BREAKING State Dept. Report On Benghazi Issued-Embedded Here

An independent panel charged with investigating the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has concluded that systematic management failures at the State Department led to inadequate security that left the diplomatic mission vulnerable.

Despite those failures, the Accountability Review Board determined that no individual American officials ignored or violated their duties and found no cause for any disciplinary action. The board found that contrary to initial reports, there was no protest outside the mission and blamed the incident entirely on terrorists.

The State Department sent a classified version of the report to lawmakers Tuesday and released an unclassified version later Tuesday. The report makes 29 recommendations to improve embassy security. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she accepted all of the board’s recommendations.

"The Accountability Review Board report provides a clear-eyed look at serious, systemic challenges that we have already begun to fix. I am grateful for its recommendations for how we can reduce the chances of this kind of tragedy happening again," Clinton said in letters to the Senate and House panels reviewing the attack.

 The Report is a bit too general-- blaming things on the management of the State Department without naming names.

Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”) resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.

 It talks about a ramp up of incidents which should have alerted the department to allocate more security, yet the State Dept. was turning over security to the Libyans.

Overall, the number of Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) security staff in Benghazi on the day of the attack and in the months and weeks leading up to i twas inadequate, despite repeated requests from Special Mission Benghazi and Embassy Tripoli for additional staffing. Board members found a pervasive realization among personnel who served in Benghazi that the Special Mission was not a high priority for Washington when it came to security-related requests, especially those relating to staffing

...In the weeks and months leading up to the attacks, the response from post,Embassy Tripoli, and Washington to a deteriorating security situation was inadequate. At the same time, the SMC’s dependence on the armed but poorly skilled Libyan February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade (February 17) militia members and unarmed, locally contracted Blue Mountain Libya (BML) guards for security support was misplaced.

Its also clear from the report that the story about a protest over a you tube video is nothing but a fantasy.

I am still reading the report and will update later (or in the AM) But the full report is embedded below;

Benghazi Report