Commentaries

The Diplomatic Security Service Failed to Protect?

Details: Written by: John Price; Created: 29 October 2012

“After the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was attacked in 1983, the Inman Advisory Panel on Overseas Security issued a report in 1985, which led to the establishment of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.”

We are living in the most crucial time in modern history since the Cold War. At least then we could see our enemy, which is no longer the case. Today’s enemy has no name, no face, no uniform, and not even a standing army. It’s a theological movement that has been around for over a thousand years. Its mission is to control the world under Sharia, the Islamic law, which would take us back to the 12th Century when Sultan Saladin ruled most of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. So how has the United States foreign policy dealt with these issues? First of all, we beefed up the military budget, so that over 20 cents of every taxpayer dollar goes for military operations and technology, while only 1.25 cents goes for our foreign affairs programs, which include diplomatic and consular operations in more than 180 countries, and foreign aid.

The overseas missions are the front line of defense for the security and well-being of our country, serving as eyes and ears, so that we know what is going on outside our borders. Congress was shortsighted in cutting funds for effective embassy operations beginning in the 1990’s. We need to have embassies in all 193 countries that have voting rights at the UN. Some of these countries are in strategic locations, while others are in more dangerous or conflicted areas. We need to operate our overseas missions with the necessary support agencies located at the embassy. We also need to bring in more professionally trained people from the private sector to integrate with the Foreign Service officers. All embassies must operate in a more secure environment, which should have been part of a master plan, once expansion started after World War II.

As the Cold War ended in the 1980s, we focused our attention to the Eastern Bloc countries and very rapidly built more than a dozen new embassies, although the real threat to U.S. security lies in Africa. We also continued to build up our military might for future ground-style campaigns, but did not see the brewing danger of terrorism that would erupt into a new, different kind of warfare. We could have learned a lesson from the terrorist style of fighting in the early 1980s, when there were thirty-six suicide attacks against Americans and others inside Lebanon. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed by Hezbollah in April 1983, killing sixty-three people. At the request of the Lebanese government the U.S. established a peacekeeping force to control the conflict between Muslims and Christians. The Muslim military viewed our soldiers as their enemies and attacked them regularly. In October 1983, truck bombs struck two barracks housing U.S. and French troops. In the attacks 241 Americans and fifty-eight French soldiers were killed. The Islamic Jihad took responsibility for these bombings. In December 1983, a truck filled with explosives rammed into a three-story administrative wing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City, killing five people. That attack was claimed by a radical Shiite Islamic group with ties to Iran.

As a result of these disastrous terrorist attacks, the Advisory Panel on Overseas Security was formed in 1985. The Inman (Admiral Bobby Ray Inman) Report recommended the need for a number of security measures, including setbacks, upgrades to facilities, and new construction of at-risk missions. The study also called for the formation of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) to oversee security at our overseas operations. A Regional Security Officer (RSO) was to be assigned, as the principal security advisor, at the embassies and consulates. As the senior officer, this person would oversee all the missions’ security staff, including local hire guards, and surveillance detection teams; interface with police and military authorities. In addition Marine Security Guard detachments would be assigned to protect the embassies and their contents.

There were many signs of al-Qaeda’s presence in the Horn of Africa and East Africa beginning in the 1990’s. The State Department should have made extensive embassy assessments to determine which facilities were adequately protected, had appropriate setbacks and perimeter separation, and had the ability to withstand the shock of a high-level earthquake. A minimum fifty foot separation from adjacent buildings, with security fencing and barricades, would have sufficed to secure an embassy from bomb attacks while new secure compounds were built. In areas where this was not possible, the embassy should have been relocated temporarily for safety. No embassy should have been located in multi-tenant buildings. The United States had enough warnings and knowledge from the prior embassy attacks to upgrade and protect, or replace every embassy.

Congress in the mid-1990’s mandated budget cuts for our embassy operations, which precluded the necessary security upgrades. In essence our foreign affairs budget was drastically reduced. Subsequent terrorist attacks, and threat of attacks, against our embassies gave rise to an increased budget for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DSS), and almost eight hundred new positions were established. In Congressional Hearings in 1995, Secretary Warren Christopher was asked whether our foreign assistance made any real difference in developing countries, and what would happen if we just stopped giving it, the Secretary responded, “Both we and they would suffer. Our foreign assistance programs are intended to promote the kind of economic growth and political stability that are critical to U.S. national security and economic well-being. Failing to provide aid to developing countries would therefore jeopardize our national security.” The Secretary pointed out that “it costs a hundred times as much to deal with humanitarian crises as it does to prevent them.” For example, it cost the U.S. more than $2 billion to deal with Somalia, and $1 billion to address Rwanda’s problems. Secretary Christopher also talked about “the principle of universality,” wherein the United States must maintain an official diplomatic presence in every country where it is welcome. However, operating leaner in carrying out our foreign affairs was the goal of Congress, and the State Department succumbed to these budget cuts. During the most trying times in recent history, since 2001, more than one thousand new State Department positions were absorbed by assignments to Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, there was a shortage of more than one thousand positions at embassies around the world.

It was in 1996 that Ambassador Prudence Bushnell sent cables to the State Department regarding the lack of proper security at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. An official at the department felt the ambassador was overreacting on these security concerns. A security team was sent to inspect the embassy and reported that it met ‘their’ standards for a medium-threat facility. General Anthony Zinni visited the embassy in early 1998 and reported there were significant risks, and that the embassy would be an easy target for terrorists. The State Department felt no security upgrades were necessary. The U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam was no better protected from potential terrorist attacks. The world knows what happened on August 7, 1998, with the bombings of both embassies and the tragic loss of 224 lives. Why didn’t the State Department take these warnings more seriously? Why was Congress so shortsighted that it did not protect our overseas operations by providing adequate funding? Why were U.S. intelligence sources so naive in their belief that sub-Saharan Africa did not have a well-organized al-Qaeda network?

I believe the attacks could have been avoided by reinforcing proper security standards. We also needed to be more consistent in our engagement of the countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, beginning in the early 1990’s.

Kenya and Tanzania didn’t want the legacy of terrorists who infiltrated their countries, carried out these ill-intentioned deeds, and exercised control over segments of their population. In addition to the disastrous loss of lives, the embassy bombings cost the United States several billion dollars, while properly conceived new embassy compounds, at the time of the warnings in 1996, would have cost a fraction. New embassy construction was stepped up in 2001 under the

Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO). Reportedly eighty-eight, out of almost two hundred facilities needed, have been completed to date. Looking at several of these complexes, it is not difficult to determine where function and cost considerations were less important, than the notion of an architectural statement.

We have wasted money on building extravagantly designed embassy campuses in a number of places, while we have skimped on others.

U.S. Embassy in Beijing, (Timothy Hursley, State Department)

The OBO should have had three or four basic building designs that were shelf-ready, depending upon the size, the location, and the risks involved. Architectural indulgence should not be the overriding criterion, but rather a focus on a more practical, secure, yet visitor-friendly environment. In The Washington Diplomat article “America’s Embassy Building Boom Fortifies Diplomacy, Security Abroad” on April 13, 2012, it was noted that OBO had a budget of $1billion dollars for the construction of embassies in low-threat countries, in Europe and the Baltic region. This is the same issue going back to the end of the Cold War era, when we should have focused more on the high risk areas, such as Africa. The article further noted that some of the embassies have cost upwards of $250 million, with the emphasis more on aesthetics.

U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan (Photo: State Department)

The radical Islamists today continue in their fanatical quest to control vast regions of North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and Arabian Peninsula. Osama bin Laden had consistently stated that he considered all non-Muslims infidels and invaders of Muslim soil. He had called for a global jihad against all Western powers, with the United States being foremost on the list. This message continues today with Ayman al-Zawahiri the new al-Qaeda leader. For that reason alone we need to have an embassy in every Muslim country, and actively engage the leaders. We also need to reach out to the imams who preach hatred. We need to support the more moderate imams who preach peace. Hopefully, our message of friendship will resonate with the young people—the next generation.

Killing Islamists will not give us a long-lasting, peaceful outcome. I believe engaging these countries is better than having CIA operatives and military troops on the ground. Drone attacks also need to be carefully considered, so as not to embolden moderate Muslims, when their family members become casualties, as we try to kill a radical Islamist leader. Congress needs to understand there is a new breed of Islamists today, affiliated with al-Qaeda. This is the danger we face in North Africa, and is brewing across the Sahel region. The increase of Islamist extremists in the region is alarming. These Islamists are gaining an influence in many populous, poverty-stricken Muslim countries. The closure of several embassies in the 1990s increased our exposure to global terrorism, with al-Qaeda recruiting and training in Horn of Africa and East Africa. We now have a second generation of trained fighters, who have grown up knowing only conflict, and are as brutal as their predecessors.

The U.S. Consulate attacks in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, by Ansar al-Sharia and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, will prove to be a major Bureau of Diplomatic Security failure. The Arab Spring had emboldened many radical Islamists, who espouse a narrow view of Islam, wanting to institute Sharia, the brutal Islamic law. Many of the Islamist attackers had trained in northern Mali, which U.S. intelligence sources knew going back to 2003. Mali was destabilized by Tuareg fighters coming back after the Libya revolution. They brought with them large caches of arms, and became affiliated with radical Islamists. Northern Mali is now a safe haven for Islamists who have infiltrated the region from a number of countries. Mali has consistently asked the UN and U.S. to support military action to subdue these terrorists, and bring stability back to the country. Secretary Clinton has not supported immediate military action to unpin this country, which is at great risk of being overrun by the radical Islamists.

According to The Washington Post October 11, 2012 article by Anne Gearan, Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb, who oversees DSS operations, stated she was opposed to keeping the security team in Tripoli that had assisted in security at the embassy, and which was ordered to leave in August 2012. Lamb further noted it "would not have made any difference in Benghazi.” In addition Lamb told the top Regional Security Officer (RSO) at the embassy, who knew the conditions on the ground, “not to bother asking for additional help when the military team was sent home.” These remarks are reminiscent of the pleas made by Ambassador Bushnell, just weeks before the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam were bombed by al-Qaeda terrorists in August 1998.

In January 2012 the State Department announced the creation of the new Bureau of Counterterrorism, to strengthen the department’s “effort to counter terrorism abroad and to secure the United States against foreign terrorist threats,” and to “disrupt and defeat the networks that support terrorism.” A team should have been on the ground in Benghazi, gathering information, knowing there were many well-armed Islamist militias running around uncontrolled by the weak government. Also the guards hired to protect the U.S. Consulate were from the “February 17 Brigade”, a rebel militia group, with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. Reportedly, several members of the brigade had been warned of possible attacks against the consulate in late August 2012, which our intelligence sources should have uncovered before the brutal attacks took place.

Libya’s social fabric consists of tribal and ethnic clans, many of which are associated with rebel militias and al-Qaeda. A number want to take part in the governing process, and establish an Islamic state ruled under Sharia. There is also the growing influence of Salafists, like the Muslim Brotherhood, who want to gain control of the governing process in North Africa and Sahel region. Similar problems exist in the Arabian Peninsula, where Wahhabists want to institute their narrow theology. In Yemen and Syria, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other Islamists, with their disruptive attacks, want to also establish Islamic states. The United States stands in the way of the radical Islamist movement, in its quest to create a caliphate. As the U.S. continues to support regime change, and promote democratic values and institutions, our embassies and consulates will continue to be caught in the cross-fire; hopefully not succumb to the same fate as in Benghazi. The State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security Service and Bureau of Counterterrorism need to be better prepared, to protect our diplomatic presence abroad.

This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier magazine online at http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/topics/security/1229. All rights reserved. For permissions please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

John Price

John Price served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Mauritius, Republic of Seychelles, and Union of the Comoros from February 8, 2002 to June 17, 2005, and currently serves as a Resident Scholar at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics. He is the author of the book “When the White House Calls”, and regularly writes commentaries on Africa and the Middle East.

Commentaries

The Diplomatic Security Service Failed to Protect?

This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier magazine online at http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/topics/security/1229. All rights reserved. For permissions please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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John Price