli, and they had completed their mission in
Tripoli, and no one asked for a reassignment to Benghazi.
Mr. Wilson. Regardless of the assignment, within the same
country now 400 miles, I just have to tell you that I would
hope that every resource, whatever it is, of any means, that it
would be provided to protect American lives and American
Foreign Service employees so brave and heroic.
Thank you.
Ambassador Kennedy. I certainly agree with that, sir. Thank
you.
Chairman Royce. We go to Mr. Juan Vargas of California.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you for
holding this hearing.
Ambassador, thank you, too, for being here. My first
question is this, and you have answered partially. We did have
four lives that were lost, four American heroes. And you said
that we were doing everything that we could to catch the
perpetrators because the perpetrators here really are the
terrorists. What can you tell us today that is unclassified
that we are doing to try to catch them? Because that is I think
where the American people are. What are we doing to catch these
murderers?
Ambassador Kennedy. The FBI, the Intelligence Community,
the State Department are doing everything it can. And
unfortunately the details, sir, would have to come from my
colleagues at the FBI in closed session. But they are engaged
in a total effort to catch them.
Mr. Vargas. That is I think the important thing, that there
has to be a total effort. Because I think when I am back home,
that is what they are asking. They see the bickering back and
forth here, but they want to make sure that we are, in fact,
trying to get the terrorists that committed these acts.
Ambassador Kennedy. The President has said to State,
Justice, the Intelligence Community, Defense, this is a task
and we are on it.
Mr. Vargas. Let me go then to the ARB itself. There has
been a lot of criticism here of the ARB, a wall of deceit,
denial. I wrote down a whole bunch of notes here. The two
people whothat deg. headed it werewas deg.
Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen. I remember
Ambassador Pickering, of course, because he was the Ambassador
to El Salvador for a while. I think he was appointed there by
Ronald Reagan. I didn't agree with the policies there at the
time. I was a Jesuit at the time; I did not appreciate what we
were doing. But anyway, that being said, I have followed his
career, and he is somewhat of a Sergey Lavrov for Americans. He
was probably our most sophisticated foreign policy expert. And
there has been a lot of criticism of the ARB. Could you
criticize or not criticize him or this ARB report? Because I
find it somewhat interesting since he was--I don't know if he
was a Republican or Democrat, but he seemed to be appointed
mostly by Republicans.
Ambassador Kennedy. I mean, I think the membership
including an officer appointed by the Director of National
Intelligence, Ambassador Pickering with his long service under,
as you note, both Republican and Democratic Presidents, Admiral
Michael Mullen, who rose through the ranks to Chairman of the
Joints Chief of Staff, served under Republican, Democratic
Presidents, Catherine Bertini, long service in both--I believe
it was in the Bush administration, at the Department of
Agriculture, and at the United Nations. And so this compilation
of individuals represents the full spectrum, I believe. And as
I mentioned earlier, when you read the report, it is not
complimentary of the State Department.
Mr. Vargas. I did read the report. It was not
complimentary. But do you think that Ambassador Pickering,
then, was not up to the task here? Is there some reason why you
would criticize him and say that they picked the wrong person,
this is a person that is not capable of not doing a proper ARB?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Vargas. Why would you say no?
Ambassador Kennedy. Because of his experience serving as an
Ambassador, as the Under Secretary of State, as U.S.
Representative to the United Nations, and in assignments as
difficult as Israel, the then Soviet Union, El Salvador.
Mr. Vargas. Is he deceitful? Is he underhanded? Is he sly?
Is he any of these other things?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Vargas. Let's go to Admiral Mullen. And Admiral Mullen,
do you think he was someone that was competent to serve on this
board?
Ambassador Kennedy. I have had the pleasure of working with
Admiral Mullen somewhat when he represented the Department of
Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in senior-level meetings.
And I find him to be a very hard-hitting, a very intelligent,
and a very reputable person.
Mr. Vargas. Do you think he is underhanded, deceitful, sly,
in any way trying to cover up here?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Vargas. Why do you say that?
Ambassador Kennedy. It is the nature of his career and the
position to which he rose to.
Mr. Vargas. Those are my questions. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Vargas.
We go now to Mike McCaul from Texas.
Mr. McCaul. I thank the chairman.
And welcome, Ambassador.
Prior to the attacks in Benghazi and the killing of our
Ambassador, there were many warning signs and many cries for
help. April 6, 2012, a crude IED was thrown over the wall of
the U.S. facility in Benghazi. On May 22nd, Red Cross building
attacked by the brigades of the blind Sheik, the 1993 World
Trade Center mastermind. June 6, the consulate was targeted by
an IED attack that blew a hole in the perimeter. Credit again
by the brigades of the blind Sheik. And June 11th, the British
Ambassador escapes a narrow death. March 28, then Ambassador
Cretz sends a cable to Secretary Clinton requesting additional
assets. That cable request is denied, and a plan to scale back
security is made.
Ambassador Stevens responds with a cable to Secretary
Clinton requesting additional security resources. And you, sir,
on May the 3rd terminated effective immediately the U.S.
mission to Libya use of a DC-3 to provide logistical support to
Special Forces units assigned in Benghazi. We don't know what
could have been done with that on that fateful day. Ambassador
Stevens responds, saying, please don't scale these assets back.
And he says again in July, the overall security conditions
continue to be unpredictable with large numbers of armed groups
and individuals not under the control of the central
government. You, sir, formally denied that request.
Finally, August 16th, a classified cable after an emergency
meeting with the Ambassador, an extraordinary, not ordinary
event, another request for additional security, saying the
Embassy cannot withstand a coordinated attack. This final cry
was not answered. Did you receive that cable, the August 16th
cable, sir?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir, I did. And if I might----
Mr. McCaul. I have limited time. Did you respond in the
affirmative or did you decline that request?
Ambassador Kennedy. This cable, I did not--we did not
decline the request.
Mr. McCaul. Was additional security provided on that day,
weeks before the September 11th attack?
Ambassador Kennedy. The cable, sir, and I have a copy in
front of me, it closes with, ``U.S. Mission Benghazi will
submit request to U.S. Embassy Tripoli for additional security
upgrades and staffing needs.'' We never received that
additional request. So there was no way I could respond to a
request that had not yet been submitted.
Mr. McCaul. Do you know if Secretary Clinton saw this
cable?
Ambassador Kennedy. I do not believe so.
Mr. McCaul. Let me ask you something about a security
waiver. On September 11, security at the consulate was deemed
high on the State Department's threat list. But yet it didn't
meet the minimum security standards as required by the Congress
under the Secure Embassies Construction and Counterterrorism
Act. Somebody at the State Department waived these standards
known as the Inman standards for our presence in Benghazi. Do
you know who waived those standards?
Ambassador Kennedy. It wasn't the Inman standards, sir. The
Inman standards only apply to buildings that we build. What I
believe we are talking about here, sir, is what are called the
OSPB, the Overseas Security Policy Board standards. These are
the standards that we were using in Benghazi. But since we had
to move in Benghazi and we did not have time either to build a
new building or to take the months that it takes to retrofit,
we took the Overseas Security Board standards as our goal. And
as I mentioned in response to Mr. Connolly, we were running
down those standards, adding additional items every day.
Mr. McCaul. Well, I have a memo that was sent to you from
your staff saying that we needed to bring the facility up to an
acceptable standard, to you, Mr. Ambassador. I don't know what
the action was. Apparently it was not approved.
I would like to enter this memo, Mr. Chairman, into the
record.
Chairman Royce. Without objection.
Mr. McCaul. Finally, I have got limited time. I have talked
to sources on the ground that fateful day when the Marines were
deployed from Rota, Spain, into Tripoli and were asked to
deplane and change into civilian clothing and that that mission
was delayed by several hours.
First of all, why wasn't this plane with Marines that could
respond possibly in a timely manner sent to Benghazi? Why
wasn't that done? And then, secondly, since it was sent to
Tripoli, why was it delayed by hours so that they could deplane
and change into civilian clothing?
Ambassador Kennedy. First of all, by the time the Marines
were mustered and that plane was on route, we had already
evacuated our personnel and we had closed our facility in
Benghazi. So there was no purpose of them going to Benghazi
because there were no Americans left there.
Mr. McCaul. So the plane had gone straight from Rota to
Benghazi, in the 8-hour span of the attack, you are saying to
me that they could not have responded in a timely manner?
Ambassador Kennedy. The plane, sir, was moving to Tripoli
on the 12th, not on the night of the 11th.
Mr. McCaul. Let me conclude that I think more people,
higher-ups, should be held accountable for what happened that
day.
Chairman Royce. We are going to go now to Mr. Joseph
Kennedy.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your service and for
testifying today. If you needed a second to respond or to
finish the question, I will give you that time.
Ambassador Kennedy. If I could add just two things to what
Mr. McCaul asked. First of all, on the DC-3. The DC-3, sir,
there was not in support of the Special Forces detachment. When
we opened first in Benghazi and then later relocated to Tripoli
there was no commercial air service available at all into
Libya. No commercial air service. So we pulled an aircraft from
Afghanistan and it was running shuttles into Iraq. It was never
based there, it was based in Malta at that point. When
commercial air service was established there was no longer a
need for that aircraft. So it had nothing to do with support of
the Special Forces, except when they came into Tripoli the
first time they flew that plane in.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Thank you, sir. Thank you,
Mr. Ambassador. And again thank you for your service. I want to
just begin by recognizing the memory of four brave Americans
who did give their lives in service to our country that day and
say that I think the best thing we can do is, obviously, ask
some very tough questions about what happened, why it happened,
and what we can do to try to move forward.
In that vein, if there are reforms that need to be made to
our Embassies or our foreign policy and to the ARB process, we
should make them. But the focus should be on lessons learned
and moving forward, not focusing on perceived imperfections
with and assigning political blame for the highlights of the
day.
And to that end, Mr. Ambassador, I was wondering if you
might be able to enlighten me. I believe the ARB process began
in 1986 after legislation was passed. Is that right?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. And, sir, do you know how
many ARBs have been convened since then?
Ambassador Kennedy. The count is either 18 or 19, depending
on whether you count the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi as either
two or one.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. And, sir, if we are going
with that 18 figure, how many of those were under Republican
Presidents? Figure 13 sound okay?
Ambassador Kennedy. I will accept that figure, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Two under Ronald Reagan,
Honduras and Greece; three under the first President Bush,
Philippines, Bolivia, and, Peru; eight under the second
President Bush, Jordan, Gaza, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iraq,
Pakistan, Sudan.
Ambassador Kennedy. That sounds correct, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. And, sir, do you have any
idea during the course of this time of any major reform efforts
that were done, initiated by Congress of the ARB process?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Okay. So, now, sir, if I can,
turning to the witnesses, there have been a number of questions
today about which witnesses were and weren't called. Did you
have any influence over which witnesses were called to testify
over the ARB process?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. Once the ARB started, my only
contact was to be a witness.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Did Secretary Clinton have
any influence over who was called to testify before that
process?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Did the administration
attempt to influence that process in anyway?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Okay. Now, moving forward,
you had mentioned, and it is been referenced several times
today, 29 different recommendations that the ARB found and
recommended to State Department to try to implement, and you
have broken that down to I believe it was 64 different action
steps. Which, given that the focus I believe should be going
forward what can be done to protect our diplomats as we are
asking them to represent the United States in continually
volatile areas of the world, what are the highlights, where
should Congress be focused? If it is financially, where should
those resources be directed? If it is through policy, what are
those policies? If you can do that in a minute.
Ambassador Kennedy. I think the two most important things
are the ARB's recommendation that there be capability of
funding to construct new Embassies of the character and the
quality of, say, a Tunis or a Khartoum, Sudan, which were able
to withstand attacks until either our own military forces can
arrive or until host nation forces muster and do that. And
secondly is the issue about additional local guard
capabilities.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Mr. Ambassador, I see in your
testimony that you indicated that such an Embassy could take up
to 4 years to site, plan, construct, and finish. Is there ways
that we can speed that process up? Is that delayed because of
bureaucracy? Trying to spend 4 years to build an Embassy seems
like a long time.
Ambassador Kennedy. That, sir, is the entire from finding
the land--and you have to buy land overseas for this--through a
complex process. An Embassy is not just like any old office
building, as you can imagine, because of the security, both
technical and physical, we build into the physical plant, and
that simply takes longer, sir.
Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. We now go to Mr. Poe of Texas.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In its report of the attack, the Accountability Review
Board found that there was ``unsatisfactory leadership
performance, systematic failures in leadership, and management
deficiencies at senior levels.'' It would seem to me in the
normal world, which would be outside of government, if somebody
reviewed a business or an entity and found that there were
deficiencies and lack of leadership and lack of accountability,
somebody would face the consequences. They would see the music.
But not so with the government, especially the State
Department. Four junior employees were placed on leave in
December for their actions and their judgments related to
Benghazi. But Secretary Kerry, when he came in, he said, oh, it
is okay, come on back. In fact, Elizabeth Dibble has been
promoted to Deputy Chief of Mission in London. No one has been
held accountable for, as I have quoted the Accountability
Review Board, ``unsatisfactory leadership performance.''
And in this case it is not just like missing a memo. People
have died. I know there are those in the administration who
says that was a long time ago. But to those four families it
was a death of four individuals. And when you mess up in
leadership like this and people die it would seem to me
somebody has to be, if we can use the word, punished for that.
But no one has been punished at all in this situation.
And then you look on the other side. To quote the
President, here is what he said: ``My biggest priority now is
bringing these folks to justice.'' Okay. That is what he said a
year ago. ``My biggest priority now is bringing these folks to
justice.'' It would seem to me that the President should be
just as concerned about Americans dying in Libya as he is about
Syrians dying in Syria. That seems to be the priority now, not
bringing these folks to justice, because they haven't been
brought to justice.
My background is as a prosecutor and a judge. I have seen a
lot of cases made by a lot of law enforcement, and you are here
and you have told us, I can't tell you what the FBI, the DOD,
and all of our intelligence agencies are doing to capture the
bad guys because I assume it is classified. Well, after a year,
we can't find these people, but yet a CNN reporter can go to
Benghazi at a hotel, at a coffee shop and have coffee with the
suspected ringleader who has been indicted by our Government.
Maybe the FBI ought to just ask the CNN reporter, how did you
get ahold of this guy? Why don't we bring him back? I am
skeptical, and people I represent are skeptical about the
administration, the State Department, and the FBI not bringing
these killers to justice.
My question to you: Do you believe Ansar al-Sharia was
responsible for the attack on the Benghazi mission?
Ambassador Kennedy. I think that is one of the questions
that is still being sorted out. It is possible that it was. It
is possible it was them and others. That is being sorted out.
Mr. Poe. Do you think they were involved?
Ambassador Kennedy. This was----
Mr. Poe. You are the guy that should know. Do you think
they were involved or not?
Ambassador Kennedy. I know that this was a terrorist
attack. And it doesn't matter to me whether it was Ansar al-
Sharia or Al Qaeda or whoever. These were terrorists. And
whatever organization they belong to, they are enemies of the
United States and they must be brought to justice.
Mr. Poe. Do you think Ansar al-Sharia should be named as a
foreign terrorist organization?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is not in my domain.
Mr. Poe. You have not thought about that. Okay.
Ambassador Kennedy. But I will take the question back to my
colleagues.
Mr. Poe. Well, it would seem like you would want to know
what group was involved, and it doesn't make any difference to
you. But do you believe it was terrorists that were involved in
this murder.
Ambassador Kennedy. I didn't say I don't care who was
involved. I am saying that there were clearly a range of
individuals who attacked our facility that night, and they were
terrorists.
Mr. Poe. And you will get back with me on whether you think
the Ansar al-Sharia should be a----
Ambassador Kennedy. I will be glad to take that question.
Mr. Poe. You are aware, of course, on September the 12th,
our time, they claimed responsibility for this, the next day,
the next morning.
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes. And then someone else claiming to
be Ansar al-Sharia withdrew that claim.
Mr. Poe. But at the end of the day, here we are. Nobody has
been taken out, nobody is in custody, nobody is in jail, and on
the side of the State Department, nobody is in jail,
accountable for the murder. So whether it is the people who
were responsible for the killing or the people who may have
made mistakes about the administration of this, nobody is in
custody.
Last question. Have people in the--may I ask the question,
Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Royce. I am afraid your time has expired, Mr. Poe.
But----
Ambassador Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, can I respond to the
previous question?
Chairman Royce. Well, I am going to suggest that we go now
to Lois Frankel. And, Mr. Poe, if you want to pass your
question down to one of the other members on the committee, I
am sure they can ask it.
And, Ms. Frankel, if you want to allow the Ambassador to
respond, I am sure he can do it. But we are going to stick to
the clock. And we go now to Lois Frankel of Florida.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your
very gracious way of handling these meetings.
Mr. Kennedy, Ambassador, thank you for your service. And,
please, if you want to answer.
Ambassador Kennedy. In response to the last question,
Congressman, I believe that individuals of the State Department
were held responsible. Being a Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State or an Assistant Secretary of State is not, I humbly
submit, sir, being a junior employee. Those are senior
positions in the State Department. And for one of those
individuals to resign as the Assistant Secretary and then all
of them be relieved of their responsibilities is a serious act
of accountability, to be relieved at that level.
And, secondly, Benghazi has taken, even since the events of
9/11, has taken a serious turn for the worse. Yes, they will
let journalists in, but they are not letting U.S. law
enforcement in to arrest people there because the Government of
Libya is not in control to that degree.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, sir. First, I wanted to start by
saying I know everybody here shares the grief of the families
who lost their loved ones in this tragedy. And I think we all
recognize that it is in a large part the work that our
diplomats do that plays a role in securing the freedoms that we
enjoy, including this discussion which, with great respect and
fondness for my colleagues, I don't concur in some of the tone.
With that said, I want to thank Mr. Joe Wilson and Mr. Dana
Rohrabacher and, of course, our chair that allowed me to
visit--Mr. Rohrabacher, we visited NATO, and I went with Mr.
Wilson to AFRICOM. And I want to say that we did have
discussions with the highest military commanders about
Benghazi. And they were all unanimous in saying that there was
no military action that they thought could have saved the day
once attack began, which I think is what you did state to us.
We keep hearing that no one is being held accountable. But
I do want you to clarify one particular point, which is, did
the ARB, did they conclude that no individual had breached
their duty? Was that a finding?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct, Congresswoman. The ARB
said that two individuals had not carried out their
responsibilities in the way they could, but they did not find a
breach of duty. And what Secretary Kerry's decision was, was to
validate the ARB's decision, but actually go farther than the
ARB's decision and relieve all four of their senior-level
positions.
Ms. Frankel. And I don't want anyone to forget, and I think
we all understand that the responsibility, the sole
responsibility, as ARB said, for this attack was on terrorists.
Is that correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Frankel. And I think you told Mr. Grayson that Mr.
Stevens could move freely about in Benghazi in order to do--he
was moving freely about in order to do his job.
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes. Yes. He was authorized as an
Ambassador to go to any location in his country of assignment
without Washington approval.
Ms. Frankel. And, of course, an attack could have taken
place out in the field.
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct. And there is an
inherent danger to being a United States representative.
Ms. Frankel. So my final question to you is, just what have
we learned from this that helps us assess when the conditions
are just too dangerous for a diplomat to remain?
Ambassador Kennedy. Our position is--and this is something
that we are constantly enhancing--is every day we review the
threat levels at all posts in the world, not only the highest
threat posts. And if we reach a point where we believe that the
mitigation tools that are available to us cannot lower that
threat level down, then we close the post.
If I might offer you one example. We were in Damascus,
Syria, continuing to operate there several years ago. We kept
monitoring the situation. And one morning my Diplomatic
Security colleagues and I concluded that, given the situation
on the ground in Damascus, we could no longer mitigate the risk
sufficiently. I went to see the Secretary of State, and she
instantaneously gave me approval to suspend operations in
Damascus and pull out our people. If there is intelligence or
any other information available to us, that our mitigation
strategies are no longer valid, then we suspend operations and
remove our people.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Royce. All right. We are going to Mr. Jeff Duncan
of South Carolina at this time.
Mr. Duncan. I yield some time to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
One question, Mr. Ambassador. Has any State Department
employees ever been asked to sign nondisclosure agreements
after the Benghazi attack?
Ambassador Kennedy. Not that I am aware of, sir, no.
Mr. Poe. So you don't know whether they have or they
haven't.
Ambassador Kennedy. The State Department does not use
nondisclosure agreements.
Mr. Poe. So that is a foreign concept to you, nondisclosure
agreements, with the State Department?
Ambassador Kennedy. Well, obviously, we do sign agreements
not to disclose classified information to individuals who do
not have classified access. But that is different, I believe,
than the thrust of your question. You are asking me did we put
into place specific nondisclosure agreements after Benghazi,
and I do not believe we did so, sir.
Mr. Poe. Classified or nonclassified?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, no, sir.
Mr. Poe. I yield back to the gentleman from South Carolina.
Thank you.
Mr. Duncan. I thank the gentleman from Texas for an
excellent line of questioning and points made about Americans
being dismayed that no one has been brought to justice in
Benghazi, the perpetrators, nor has anyone been brought to
disciplinary action other than a slap on the hand within the
Department of State. That needs to happen. Just being removed
and reassigned to another position is not justifiable. People
need to lose their jobs over the failures that were admitted to
here today, were pointed out in the ARB report.
And I want to thank the gentleman for mentioning and
acknowledging that it was a terrorist attack. That is more than
the former Secretary of State was willing to do, sitting in
that very chair, Mr. Under Secretary.
A lot of questions remain about Benghazi, questions that
won't be answered today, but questions that need to be asked.
What was Ambassador Stevens doing in Benghazi on 11 September?
Did he have a dinner or a meeting with the Turkish officials?
What was the substance of those meetings? Was it funneling arms
from the Libyan rebels to the Syrian fighters through Turkey?
A great impact on regional security has been the
proliferation of shoulder-fired missiles or MANPADS, Man-
Portable Air-Defense Systems, leaking out of Libya since weapon
depots were heavily looted during Libya fighting. Out of
Libya's 20,000 MANPADS inventory, how many are accounted for
today? How many had been recovered under that mission going on
in Benghazi? And how many were stored in Benghazi that
ultimately fell in the hands of the Libyan rebels and possibly
Al Qaeda? Can you answer that question?
Ambassador Kennedy. I will have to get you that information
for the record, sir. I don't have that with me.
Mr. Duncan. Okay. The question that I have is, who knew
what and when? You are familiar with the term NOIWON, sir?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Duncan. Okay. For the committee, that is a secure
telephone conference call system between major Washington
national security watch centers. It is used for rapid
evaluation of a breaking crisis. Was there a NOIWON initiated
by the State Department on or prior to 11 September, 2012?
Ambassador Kennedy. I believe there was. I know there were
massive interagency telephone calls going on. I can check that.
But I know that I was on numerous calls with officials from
other U.S. Government agencies.
Mr. Duncan. I appreciate that. I am specifically talking
about NOIWON. So I am going to make a formal request to you and
the State Department today for the activity logs of the
Department of State, its op center, and its Bureau of Intel and
Research for any NOIWON activity prior to and during the 9/11/
2012 timeframe for Libya and specifically Benghazi. I want to
know who was on the call and what the substance of the call
was. And we will put that in writing to you as well.
There are so many questions that need to be asked and
answered about the disciplinary action at the Department of
State. Is it true that you required a daily report of the
personnel in country and that you personally approved every
official American who went to Tripoli or Benghazi either on
official business or assignment or a TDY?
Ambassador Kennedy. I set a cap for the number of personnel
who were to be in Benghazi, and we controlled, because it was a
post with----
Mr. Duncan. But did you require a daily report on all the
personnel in country?
Ambassador Kennedy. I don't believe I got a daily report. I
never remember getting a daily on everyone in country. I would
get questions from time to time about adding or subtracting
personnel.
Mr. Duncan. Just the limited time. Gregory Hicks, former
Deputy Chief of Mission at Embassy Tripoli, noted that in his
testimony before. So my question is, do you require that for
every country or was this is an obsession with Libya at that
point in time?
Ambassador Kennedy. At certain posts which are either under
evacuation or ordered departure status, we keep track down to
the single number.
Mr. Duncan. And I can see the merit there. So I am out of
time. You will reply to my request on NOIWON.
Ambassador Kennedy. Absolutely. And as you say, you have
other questions. I would be glad to come see you or any other
member of the committee individually and engage in a fuller
discussion.
Chairman Royce. We appreciate that. We also would
appreciate those documents because we don't know what legal
standing you have not to turn them over to us. Thank you,
Ambassador.
Now we are going to go to Mr. Brad Sherman of California.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There are three regrettable things with regard to Libya.
First and most regrettable, we lost Ambassador Stevens and
three others. We were in Benghazi at a time when it turned out
not to be safe to be there on that day. Second, there was what
I call talk show error as to the reason that the attack took
place. And then, third, we haven't been able to bring the
culprits to justice.
The gentleman from Texas points out that, well, CNN was
able to talk to some terrorists in Libya, so why can't we. I
will point out, very often terrorists make themselves available
in clandestine meetings with American journalists. Daniel Pearl
was in just such a situation; it turned out the terrorists
killed him. But terrorists may allow themselves to come into
contact with journalists while hiding from our military.
Has the Libyan Government authorized us to take kinetic
action against terrorists in Benghazi if we believe that they
are responsible for the death of Ambassador Stevens?
Ambassador Kennedy. We are working very, very closely with
the Government of Libya.
Mr. Sherman. Can you give me a yes or a no?
Ambassador Kennedy. Let me take that question for the
record, sir.
Mr. Sherman. I would sure like to know the answer. Take for
the record usually means never get an answer. Because I will
point out that we were holding over $25 billion of Libyan
assets. I and others urged that that money be held on to at
least to cover our costs. Had we done so, we might have a
little bit of leverage with Libya. Right now all we have is the
gratitude of the Libyan Government, which wouldn't exist
without us. That gratitude seems to be insufficient for you to
be able to give me a positive answer. These are murderers of
Ambassador Stevens and you can't tell me whether we have the
right to bring them to justice should we be able to locate them
and determine who is guilty.
Now, as to the talk show error, I will simply point out
that at my town halls, if you had to ask anybody which State
Department person is responsible for stating on talk shows, for
the fact that it was stated on talk shows that this was caused
by a bad movie or a YouTube video, they would say, well, I
turned on the TV, I saw Susan Rice. It turned out the
statements she was making were not accurate. I don't think
there is anybody who observes Washington politics who doesn't
think Susan Rice has paid a price for the fact that those were
the talking points she was given. And all of us who have to
rely on others for the talking points we have know that it is
our face that is there and if I make mistakes based on my
staff, it is the voters who will not allow me to have an
office. I think Susan Rice has paid a price.
Now let's talk about the most critical decision, and that
was the decision to have Ambassador Stevens there. As I
understand it, Ambassador Stevens was not just the authorized
Ambassador, he was probably in the State Department the person
most knowledgeable about Libya. Is that generally correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. I think so, sir. He had served before
as the Deputy Chief.
Mr. Sherman. So if we had to have one person in the State
Department decide whether to take the risk, Ambassador Stevens
was equipped to do so; he was a hero, he knew the risk that he
was taking. Now, all of us, every time a soldier goes to try to
take a hill, they don't know whether it is a 1 percent risk or
a 99 percent risk, but they know it is a significant risk of
their life. Ambassador Stevens knew he was risking his life. He
was a hero in that he put his job first. And now we come back
and say, well, with hindsight, it turns out to be a bigger risk
than the Ambassador should have taken.
Was there any pressure on Ambassador Stevens to go to
Benghazi or to go to Benghazi knowing the number of security
personnel that he would be taking with him?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir. We put no pressure on
Ambassador Stevens to go----
Mr. Sherman. So he knew where he was going, he understood--
it is very hard to understand Libya--but he understood as well
as anybody in our government. He understood the number of
security personnel that were already there. He understood the
number of CIA personnel that were already there. He understood
the number of security people he was taking with him. He
understood Libya as well as possible. He decided to risk his
life in the service of his country. And then we are told nobody
paid a price for the decision to take that risk. I think
Ambassador Stevens paid a price for his heroism. And it is very
hard for me to say that there was anybody outside Libya who
made the decision or should have been making the decision as to
whether Ambassador Stevens went to Benghazi that day. Do you
have a comment on that?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, it is the job of an American
Ambassador to go into harm's way. We try every day to mitigate
that risk to the maximum extent possible. But it is inherently
dangerous, as you say, sir.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. We will go to Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ambassador, thank you for being here. We appreciate it.
I appreciate your service to your country. I also thank, you
know, soldiers all around the globe for their service to their
country and especially for those that were involved in this
incident.
And, you know, one of the things soldiers and airmen like I
am are always taught is that your country will always be there.
As I have said earlier, that your country will move heaven and
earth to ensure that you will be protected, to ensure that if
you find yourself under attack they will come and get you.
I heard a colleague earlier mention that, you know, we need
answers. This isn't about exploiting this for political gain.
Somehow implying that, you know, our side of the aisle is just
interested in embarrassing the administration and just gaining
in politics here. I take a huge exception to that. And I have
to get this on the record. Because when four Americans die, and
I see that there was 7 hours before a first and a second
attack, and I know that there were military assets nearby that
within 7 hours could have responded, and I hear the Department
of Defense even come out and say, well, we never could have
made it by the 7th hour, but they had no idea that attack was
coming. And hopefully they didn't know that second attack was
coming or there would be a whole line of questions about why
there weren't assets in place in the first place. But when I
hear that it really bothers me, because my belief as an airman,
as a pilot myself, and as just a member of the military, is
that when people die and when there is not a serious military
response, I would hope that if I was in that situation, the
House Foreign Affairs Committees would keep having hearings for
a year or two until they found out what really happened. So I
think that is important.
You also mentioned earlier, too, that it doesn't really--
and I know what you meant, but you said it really doesn't
matter who did it, just that was done, it was terrorism. I
think it does matter, I think we need answers on that because
ultimately it gives us a blueprint on who we need to kill or
capture, which I think is very important. And I hope that that
is done.
I had another colleague earlier that asked you if there was
any force nearby that could have responded between the
beginning of the attack and by the time Ambassador Stevens was
killed, and you said no, and that is probably true, there was
about a 90-minute lag. Again, there were three other Americans
that died 7 hours later.
You also mentioned that the nearest military assets were in
Djibouti. I have been to Djibouti as a Congressman. It is an
important base and I appreciate that. Are you familiar with
Aviano Air Base, sir?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am, sir. And if I said, the reason I
cited Djibouti is that is what the Defense Department has told
me. So that is not--I am quoting----
Mr. Kinzinger. Okay. I got it. I am sure they are aware of
Aviano as well.
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kinzinger. But it is 1,049 miles away from Benghazi
direct flight. Those are F-16s, by the way. They can kind of
haul. Dallas to Washington, which you mentioned, I think is
1,330 miles away. So actually Aviano is closer. And there is
something that we can do called a show of force in which a
plane comes in, flies very low, and scatters an enemy. And I
have always wondered why in 8 hours we couldn't have made that
happen.
Now, the question on the SST. You made the decision to
terminate the SST, I believe, and that was as of August 2012.
Now, you testified today, I believe, that there was a
replacement to the SST, correct? So that was not a loss of
capacity?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct. The State Department
replaced the capacities, and six of the billets that were part
of the 16 remained in country.
Mr. Kinzinger. And they were based out of Tripoli.
Ambassador Kennedy. They were based in Tripoli.
Mr. Kinzinger. Ultimately responded to Benghazi. So was
there movement during the attacks from the replacement team to
Benghazi?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir, they did.
Mr. Kinzinger. And how did they get there? Did they charter
an aircraft?
Ambassador Kennedy. Charted an aircraft.
Mr. Kinzinger. Didn't we have a DC-3 that they could have
hopped on?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, the DC-3 was--it was no longer
there.
Mr. Kinzinger. Why not?
Ambassador Kennedy. But the DC-3 was never based in
Tripoli. The DC-3 was based in Malta. And so when we would have
had----
Mr. Kinzinger. But our prior SST would have utilized that
DC-3, correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. No.
Mr. Kinzinger. Who would have? Who is flying that? Not who
is flying it, but what are we using it for?
Ambassador Kennedy. The DC-3, in effect, ran a shuttle
between the commercial airport in Malta and Tripoli before
there was any commercial airline service established. Once
commercial airline service was established, U.S. Government
personnel moved between----
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you. But we had to charter an aircraft
to get that replacement team into Benghazi. And how long did
that take, do you know?
Ambassador Kennedy. I can look. I can look at the timeline.
Mr. Kinzinger. Okay, it took X amount of time. But they
were able to respond in time--or they were able to respond,
definitely, not probably in time. It is interesting that
chartering an aircraft can actually be done faster than the
military can have an aircraft on alert and respond to Benghazi
in a short amount of time with F-16 power. So I thought that
was interesting.
Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
We go now to Randy Weber of Texas.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Weber. You remember that, Mr. Ambassador?
Ambassador Kennedy. I don't ever remember hearing the
commercial, but I am well aware of it, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weber. Who didn't answer that call that night?
Ambassador Kennedy. I believe that the call was answered,
sir.
Mr. Weber. Who didn't keep Mary Stevens'--that is Chris
Stevens' mother's son--safe? Are you convinced that we have
gotten to the bottom of who is accountable?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir, I am.
Mr. Weber. Would you like the task of going to Mary Stevens
and explaining to her that four people getting reassigned is
paying a price?
Ambassador Kennedy. Sir, they were not reassigned. They
were relieved of their senior-level positions. That is a
serious disciplinary action.
Mr. Weber. You said in your remarks that you presented to
us, on page 6, that under the Vienna Convention of 1961, I am
quoting you now, ``We do our part.'' And you kind of intimated,
where necessary, ``sending Marine security guards.'' Who didn't
send the Marine security guards into Benghazi?
Ambassador Kennedy. We had at that point, we and the
Department of Defense had only enough personnel to deploy 152
Marine security guard detachments and we had 285 posts.
Mr. Weber. Do you think that that is an acceptable
explanation to Ms. Mary Stevens?
Ambassador Kennedy. It is the facts, sir. And it is also
part of your helping us get the additional funding that is
allowing us to increase security.
Mr. Weber. You answered the question. On page 9, you also
said regarding the ARB recommendations, and I am quoting you,
the Department has ``created a Deputy Assistant Secretary for
High Threat Posts.'' And then you intimate, who undoubtedly
will send Marines. Well, if the ARB has asked for a new post,
whose responsibility was that before Benghazi happened? If we
have created a post just to do that, whose responsibility was
that? And then you went on to say that you believe it was
everybody's responsibility, security was everyone's
responsibility.
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct, sir, I did say that.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So in the report you agreed with the fact
that there are those who are--you say that were held
accountable. I call it reassignment. I don't recall your
question. Was anybody denied pay or benefits of those four?
Ambassador Kennedy. What the Secretary of State was
carrying out is a review, and under the American system of
fairness, we do not, in effect, find someone guilty until the
review is complete.
Mr. Weber. You said actually, I am quoting from you
earlier, you said, ``That is an essential element of American
fairness.'' That is what you said sitting in that chair. But
let me tell you this: The American public expects that an
essential element of fairness is that we get to the bottom of
this and someone is held accountable. You said that the ARB
report, and I am quoting what you said here today, is that no
one had a breach of duty.
Ambassador Kennedy. That is what the ARB found, sir. That
is what the statute----
Mr. Weber. Yet you just sat there and retestified that
security was everyone's responsibility. What is the difference
between responsibility and duty?
Ambassador Kennedy. I don't see a difference.
Mr. Weber. So there was a breach of duty then.
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir.
Mr. Weber. There was not a breach of duty in your opinion?
Ambassador Kennedy. No.
Mr. Weber. And you would be okay explaining that to Mary
Stevens?
Ambassador Kennedy. I believe, sir, that there was no
breach of duty. The ARB found that and I concur----
Mr. Weber. I am almost done here, Mr. Chairman.
I would submit to you, Ambassador, that it is Congress'
duty, your duty, to get to the bottom of this and someone is
held accountable. And if we don't do that, then we, in essence,
have had a breach of duty.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ambassador, thank you for being here. You are in an
important position. I am sure you are busy. You are the
Secretary for Management, correct, Secretary for Management?
Under Secretary----
Ambassador Kennedy. Under Secretary for Management.
Mr. Perry. Yes, thank you for the correction. Would you
help a friend if a friend were in trouble?
Ambassador Kennedy. Absolutely.
Mr. Perry. Okay, so I just want to point out for the record
that the Secretary had a hand in appointing four of the members
of the ARB, and according to your previous testimony and
answers to the chairman that you made recommendations regarding
those positions or those potential appointees. No question
regarding that. Do you read your emails when a crisis situation
is occurring?
Ambassador Kennedy. I read every email before I go home in
the evening, sir.
Mr. Perry. All right, thank you. Should the State
Department, excepting issues of national security or
operational security or classified information, be generally
transparent? Should the Department of State be generally
transparent, excepting those issues?
Ambassador Kennedy. Absolutely.
Mr. Perry. All right. And should Foreign Service and
military servicemembers have an expectation that the U.S.
Government is going to do everything it can to ensure their
personal safety?
Ambassador Kennedy. Absolutely.
Mr. Perry. So when did you know based on solid intelligence
that the rhetoric your agency and the administration was
telling the American people and the world was incorrect? When
did you know that?
Ambassador Kennedy. After the television talk shows.
Mr. Perry. Well, they went on for weeks, so can you be
specific?
Ambassador Kennedy. The information that Ambassador Rice
used on those television talk shows was based on information
provided----
Mr. Perry. Okay, so you are not going to be specific. I am
holding up, and I am sure you won't recognize this. First of
all, you are far away, with all due respect. But second of all,
this is a transcribed copy of an email in which you are
included and it is as of 12:46 or quarter to 1 on the 12th, so
a day later, in which Ansar al-Sharia is noted by Assistant
Secretary Beth Jones. So at that point, per your testimony, you
knew by that afternoon, since you read your emails at the end
of each day to be sure, that you knew at that point.
What did you do----
Ambassador Kennedy. If I might, sir, Ansar al-Sharia--later
a spokesperson from Ansar al-Sharia said they were responsible.
Mr. Perry. I understand that. But at that moment--that is
later--but at that moment, at that moment you knew----
Ambassador Kennedy. The next day they withdrew.
Mr. Perry. But at that moment you knew. What did you do?
What did you do? You are a manager. What did you personally do
to set the ship straight on the talking points and the message
that was going out to the American people and the world? What
did you do?
Ambassador Kennedy. I knew at that point that Ansar al-
Sharia's spokesman had withdrawn that claim. And I am, as you
said rightly, sir, I am a management officer at the State
Department. When you get complex issues like responsibility
claims----
Mr. Perry. When the government of the country understands
and recognizes it was a terrorist attack, and you already said
in this committee hearing, in this chair, in this hour that you
recognized it as a terrorist attack, and you don't do anything
to change it.
Ambassador Kennedy. The collectivity of the Intelligence
Community concluded what they concluded.
Mr. Perry. That it is a terrorist attack. And for 3 weeks
your administration, your Department put out to the American
people that it was not. It was a spontaneous eruption of a
demonstration. Let me move on.
You are a manager. Again, you are a manager so you can get
things done. You are at a high level. Why must this committee
transcribe--this is an email to you, it is not an email form--
why must we transcribe all the information that we get? Why
can't we get it and get copies of it? We will make the copies
of it. Why can't we? Why must we subpoena it? Why aren't you
forthcoming, you personally?
Ambassador Kennedy. The chairman has already----
Mr. Perry. I am asking you.
Ambassador Kennedy. The chairman has already posed that
question and I have taken the question.
Mr. Perry. And what was your answer? What are you doing
about it?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am taking the question back to the
State Department, sir.
Mr. Perry. But you are in a position of managing. What are
you going to do? Instead of taking the question, what are you
going to do to answer it right now?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am telling you, sir, that I am taking
the question.
Mr. Perry. Listen, I don't want to point fingers and it has
been alleged here. I am not here to point fingers. But I think
it is abundantly clear after a year to the American people what
is happening here. This administration, and your Department in
particular, are stonewalling. They don't want to give up the
information. They have been doing that since this began. They
actively misled at the time and continue to mislead now
regarding the facts. We just want the facts.
It is apparent that the information that came out regarding
the talking points did not comport with the President's
narrative, did not comport with the President's narrative in
election time with a Presidential election looming, and so they
had to be changed. That is apparent. It is also apparent that
the administration continues to hide this fact from the
American people.
And with regard to Foreign Service officers, it is apparent
that if that happens again and it does not fit with the
President's narrative, they will be left to be killed,
sodomized, and have their bloody bodies drug through the
streets for all the world to see instead of having this
administration find out what really happened.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Ambassador Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, may I respond?
Chairman Royce. Yes.
Ambassador Kennedy. Sir, I have been a Foreign Service
officer for 40 years. We do everything we can, as I have
outlined here, to attempt to mitigate the risk to our personnel
overseas. But being a diplomat is an inherently risky activity.
I cannot, nor can any of my colleagues, nor can I believe that
anyone can end that risk. We do everything we can to mitigate
that risk, but we cannot end the risk.
Chairman Royce. We are going to Mr. Trey Radel from
Florida.
Mr. Radel. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Could you tell me about the--we know that the four people
are relieved of their senior positions. They essentially get
reassigned somewhere else. Can you tell me what--you got Ray,
Eric, Scott, Charlene who are the four here--what are they
doing today?
Ambassador Kennedy. One of them has been reassigned to a
lower-level position in the Bureau of African Affairs, one is
the Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, and the other
two are in the process of being reassigned to positions of
lesser responsibility with no worldwide purview.
Mr. Radel. So these, undoubtedly, unquestionably are not
higher seniority levels, correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. They have been reassigned to positions
of lesser responsibility, yes, sir.
Mr. Radel. Lesser responsibility. Okay. And quickly, with
Mr. Raymond Maxwell, I don't understand why he gets put on
administrative leave when his duties do not include any review,
approval, or even formations of recommendations regarding
security resources in Libya. Why is this? How does this guy fit
in?
Ambassador Kennedy. Mr. Maxwell was the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
responsible for the Maghreb, meaning the band of countries
across the North African littoral, including Libya; that Libya
was within his purview----
Mr. Radel. Within his purview.
Ambassador Kennedy [continuing]. As the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for the Maghreb.
Mr. Radel. So I think you would agree with me all of us
here regardless of what side of the aisle we are on, we know
that it is important to learn from our mistakes. Part of the
improvements that we on this committee have done, we passed
some legislation. I worked with Congresswoman Frankel on the
Protecting Americans Abroad Act, which allows State to hire the
best of the best when it comes to security, not the cheapest.
We are proud of that. We have a bipartisan committee here. And
this is not political what we are doing here.
We know that it is important to learn from mistakes, but we
also need accountability, which is why we are here today. We
need to show the American people who we are beholden to,
taxpaying Americans, that we are responsible. But it also sends
a message that being inept will not be tolerated and this will
never, ever happen again.
People are dead. There are four men who are dead. The young
girls will never walk down their aisle with their father at
their wedding, young boys will never be able to toss a football
with their dad. And the people who are responsible for this
have been relieved of their senior positions.
You had said it earlier, reassignment equals
accountability. It does not equal accountability. Reassignment
does not equal accountability. They are reassigned. They are
being put into another position where they have never missed a
paycheck, where they are going to have their cushy government
job, and they are still going to get a pension.
In the real world, this would never happen. This would
never, ever happen. They would be fired, they would be
terminated because they failed. And four people, including an
Ambassador, are dead. This is unacceptable.
I hope that in a bipartisan fashion we can in some way,
shape, or form actually have someone be held accountable, and
that not only within our own Government, but let's pray that we
find the people that are responsible for this attack because
everyone has blood on their hands. It is unacceptable.
Reassignment does not equal accountability.
Mr. Chair, I yield the rest of my time. My question was
answered.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. Yoho of Florida.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ambassador Kennedy, thank you for being here. I agree with
the Congressmen on my left, or to the left over here, Engel,
Meeks, and Connolly, that we should focus on making our Embassy
and personnel safer around the world. However, in order to do
that we must look at our failures of the past so we do not make
those same mistakes again. And I want to kind of reference a
report here: Deputy Chief of Missions for Embassy Tripoli
Gregory Hicks stated that Secretary Clinton wanted Benghazi
converted to a permanent constituent post. Ambassador
Pickering, when he was asked by the ARB and when this was
discussed, he kind of looked surprised, looked both ways. Does
the seventh floor know about this? And it brought up
questioning that they should look at this through the ARB,
which stands for Accountability Review Board.
In addition, looking back at the past, the 1999 ARB report
states that the--issued response to the bombings of the U.S.
Embassy in Kenya and Tanzania. This report urged that the
Secretary of State--the Secretary of State--should take a
personal and active role in carrying out the responsibility of
ensuring the security of U.S. diplomatic personnel abroad. And
the Board should have questioned the extent to which the
Secretary fulfilled or did not fulfill this mandate.
And again, with Ambassador Stevens making multiple requests
for security and being denied, in lieu of this report that
looks in the past so that we don't make those same reports
again, would you agree that we should have probably questioned
higher up in the chain of command? And I am going to do you a
favor, my questions are going to be pretty much yes or no.
Ambassador Kennedy. Your first question about the permanent
post in Benghazi, the Secretary of State never said to me
establish a permanent post in Benghazi. And I would have been
the person who would have launched----
Mr. Yoho. Mr. Chairman, I have got this report here. I will
submit it for questioning. Let me ask--okay, go ahead, the
second one.
Ambassador Kennedy. Your second one. The Secretary of State
does take her responsibilities very, very seriously. As I
mentioned earlier, when I went to the Secretary of State and
said the situation in Damascus, Syria, had reached the point
where we could no longer mitigate the risk, the Secretary
instantaneously replied take the people out.
We had no actionable intelligence, as the Director of
National Intelligence had said, about this threat in Benghazi,
and therefore, I never went to the Secretary of State and told
her it was time to leave Benghazi.
Mr. Yoho. All right, let me ask you this. I am going to cut
you off. Do you think that the ARB should have questioned
higher up its question? Yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is a judgment for the ARB, sir.
Mr. Yoho. All right. Who do you report to directly?
Ambassador Kennedy. I report to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Yoho. All right. So is it fair to say that you are
accountable to the Secretary. You said yes. As the Under
Secretary for Management you are responsible for the people,
resources, budgets, facilities, technology, financial,
operations, consular affairs, logistics, contracting, and
security for the Department of State operations, and as the
Secretary's principal advisor on management issues. Is that
correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Yoho. All right. The people under you report directly
to you, correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Yoho. All right. You oversee their day-to-day
operations?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Yoho. They are accountable to you. And you said that is
correct. If they fail in their job description and it affects
your Department's mission objective, would that ultimately be
your responsibility? Yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. Absolutely.
Mr. Yoho. All right. Would it be a sign of lack of
management?
Ambassador Kennedy. Not necessarily.
Mr. Yoho. Would it be a lack of failure of your job and
responsibility?
Ambassador Kennedy. Not necessarily.
Mr. Yoho. Since you stated that you report directly to the
Secretary and if you feel that your job duty or subordinates,
you are saying it is not necessarily your superior's fault
either?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir, correct.
Mr. Yoho. All right. For the record, Mrs. Clinton was the
Secretary of State at the time. We all know that. The reports I
have and when I was present with this committee and we
interviewed Ms. Clinton, she stated that she requested
personally for Ambassador Stevens to come to this post, to take
this assignment. Are you aware of that?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir, I am the one who set up the
appointment between Chris and the Secretary.
Mr. Yoho. Okay. The reports I have said that the Embassy in
Benghazi was understaffed and underprotected by the standards
at the time. Is that correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is the ARB's conclusion.
Mr. Yoho. All right. Also the reports I read said that
Ambassador Stevens said there were increased tensions between
the personnel and local Benghazi population. That is correct,
isn't it?
Ambassador Kennedy. That was what Chris reported. But there
were no threats against the U.S. temporary mission facility or
against our personnel.
Mr. Yoho. Okay. Reports also stated that Ambassador Stevens
had requested increased security on more than one occasion,
correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. That is correct.
Mr. Yoho. Reports said that the request for increased
security was turned down each time and we know that is correct.
Who turned those down, do you know?
Ambassador Kennedy. I reviewed the situation, and every
request, as I have testified before, every request that was
made for improvements were okayed and funded with the exception
of the four guard towers which I mentioned earlier.
Mr. Yoho. I yield back, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [presiding]. Thank you, Dr. Yoho. The
gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Meadows is recognized.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ambassador Kennedy, this gets down to two things. One is
accountability and the second is trust, and we must have the
accountability before we can restore the trust of the American
people in terms of what happened in Benghazi or what may happen
in the future. So I would like to refocus our attention on
these four people that you say they have lost their titles. But
let me be clear, they have not lost any money or any benefits,
yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. No.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. So they have gotten paid. They got an 8-
month paid leave while the State Department has done their
investigation, yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. Correct.
Mr. Meadows. All right. So they have been off for 8 months.
I also serve on the Government Reform Committee and I know that
we have made a number of requests that had gone unanswered,
really. Were there any adverse--adverse, other than title
changes and post changes--were there any adverse personnel
actions that were taken against these four people that
according to the ARB were systemically involved in
mismanagement?
Ambassador Kennedy. The ARB actually, sir, talked about two
people specifically and two others.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. But those two people of being part of
the four, but the two people, did any adverse actions happen to
those two people other than title changes?
Ambassador Kennedy. Sir, if I----
Mr. Meadows. Yes or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. A title change----
Mr. Meadows. I understand in your opinion a title change is
a big deal. But we are talking about four dead Americans, so
let's look at it. Anything other than that?
Ambassador Kennedy. Being removed as a Deputy Assistant
Secretary is a major act.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. All right. Well, so let me go on. You
mentioned the consideration of other posts and you mentioned
two people. It is troubling for me to start to hear reports of
where these two people are being considered for very high-
profile, secure posts overseas. And knowing that the State
Department takes about 12 months to go through that, it means
that that review process had to have started while they were on
administrative leave. Are you aware of that?
Ambassador Kennedy. You are correct, sir, that the process
we assign in----
Mr. Meadows. So are you aware that they are being
considered for high-profile, secure positions overseas?
Ambassador Kennedy. No one----
Mr. Meadows. Yes or no, are you aware?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am unaware. They have not been
assigned anywhere.
Mr. Meadows. I understand they haven't been assigned. You
are avoiding my question. Are you aware that they are being
considered for high-profile, secure positions overseas?
Ambassador Kennedy. I guess the answer is no. I mean,
obviously----
Mr. Meadows. It is either a yes or a no. Are you aware?
Ambassador Kennedy. Obviously, sir, while this is pending,
one has to look at the two----
Mr. Meadows. But you are in charge.
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir. But there are two options
here. The Secretary of State, as he expressed in his letter----
Mr. Meadows. I don't want a narrative. Are you aware, yes
or no?
Ambassador Kennedy. Obviously, we had to have options. The
Secretary of State's letter said he was either going to fire
them or make another decision. Depending on what decision he
makes----
Mr. Meadows. But this is a high-profile post.
Ambassador Kennedy. I am afraid I don't know this level of
detail----
Mr. Meadows. Okay. Well, are you willing as the person in
charge, you just said you were in charge----
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir, I am.
Mr. Meadows [continuing]. Are you willing to report back to
this committee within 30 days to make us aware? And I am
assuming from your response that you wouldn't be supportive of
any high-profile posting for these two individuals, is that
correct? You would not be supportive of it.
Ambassador Kennedy. I would not be supportive of any
position in which these individuals had the same levels of
responsibility.
Mr. Meadows. No, that is not what I am asking. A high-
profile post overseas, that is what I am asking, so you are
supportive of it?
Ambassador Kennedy. No, sir, I am neither one nor the
other. I am just saying, sir, that profile and responsibility
are two different things.
Mr. Meadows. Well, but that is a judgment call on your
part. Well, let me go on a little bit further then. This report
talks about bonuses, between $10,000 to $15,000 bonuses that
are given to State Department. Up until 2011, those were
disclosed publicly.
Ambassador Kennedy. Right.
Mr. Meadows. It now appears that either you or Secretary
Clinton have made a decision not to disclose those. Is that
correct?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am unaware of that.
Mr. Meadows. So you are unaware of that. So you would be
glad to support it. Because it has been suggested that some of
these people in the ARB got bonuses and that now we are not
disclosing it because it would look bad. You are not aware of
that?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am also not aware that anybody in
subject of the ARB got a bonus. I will confirm that, but I am
not aware that they got bonuses.
Mr. Meadows. So who made the decision, you or Secretary
Clinton, to not be transparent with regard to bonuses?
Ambassador Kennedy. I don't think it was either of us, but
I have to go back and find out. I may have done something, but
that is a level of detail----
Mr. Meadows. If you will report back.
I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Meadows.
Mr. Stockman of Texas.
Mr. Stockman. Thank you.
I have to say after that brief exchange with my colleague,
Mr. Meadows, my earlier colleague asked if you knew some words.
And what I am puzzled at is, you earlier mentioned that you
hadn't made a determination of what caused the attack, but on
all of the talk shows we heard was video, video, video, video,
including the President. But he was asking you if you knew some
words, and I am going to ask you if you know some words. Yes or
no. Do you know the word stonewalling?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stockman. Do you know the word cover-up?
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stockman. Do you know the word scandal.
Ambassador Kennedy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stockman. Okay. Well, I am going to yield the balance
of my time to my good friend from California, Dana, because I
feel that is what happened here today, and I think Mr. Meadows'
line of questioning fits those three questions or definitions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much for yielding to me.
Let me just note there are two distinct views of this whole
episode in American history. We have you telling us that you
believe that since that murder of our Ambassador and three
other Americans, that terrorist attack, that there has been a
full court press on the part of the administration to bring
those to justice and to get the word out to the American
people. The opposite view was just expressed by my friend Mr.
Stockman, what it seems to be is a year of obfuscation,
stonewalling, denial, and cover-up. I think that it is vital
for the American people to understand the truth of which of
these views reflects reality.
Let me ask you just a couple of questions. How many
government employees, including the agency and State
Department, et cetera, how many Federal Government employees
were in Benghazi the night of the attack?
Ambassador Kennedy. Madam Chair, I respectfully cannot
answer questions that involve classified information in this
session.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Well, would you be, if I could interrupt
the gentleman, we could do that in a classified setting as
early as tomorrow, the next day.
Ambassador Kennedy. I am prepared to appear before this
committee at any time----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Okay. All right. Okay. So let me ask you
something. To your knowledge has any of these--because we have
been told there are a number of figures out there in terms of
maybe up to 40 people, 45 people present, some of whom or many
of whom had skills enough to be engaged in defending our
Ambassador and preventing that attack, or at least thwarting
it--have any of those people, those who were there--of course
you can't tell us how many--have any of them been asked not to
cooperate with congressional or media inquiries or to take lie
detector tests?
Ambassador Kennedy. I am unaware of any State Department
personnel being instructed like that, and the State Department
does not utilize lie detector tests except in exceptional
circumstances.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yeah. I am very happy. You know, look,
weasel words. I am unaware of State Department. Did I ask State
Department? I didn't. I don't think I asked about the State
Department. I asked do you have any knowledge of any of those
people who were on the scene--now, you can't tell us how many
there were, but you know they were there--have any of them been
told not to cooperate with a congressional investigation? Don't
hedge it with I don't know the State Department people. That
wasn't the question.
Ambassador Kennedy. I am the Under Secretary of State for
Management, sir, and can only answer questions about the State
Department.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right, okay. Well, that is a good
dodge as well.
Let me ask you this. There is an Ambassador who has been
murdered. We have three other people who have been murdered. It
is a terrorist attack. Why is it the CIA, and why aren't they
the ones doing this investigation? Why is it the FBI? I thought
the FBI was supposed to be doing internal domestic
investigations.
Ambassador Kennedy. By statute, sir, the FBI is charged
with the responsibility for the killing of any American citizen
overseas. That is an FBI responsibility by statute.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Ambassador Kennedy. The FBI obviously works with the CIA
and works with the military, but that is a congressional
statute that gives the FBI that responsibility.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Gives them the sole responsibility?
Ambassador Kennedy. The FBI is a law enforcement agency,
sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And this is not, and let me make it very
clear, we are not talking about a crime in the United States.
We are not talking about law enforcement. And this is one of
the distinct differences between the administration and other
people who disagree with its approach. What we are talking
about here is a terrorist attack which is not a criminal
matter, which is a matter of national security, which the CIA
and all the rest of our intelligence agencies should have been
involved in. Instead, we give it to people who are treating it
as a crime, who don't want to go into Benghazi because they
haven't been given permission. This is absolutely absurd, and I
don't think that that is lost on the American people.
Ambassador Kennedy. If I might, sir, the FBI is a member of
the Intelligence Community. The FBI is both a national
security, a law enforcement, and an intelligence agency.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Now, you described this as breaking of a
law. There are also basic law enforcers. Terrorism and
terrorism threats to the United States is a security issue, and
if the CIA and these other people are giving it over to our law
enforcement, FBI, it is a mistaken decision from the top.
Thank you.
Chairman Royce [presiding]. Yes, we want to thank
Ambassador Kennedy for his time here today.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, we do.
Chairman Royce. As we have heard, the committee is deeply
concerned with the lack of accountability at the State
Department. Several members have outstanding questions. We have
been trying for some time to get those documents directly. So
we know that the Department will be answering those outstanding
questions in a timely fashion, but again, we reiterate, we need
those answers. We need those documents here at the committee.
And we thank you again, Ambassador Kennedy, for your
testimony today. We thank the members as well. We stand
adjourned.
Ambassador Kennedy. Thank you, sir.
[Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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