Beef-Up Embassies

From the Stars and Stripes:
"State department to beef up security at diplomatic posts"

The State Department pledged Thursday to bulk up security at diplomatic posts in dangerous areas in response to the fatal attack on a lightly guarded compound in Libya, as one top official acknowledged that "we fell down on the job." In several hours of questioning before the Senate and House foreign affairs committees, department leaders said bureaucracy and tight budgets combined to shortchange security at frontline posts. The sessions were billed as examinations of an independent investigation's findings about what went wrong in the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. The report issued this week recommends additional money for embassy security along with a hard look at a State Department habit of miserliness that the report said was born of repeated budget cuts. Congressional Republicans focused on security lapses exposed by the assault and on whether the Obama administration deliberately played down the terrorist origins of the attack. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is asking Congress for an additional $750 million to hire about 150 more security officers, a deputy said. She had been scheduled to testify Thursday about the outside investigation but canceled because of an illness. She said she will testify in January. The Pentagon has agreed to send about 225 more Marine guards to medium- and high-threat diplomatic posts, Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Accountability Review Board report on the attack released Tuesday found that "grossly" inadequate security and reliance on local militias left U.S. diplomats and other personnel vulnerable. The State Department security chief resigned Wednesday in response. The department said three other managers will be disciplined.

^ Really, it took all these months for Congress and the State Department to finally say that embassies and consulates in danger-zones need more security. That is a no-brainer. I get the feeling that Obama and Clinton are hiding a lot more about these attacks becuase if the truth became known it would hurt them politically. ^

http://www.stripes.com/news/africa/state-department-to-beef-up-security-at-diplomatic-posts-1.201495