Press release and staff report
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Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) expressed his frustration during Wednesday’s hearing before the Select Committee on Benghazi, following statements by Todd Keil, a member of the Independent Panel on Best Practices.
“What’s it gonna take? What’s it gonna take for the State Department to put in place the practices that are gonna save American lives?,” said Jordan, whose 4th Congressional District in Ohio includes Crawford County.
During the hearing Keil said that the U.S. Department of State decided against implementing the number one recommendation made by the Best Practices panel – to establish an undersecretary for diplomatic security position. He was also surprised to find that the creation of such a position had been recommended before by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright following embassy bombings in 1998.
Rep. Jordan, in questioning Keil, established that:
– The State Department denied multiple requests by personnel on the ground in Libya for additional security support at the Benghazi facility
– In fact, the State Department actually reduced the number of security forces in Benghazi
– The State Department ignored its own safety standards in the months leading up to Benghazi, standards created in the wake of other facility attacks over the past three decades
– The State Department didn’t follow its own waiver process to exempt the Benghazi facility from safety standards required for all overseas facilities
– The State Department’s Advisory Review Board was not “fiercely independent,” but included members hand-picked by then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s staff
– The State Department has decided against establishing an undersecretary for diplomatic security, the most important recommendation made by the Best Practices panel, and the same recommendation made by former Secretary Albright after the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings
“They didn’t listen to the guys on the ground who put their lives on the line. They didn’t follow their own standards that were developed in 1983 after the Beirut embassy bombing. They didn’t follow the waiver process to deviate from those standards. And now they’re not following the Best Practices panel’s number one recommendation,” Jordan said.
“What’s it gonna take? The Ranking Member in his opening remarks said this is a transformational moment. Well somebody better tell the State Department that.”