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91–485 2014

HEARING 1 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE EVENTS 

SURROUNDING THE 2012 

TERRORIST ATTACKS IN BENGHAZI, 

LIBYA 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014 

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 

2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi, Libya 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

www.fdsys.gov 


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HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THE 2012 

TERRORIST ATTACKS IN BENGHAZI, LIBYA 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Chairman 

LYNN WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

PETER ROSKAM, Illinois 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

MARTHA A. ROBY, Alabama 

SUSAN BROOKS, Indiana 

ELIJAH CUMMINGS, Maryland 

Ranking Minority Member 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

ADAM SCHIFF, California 

LINDA SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

PHIL KIKO, Staff Director 

SUSANNE SACHSMAN GROOMS, Minority Staff Director 


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HEARING 1 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

HVC–210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Trey Gowdy (chairman of 

the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gowdy, Westmoreland, Jordan, Roskam, Pompeo, Roby, Brooks, Cummings, Smith, Schiff, Sa ́nchez, 

and Duckworth. 

Staff Present: Phil Kiko, Staff Director and General Counsel; 

Chris Donesa, Deputy Staff Director; Dana Chipman, Chief Counsel; Sharon Jackson, Deputy Chief Counsel; Mac Tolar, Senior 

Counsel; Yael Barash, Legislative Clerk; Paige Oneto, Executive 

Assistant; Luke Burke, Senior Professional Staff; Brien Beattie, 

Professional Staff; Carlton Davis, Senior Counsel; Susanne 

Sachsman Grooms, Minority Staff Director; Dave Rapallo, Minority 

Staff Director; Heather Sawyer, Minority Chief Counsel; Ronak 

Desai, Minority Counsel; Peter Kenny, Minority Counsel; Laura 

Rauch, Minority Senior Professional Staff; Brent Woolfork, Minority Senior Professional Staff; Linda Cohen, Minority Senior Professional Staff; Kendal Robinson, Minority Professional Staff; Jennifer 

Hoffman, Minority Communications Director; Paul Bell, Minority 

Press Secretary; Mone Ross, Minority Staff Assistant; and Daniel 

Rebnord, Minority Intern. 

Chairman GOWDY. The committee will come to order. 

Welcome. 

The chair notes a quorum for the purposes of taking testimony 

pursuant to House rules. 

The chair will recognize himself and the ranking member for 

purposes of making an opening statement. Without objection, the 

opening statement of any other member of the committee who 

wishes to provide one will be included in the record. 

A little over 2 years ago, four Americans serving our country in 

Benghazi, Libya, were killed. Two of them were killed when a facility emblematic of our country was set on fire, and two of them were 

killed when they dared to fight back and defend themselves and 

others. 

Sean Smith, Chris Stevens, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty represented us. They represented our country and our values. We 

asked them to go. We sent them. And they were killed because 

some people hold a deep-seated animus toward us simply because 

we are us. 


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So to the family and the friends and the loved ones of those 

killed, we can never adequately express our condolences and our 

gratitude. To the families, you have helped each of us understand 

these four were not just pictures on a television screen; they were 

sons and husbands and fathers and brothers and friends and fellow 

Americans. 

I remain hopeful that there are some things left in our country 

that can rise above politics. And I remain convinced that our fellow 

citizens are entitled to all of the facts about what happened before, 

during, and after the attacks in Benghazi, and they deserve an investigative process that is worthy of the memory of the four who 

were killed and worthy of the respect of our fellow Americans. 

Some question the need for this committee, and I respect their 

right to dissent. But the mark of a professional—indeed, the mark 

of character—is to do a good job with a task even if you don’t think 

the task should have been assigned in the first place. And given 

the gravity of the issues at hand, I would rather run the risk of 

answering a question twice than run the risk of not answering it 

once. 

I am willing to reconsider previously held beliefs in light of new 

facts and evidence, and I would encourage my colleagues and others to do the same. Because we know that all the documents have 

not yet been produced, and we know that there are still witnesses 

left to be examined, and we also know that there are witnesses who 

have been examined in the past but for whom additional questions 

may be warranted. So I would ask each of my colleagues, given 

their vast and varied and exceptional backgrounds, to put those 

talents to good use on behalf of our fellow citizens. 

The House of Representatives constituted this committee, and 

they did so for us to find all of the facts. And I intend to do that, 

and I intend to do it in a manner worthy of the respect of our fellow citizens. 

Our fellow citizens have certain legitimate expectations. They expect us to protect and defend those that we send to represent us. 

They expect us to move heaven and earth when those who are representing us come under attack. They expect government to tell us 

the truth in the aftermath of a tragedy always. And they expect 

that we will not continue to make the same mistakes over and over 

and over again. 

Which brings us to this hearing. Benghazi was not the first time 

one of our facilities or our people have been attacked. Beirut, 

Kenya, Tanzania are three that come to mind, among others. And, 

after these attacks, groups come together and they make recommendations on how to prevent future attacks. That seems to be 

the process that is followed. A tragedy or an attack comes; we commission a panel, a board, a blue-ribbon commission to study the attack and make sure that we make recommendations to ensure that 

it never happens again. But yet it does happen again. 

And so, to those who believe it is time to move on, to those who 

believe that there is nothing left to discover, that all the questions 

have been asked and answered and that we have learned all the 

lessons that there are to be learned, we have heard all of that before, and it was wrong then. 


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It is stunning to see the similarities between the recommendations made decades ago and the recommendations made by the 

Benghazi ARB. And if you doubt that, I want you to compare the 

recommendations of those made a quarter of a century ago, 25 

years ago, with the recommendations made by the Benghazi ARB. 

We do not suffer from a lack of recommendations. We do suffer 

from a lack of implementing and enacting those recommendations. 

And that has to end. 

So it is appropriate to review the recommendations of the most 

recent ARB, and I commend our colleague from California, Mr. 

Schiff, for suggesting that we do so. 

And it is also fair to ask why we have not done a better job of 

implementing recommendations made, in some instances, decades 

ago. In other words, why does it take an attack on our people or 

our facilities for us to make a recommendation? Why not evaluate 

the threat before the attack? Why not anticipate rather than react? 

In conclusion, the people that we work for yearn to see the right 

thing done for the right reasons and in the right way. And they 

want to know that something can rise above the din of partisan 

politics. They want to trust the institutions of government. So to 

fulfill the duties owed to those we serve and in honor of those who 

were killed, maybe, just maybe, we can be what those four brave 

men were, neither Republican nor Democrat, just Americans in 

pursuit of the facts and justice, no matter where that journey takes 

us. 

And, with that, I would recognize the ranking member from 

Maryland. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I 

thank you for holding this hearing today. 

I know every member of this panel is dedicated to ensuring that 

our work honors the memories of the four Americans who were 

killed in Benghazi. Their names must be etched in our memory 

banks: Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and 

Glen Doherty. 

I want to thank our colleague Representative Schiff for proposing 

the topic for today’s hearing. And, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank 

you for accepting that topic so that we can see what has become 

of the ARB recommendations. 

Too often over the past 2 years, the congressional investigation 

into what happened in Benghazi has devolved into unseemly partisanship. We are better than that. Today we have an opportunity 

to focus on reform. How can we learn from the past to make things 

better in the future? 

And, Mr. Chairman, I agree with you that, over the years, recommendation after recommendations have been made. The question is, as you said, what became of them. 

I do believe that in life there are transformational moments. 

That is, something happens, it causes you to stop and pause and 

try to figure out how to remedy the situation and make it better. 

And the problem is, when those moments come—and they come to 

all of us—the question is whether we pause, and make things better. Because usually, if we don’t, we repeat the errors, and usually 

things get worse. And this is one such transformational moment. 


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This kind of oversight can be productive, it can be critical, it can 

sometimes even be tedious, but it can also save lives. That is what 

we are talking about. And that is why I want to thank every member of this panel for agreeing to do this, for we are about the business of trying to save lives. That is a very serious mission. 

I sincerely hope the select committee will stay on the course of 

constructive reform and keep this goal as our North Star. It would 

be a disservice to everyone involved to be lured off this path by 

partisan politics. 

Today we will review the recommendations of the Accountability 

Review Board, which was chaired by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, the former Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

During our previous investigation, the House Oversight Committee, Chairman Gowdy and I, heard directly from both men 

about how seriously they took their roles. Ambassador Pickering 

called it ‘‘a debt of honor.’’ Their report was independent. It was 

adopted unanimously by all board members. And it was a blistering examination of what went wrong at the State Department. 

They made 29 recommendations, and Secretary Clinton accepted 

all of them. 

After they issued their report, the State Department Inspector 

General issued his own report, finding that quote ‘‘The Department 

wasted no time addressing the recommendations.’’ The Department 

has been working on implementing those recommendations for the 

past year and a half, and Congress should ensure that it finishes 

the job. 

Today I would like our witnesses to provide an update on the status of several of the Board’s recommendations. 

First, the Board found that the Department’s response to the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi was ‘‘inadequate,’’ and it 

was inadequate at the post in Benghazi, at the embassy in Tripoli, 

and here in Washington. Ambassador Pickering explained that the 

post did not take action despite crossing several tripwires that 

should have caused officials to review security more closely and develop a stronger response. 

The Board recommended that the Department change its procedures to make sure that security breaches are reviewed immediately. Today, the Department reports that it has created a new 

process that requires posts to report tripwires as soon as they are 

crossed so security officials can review them immediately and take 

action if necessary. I want to know if this process is now fully operational and, if so, how it has been working so far. 

The Board also found that we should not have relied so heavily 

on local militia groups, like the February 17th militia, to protect 

our posts. The Board called this reliance ‘‘misplaced,’’ and it found 

that these security forces were ‘‘poorly skilled.’’ The Board recommended the Department strengthen security ‘‘beyond the traditional reliance on host-government security, supporting high-risk, 

high-threat posts.’’ 

Today the Department reports that it has 17 new Marine Security Guard detachments and another new Marine unit to enhance 

security in changing threat environments. In addition, the State 

Department is now using new funding from Congress to hire 151 


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new personnel in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, or DS. I want 

to hear from our witnesses about whether these actions are sufficient or whether we need to do more. 

The Board also found fault with a Deputy Assistant Secretary 

with DS who denied repeated requests for additional security in 

Benghazi. At the time, this official oversaw the security of all 275 

diplomatic posts around the world. 

To address this problem, the Department created a new position 

to focus exclusively on the security needs of roughly 30 posts experiencing highest threats. The Board praised this action, stating 

that it could be ‘‘a positive first step if integrated into a sound 

strategy for DS reorganization.’’ Today, I want to hear from the 

State Department specifically about how this new position is working and whether they believe we should make additional changes. 

Everyone understands that diplomacy, by its nature, sometimes 

requires us to be in very dangerous places. Our diplomats work in 

high-threat environments, and although we cannot eliminate every 

risk, we must do everything that we can to keep Americans as safe 

as possible when they are serving overseas. 

With that, I want to conclude by recognizing the tremendous sacrifices that are made every single day around the world by our diplomatic corps, the intelligence community, and our military 

servicemembers on behalf of the American people. 

And I remind my colleagues that this is our watch. I said to the 

chairman before we started, this is bigger than us. The things that 

we do today and over the next few months will have lasting effects 

even when we are gone on to heaven, and that is how we have to 

look at this. And so we prepare not only for the present, but we 

prepare for the future and generations unborn. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank you, gentleman from Maryland. 

The committee will now recognize and receive testimony from today’s witness panel. 

The first witness will be the Honorable Greg Starr, the Assistant 

Secretary for Diplomatic Security at the Department of State. The 

second witness will be Todd Keil, a member of the Independent 

Panel on Best Practices. And the third witness will be Mark Sullivan, the chair of the Independent Panel on Best Practices. 

Welcome to each of you. We will recognize each of you for your 

5-minute opening statements. There are a series of lights which 

mean what they traditionally mean in life, and I am sure that you 

are familiar with the lighting system. 

Because this is an investigative hearing, I will need to administer the oath to the witnesses before taking their testimony. So if 

the witnesses would please rise and lift their right hands. 

Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give will be the 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

Let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Secretary Starr, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement. 


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STATEMENTS OF THE HON. GREGORY B. STARR, ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY FOR DIPLOMATIC SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF STATE; TODD M. KEIL, MEMBER, THE INDEPENDENT 

PANEL OF BEST PRACTICES; AND MARK J. SULLIVAN, 

CHAIRMAN, THE INDEPENDENT PANEL OF BEST PRACTICES 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. GREGORY B. STARR 

Mr. STARR. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, and 

distinguished committee members, good morning. And I thank you 

for your invitation to appear today to discuss the Department of 

State’s implementation of the 29 recommendations made by the 

independent Benghazi Accountability Review Board, also known as 

the ARB. 

Chairman GOWDY. Mr. Secretary, I don’t want to interrupt you. 

Would you pull the mic just a little—some of us have had a couple—— 

Mr. STARR. Okay. 

Chairman GOWDY [continuing]. Birthdays recently, and we are 

hard of hearing, so—— 

Mr. STARR. I too, sir. 

I, along with my colleagues at the State Department, look forward to working with you as you examine the issues relating to the 

2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. 

The attacks in Benghazi were tragic. Today we honor those we 

lost by internalizing the lessons from that night to protect our people in the field as they carry out our country’s foreign policy work 

every single day. Over the past 2 years, with Secretary Kerry’s 

leadership, that commitment is being honored. Like you, we want 

to keep our people safe. 

The heart of the Accountability Review Board’s recommendations 

was to enhance the Department’s approach to risk management, 

ensuring that when our national interests require us to operate in 

dangerous places that we identify the risks and take the proper 

steps to mitigate them. 

The Department has made important strides in that regard. I 

would like to highlight just a few examples of how we are implementing the ARB’s recommendations, including how we are giving 

high-threat posts the attention and the resources that they need. 

However, even with this progress, it is essential for us to acknowledge that, while we can do everything we can to reduce the 

risk, we can never eliminate it fully. 

High-threat, high-risk posts require special attention to confirm 

our national interests require us to operate there and to provide 

the right resources to do that. We have instituted a new process 

called the Vital Presence Validation Process—shorthand ‘‘VP2,’’ as 

we call it—to do just that. 

One example of it in action is our recent return to Bangui, Central African Republic. The Department suspended operations there 

in December of 2012. This year, using the VP2 process and a support cell process that plans for how we go into these operations, the 

Department engaged in an analysis that determined that we 

should and could go back. We worked with our colleagues at the 

Department of Defense to assess the security situation on the 

ground and develop a comprehensive plan for our return. 


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I’m proud to report that we deployed DOD and State Department 

personnel just last week. The embassy is now open. While we must 

closely monitor conditions on the ground, our return to Bengui 

demonstrates that our enhanced risk management procedures are 

working. 

Another example of our enhanced risk management posture since 

Benghazi is how we have improved at training. Chief of Mission 

personnel, including both security professionals and all Foreign 

Service personnel, are now better prepared for operating in highthreat environments. 

We have increased the expanded training for our DS special 

agents who receive high-threat training specifically, and then we 

have also expanded what we call our Foreign Affairs Counter 

Threat course for Foreign Service colleagues that are going to all 

of our high-threat posts. And we are working towards making this 

FACT training, Foreign Affairs Counter Threat training, universal 

for Foreign Service personnel and employees for all of our posts 

overseas. 

Further, to combat fire as a weapon, we have partnered with the 

City of New York Fire Department and the Army’s Asymmetric 

Warfare Group to enhance our training curriculum and implement 

countermeasures in response to fire and smoke as a terrorist weapon. 

Finally, with your help, we have added to our security resources. 

The ARB recommended that we expand the number of Diplomatic 

Security personnel, and we have done just that. We are well on our 

way to just finishing that off and hitting all of our targets. It also 

recommended that we augment the Marine Security Guard program, which we have done as well. 

While these are just a few examples of the Department’s efforts 

post-Benghazi, I believe they highlight some of the key progress we 

have made. I will not outline all of this, all the things that we have 

done, in the interest of time, but I’m pleased to report that we have 

made what I consider to be tremendous progress on the 29 

Benghazi ARB recommendations. To date, we’ve closed 22 recommendations and 7 are in progress or nearing completion. Today 

we are better prepared, better protected and informed to manage 

the risk. 

We look forward to working with Congress and you on ensuring 

that foreign affairs—our foreign affairs community has safe platforms for carrying out our national interests. I want to thank Congress for the additional resources that you’ve provided over the 

past 2 years to improve and sustain this diplomatic platform. 

And I’ll be glad to answer any questions that you have. Thank 

you. 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Starr. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Starr follows:] 


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Chairman GOWDY. Mr. Keil. 

STATEMENT OF TODD M. KEIL 

Mr. KEIL. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, and distinguished members of the select committee for inviting me to testify today about our independent panel report on 

best practices in the aftermath of the tragic attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and to provide our insight regarding the 

implementation of our recommendations and related issues relevant to our report. 

Our panel was committed to identifying best practices from 

throughout the U.S. Government, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and international partners which can finally 

establish an effective risk management process in the Department 

of State, improve the security of U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad, 

and enhance the safety of Department of State and foreign affairs 

agencies’ personnel, not only in high-risk areas but globally. 

We identified 40 crucial recommendations to achieve this goal. 

We continue to stand behind our report in the strongest possible 

terms and believe that the 40 recommendations and the supporting 

narratives, which were derived from well-known and established 

best practices, provide a clear roadmap for an absolutely necessary 

organizational paradigm change throughout the Department of 

State to support the current direction of expeditionary diplomacy 

and the application of proven enterprise risk management enhancements. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, I spent a career of almost 23 years as a special agent with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security in the Department of State. As a result of my years of service, I am uniquely familiar with the history and, most importantly, 

the operating culture both within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Department of State. 

As our panel interviewed hundreds of people in the U.S. and 

abroad and gained valuable ground truth from our travel to 10 

countries during our work, including numerous high-threat locations, I couldn’t have been more personally and professionally 

proud and heartened, along with my fellow panel members, by 

hearing and witnessing the dedicated and admirable work of the 

men and women of the Diplomatic Security Service. 

Each day around the world, the DS team faces extreme challenges and unpredictable risks to provide a safe and secure environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, and they do so with 

distinction. The men and women of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security are truly dedicated public servants and are owed the gratitude 

of the American people for their service to this great Nation. 

As we stated repeatedly throughout our report, best practices 

will not save lives unless they are resourced, implemented, and followed. Almost 14—now, actually, almost 15 years ago, as was mentioned in the chairman’s opening statement, a number of very similar recommendations were made after the East African embassy 

bombings, and little has been accomplished by the Department of 

State since then to improve its approach to risk management. 

While we are pleased our report has been finally officially released by the State Department, along with the implementation 


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fact sheet, we are disappointed with the decision not to implement 

recommendation number 1, the most important one, and recommendation number 13. 

In a meeting earlier this year with Deputy Secretary 

Higginbottom and Assistant Secretary Starr, we were encouraged 

by their candor and support for our report and their intent to adhere to the recommendations in our report. In light of the long history of such report and recommendations to the Department of 

State and with a continuing sense of responsibility, we voiced our 

concerns in a recent letter to Deputy Secretary Higginbottom both 

for those recommendations not implemented and those that are apparently relying on pre-Benghazi processes and procedures to demonstrate or achieve implementation. 

Now is the time. Clear the smoke. Remove the mirrors. Now is 

the time for the Department of State to finally institutionalize 

some real, meaningful, and progressive change. And as the ranking 

member said, this is a transformational moment. They can’t lose 

this moment. 

Words and cursory actions by the Department of State ring hollow absent transparency and verifiable and sustainable actions to 

fully put into practice the letter and the intent of our recommendations, which will facilitate diplomacy and safeguard the selfless 

Americans who carry out our national security priorities around 

the world. The Department of State owes it to those people who 

have given their lives in service to our country and to those employees who continue to serve our country in some very dangerous 

locations around the world to continue to identify and implement 

risk management best practices. 

Additionally, we urge the Department to institutionalize the 

process of outside and independent counsel and guidance on risk 

management best practices sooner than 2016. The Accountability 

Review Board recommended that this be an annual process, and we 

concur that this remains a critical need for the Department and 

should begin as soon as possible. In our view, this is a decisively 

important step the Department must take to demonstrate transparency and ensure a continuing dialogue on security best practices 

with an input from outside, independent experts regarding operations in high-threat and challenging international locations. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to take just a quick moment 

to introduce another member of our panel sitting in the audience, 

Mr. Ray Mislock. Ray’s multiple careers in public service include 

more than 25 years as an FBI agent, 5 years as the Director of Security at the CIA. Ray exemplifies the definition of a great American. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Keil. And welcome, to your 

guest. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Keil follows:] 


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Chairman GOWDY. Mr. Sullivan, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MARK J. SULLIVAN 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Good morning, Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, and distinguished members of the committee. 

Thank you for asking Todd Keil and I to appear before you today. 

Mr. Chairman, I consider it an honor to have served on the Best 

Practice Panel with outstanding and dedicated individuals. Our 

team of Todd Keil; Richard Manlove; Raymond Mislock, Jr.; Timothy Murphy; and staff Erica Lichliter and Stephanie Murdoch 

have a combined experience of 175 years of security and law enforcement expertise. 

During our careers, each panel member has gained an appreciation and understanding of the importance of having clear lines of 

leadership in an organizational structure concerning security matters. We, as a panel, also understand that things don’t always go 

as planned, and when they don’t, it is vital to implement lessons 

learned in an effort to prevent them from happening again. 

The panel report reflects the independent views of the panel 

based upon our best professional judgment, experience, and analysis of the best practices, informed by interviews, travel, and extensive research. It was a pleasure to serve with this dedicated group, 

and I appreciate their professionalism and hard work. 

I would also like to acknowledge and thank all of those interviewed in the course of drafting this report from the U.S. Government, private sector, international organizations, and foreign governments. 

The Best Practice Panel was the result of the Accountability Review Board for Benghazi, which recommended that the Department 

of State establish a panel of outside, independent experts with experience in high-risk, high-threat areas to support the Bureau of 

Diplomatic Security, identify best practices and recommendations 

from other agencies and countries, and evaluate United States security platforms in high-risk, high-threat posts. 

Our report provided 40 recommendations in 12 different areas. 

Those 12 areas are organization and management, accountability, 

risk management, program criticality and acceptable risk, planning 

and logistics, lessons learned, training and human resources, intelligence, threat analysis and security assessment, program resource 

and technology, host nations and guard force capability enhancement, regular evaluation and change management, leadership, and 

communication and training. 

It was the opinion of the panel all 40 recommendations would 

further strengthen the Department’s ability to protect its personnel 

and work more safely on a global platform to achieve American foreign policy goals and objectives. The panel’s view was that its recommendations were realistic, achievable, and measurable. 

On August 29th, 2013, the panel delivered its final report to the 

Department of State. Of the 40 recommendations we offered, the 

Department accepted 38. Of the 38 accepted recommendations, the 

Department of State has reported that 30 have been implemented, 

and, in addition, the implementation process for the remaining 8 

is ongoing. 


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The two recommendations not accepted are: the Department 

should, as a matter of urgency, establish an Under Secretary for 

Diplomatic Security; and, number 13, waivers to establish security 

standards should only be provided subsequent to the implementation of mitigating measures as agreed by regional bureau or other 

program managers, advised by Department of State, and as informed by the Department risk management model. 

The Best Practice Panel looked across a wide spectrum of private 

and nongovernmental organizations to identify effective measures 

to enhance the Department’s ability to ensure a safe and secure environment for employees and programs. Not surprisingly, the panel 

found that many institutions, including governments, refer to the 

Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security as the gold 

standard for security and seek to model their service after the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. 

Nevertheless, any organization must continuously evolve and improve to adjust with a fluid and dynamic environment. The panel 

continues to advocate that the way forward should be characterized 

by cooperative efforts that will provide a framework which will enhance the Department’s ability to protect Americans. In order to be 

effective, we must be innovative so that we ensure our institutions 

adapt and evolve to meet the ever-changing security requirement 

needs. 

In any environment where uncertainty permeates, one certainty 

we share is the necessary collaborative effort that is needed in our 

country to ensure the safety and security of all American lives. It 

is also a necessary certainty that we honor and protect the memories of those citizens who have been lost as a result of violent attacks with dignity and respect. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Department of 

State, the overseas post that hosted our panel visit, and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security for the outstanding support they provided to our panel during our endeavor. 

I would also like to thank Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and members of the Select Committee for inviting us 

here today in your continued efforts to make America safe. 

I look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you. 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:] 


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Chairman GOWDY. The chair will now recognize the gentlewoman 

from Indiana, Mrs. Brooks, for her questioning. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would like to start out by thanking each of the panel members for being here. You’ve dedicated your careers, whether it’s protecting the President, whether it’s protecting Foreign Service Officers or those in Homeland Security, and we’d like to thank you for 

that work. 

In preparation for today, I looked at the Department of State’s 

website and learned that there are reports that show—and I certainly am certain that you’re aware—since the 1970s, there have 

been over 500 attacks on our diplomatic facilities abroad in over 92 

different countries. From 1998 through December of 2013, there 

were actually 336 attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities. 

These include things like rocket attacks, firebombing, attempted 

murder, arson, takeovers, vandalism. 

It wasn’t until 1987 that the State Department started what are 

called accountability review boards, and there have been 19 ARBs 

since that time. They’ve reviewed only—and, as I understand, it’s 

the mission of the ARBs to review only the most significant attacks 

against our diplomatic personnel and to review specifically security 

and intelligence and whether or not government employees breach 

their duties. 

As the chairman and the ranking member have brought up, in 

the 1998 East African bombings, 300 lives were lost—12 Americans; the rest were Africans. And an ARB was convened then, and, 

as we have already heard, they made several findings and recommendations then. This follows what was called the Inman panel, 

which was 14 years before the East African ARB. And, again, many 

of those findings and recommendations were found in East Africa 

in their ARB. At the time, the then-Secretary of State accepted all 

of the recommendations in the East Africa ARB. And now here we 

are, 14 years later, and some of those same recommendations have 

been repeated by the Benghazi ARB. 

And so we seem to have a State Department that has a long history of repeat recommendations. But I think there’s a significant 

difference between recommendations and implementation. And I 

would like to talk about how that happens and how that has happened. 

In fact, the board in East Africa urged the Secretary of State to, 

quote, ‘‘take a personal and active role in carrying out the responsibility of ensuring the security of the U.S. diplomatic personnel 

abroad,’’ and it was essential to convey to the entire Department 

that security is one of its highest priorities. 

Assistant Secretary Starr, are you familiar with the East Africa 

recommendations? 

Mr. STARR. Not every specific recommendation, but with the report, yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And do you agree with the report? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Are you aware that, after the Benghazi ARB, thenSecretary gave her personal assurance, as well, that she put overall 

responsibility for implementing all of the ARB recommendations in 

the hands of the Deputy Secretary? Are you familiar with that? 


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Mr. STARR. Yes, I am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And that was, in fact, in her letter in December 

of 2012 to, at the time, the Honorable John Kerry, chairman of Foreign Relations. She indicated that the Deputy Secretary would be 

overseeing the implementation of the ARB. Are you familiar with 

her letter? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And, then, are you familiar with the fact that 

when Secretary Kerry became the Secretary of State, he initially 

kept it at the Deputy Secretary level? Is that correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And could you please speak into the mic? Thank 

you. 

Mr. STARR. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Today, however, overall responsibility for oversight 

and implementation of all of the recommendations is with an office 

known as Management Policy, Rightsizing, and Innovation—is that 

correct?—1 of 11 separate offices that reports to the Under Secretary of Management. 

Mr. STARR. MPRI is tracking. They are not necessarily responsible for implementing, but they are doing the job of tracking the 

implementation, yes. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And it is their job. 

And so I would like to just point out for those who might not be 

familiar—and you, too, are an Assistant Secretary reporting to the 

Under Secretary of Management. Is that correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And so, with respect—and you say that they are 

tracking the implementation. However, that is the office that is 

day-in and day-out going in and trying to ensure that all of those 

recommendations are being followed. Is that correct? 

Mr. STARR. One office, yes. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And so, at this point, the ARB recommendations, 

it’s really not at the Secretary of State level; it’s not at the Deputy 

Secretary of State level, the second level; it’s not with an Under 

Secretary; but the tracking is happening at the fourth tier. Is that 

correct? The tracking and making sure that day-in and day-out— 

it’s at the fourth tier. 

Mr. STARR. The tracking is going on at MPRI, but I can also give 

you further information about how it is, in fact, being closely 

looked at by the Deputy Secretary herself. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And the Deputy Secretary—are you familiar with 

the Inspector General’s report, sir? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, I am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And the Inspector General who issued the report 

in 2014 also believed that at the highest levels in the Department, 

those are the individuals that must be personally responsible for 

overseeing those recommendations. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, it is. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And, in fact, indicated in the IG report that that’s 

how lasting change and cultural change would happen, is if implementation were at the highest levels of the Department. 

Mr. STARR. Yes, that is true. 


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Mrs. BROOKS. I would like to ask Mr. Keil, if I might, your Best 

Practices Panel indicated that where a security function is placed 

in a department is a statement of how that organization values security and its personnel. 

Do you recall that finding, Mr. Keil? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, ma’am, very well. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And can you please explain, with respect to recommendation number 1, which has not been implemented by the 

Department, can you please talk about the importance of that recommendation of elevating the importance, actually, of Mr. Starr’s 

position, to a higher level? So can you please talk about the importance of that recommendation and what you understand as to why 

the Department is not elevating the importance of security within 

the organization at the current time? 

Mr. KEIL. As we looked at other government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector, it became very 

clear that the placement of the chief security officer with responsibility for the safety of the programs and the people—it clearly depends on where it is placed within the organization. And especially 

at the Department of State, where visuals, because of the culture 

of the Department of State, are so crucially important, the placement of that position was crucially important. 

Mr. Starr previously served up at the United Nations in charge 

of their Department of Safety and Security. In that organization, 

he was an Under Secretary. That position was an Under Secretary. 

The United Nations recognized that important—in that diplomatic 

world, where you see things really matters. 

And, ma’am, if you would actually look at our recommendation 

number 40, we recommended that the Secretary should establish a 

comprehensive change management strategy throughout the Department that is led by the Deputy Secretary for Management and 

Resources. So those two things clearly come together and are crucially important. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And, in your view, the Best Practices Panel, when 

they looked at the organization of the Department, it was clearly 

your view that overall responsibility for security from a visual 

standpoint, which is important in large organizations, was too low 

on the org chart. Is that right? 

Mr. KEIL. From a visual standpoint and also from an operational 

standpoint. I remember, on the first day, when we brought out the 

org chart as part of our panel, Mr. Sullivan was trying to find the 

Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and I had to keep pointing him further and further down the org chart until he identified it. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And while it might not just be where it’s placed 

on the org chart visually, it has to do with command and control, 

does it not? 

Mr. KEIL. Exactly. Command and control and informed decisionmaking. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And, in fact, when you are a lower level on an organization chart, that requires you to then move up within the organization to get approval for things that you would like to do. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, of course. 

Mrs. BROOKS. I’d like to just briefly wrap up with Mr. Sullivan. 


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And with respect to—you’ve led a large Federal agency, the Secret Service. Is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And you understand the span of control. And so, 

with respect to the need to lead lasting cultural change in an organization, which is what I believe this panel is going to try to lead 

and to do, where does that need to start? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think it needs to start at the top. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And when you start at the top, which would be the 

Secretary of State, if you want to emphasize within your entire organization the importance—and in this place—of security, the Deputy Secretary or the Under Secretary, which are considered principals in a department—is that correct? And that’s the highest levels? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. BROOKS. And with respect—do you have any other comments you would like to make with respect to Mr. Keil’s assessment? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I’d just—you know, when we look at, you 

know, management, that is a very large and very complex directorate. And it has some very important and critical functions going 

on there, but it’s personnel, it’s budget procurement. I believe there 

may be about 20 or 21 Assistant Secretaries and Deputy Assistant 

Secretaries reporting up to that Under Secretary. 

And, for us, quite frankly, this was not about an upgrade in title. 

I mean, quite frankly, from my perspective, I don’t really care what 

the title is. I just think there needs to be a direct report up to the— 

you know, in my former position—and I may be biased—you know, 

I reported directly to the Secretary. We had the Deputy Secretary 

of the FBI was on our panel, and the FBI Director reported to the 

Attorney General. 

We just believe that that’s the way that this should be structured. We think, internally and externally, it tells people, you 

know, where security is thought to be and the importance of security. But, again, this was not about an upgrade in title. This was 

just about clarity of who’s in charge of security. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Thank you. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentlelady from Indiana yields back. 

The chair will now recognize the gentleman from Washington, 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We’ve talked a lot about process—sort of, who’s in charge, how 

can we—I always think one of the first recommendations when everything goes wrong is go back and review who was in charge, how 

we can change the process, how can we sort of move around who 

was and who should be responsible. But what I really want to focus 

on is what should be done, regardless of who it is, who’s in charge 

of it. 

The challenge I see—and as I’ve traveled around the world to 

various different posts, I’m just awed and amazed at the risks that 

people who serve in the State Department take every day. I went 

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ing to the personnel there talk about going back and forth to work 

every day, all the security that’s involved. 

We are in a lot of dangerous places throughout the world. And 

most of the people in the State Department that I talk to take a 

certain amount of pride in that. That’s their job; they go into tough 

places to make sure that American interests are respected and 

watched over. 

But the question becomes how do you protect them? So we’ve got 

the Africa recommendations and these recommendations. What 

have we learned about what you can specifically do, forgetting for 

the moment of who’s in charge of doing it, to enhance security at 

high-risk posts? 

And I guess it’d be a two-piece, and I’ll start with Mr. Starr. How 

do you identify the high-risk posts, first of all? And then, second 

of all, once you identify one, what do you do? How do you then try 

to enhance security and make sure that people are protected? 

And if you could tie that back into what played out in Benghazi. 

I don’t think there’s any question that people view that as a highrisk post. What should have happened as a result of that identification that didn’t? And then the broader question about high-risk 

posts and how you approach them, now and before. 

Mr. STARR. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. 

We have always rank-ordered our posts according to threat. We 

look at the threat of terrorism; we look at the threat of civil disorder. This is done in a process every single year with a tremendous amount of input from the post itself, from the emergency action committee on the post, which has members from all the different agencies that are represented. We rank-order these posts 

and give them ratings for terrorism, for civil disorder, for things 

like crime, counterintelligence, human intelligence, technical intelligence—— 

Mr. SMITH. And then the question, the real key question there 

is, then what? Okay, once you identify them, how do you try to better protect them? 

Mr. STARR. We look at these posts, and for years we have worked 

through something called the Overseas Security Policy Board to 

craft policies, security policies, and standards—physical security 

standards, technical security standards, procedural security standards—on what we can do at these posts at these different threat 

levels. 

Once we decide and we see that a post is in our highest threat— 

let’s say a critical threat category, we are going to devote more 

RSOs. We are going to look at, what’s the size of the Marine detachment? Does it need to be larger? 

In terms of our posts in the physical security, that plays a huge 

role in when we decide which posts we want to rebuild under the 

Capital Security Cost-Sharing Program. And we prioritize replacing 

the most vulnerable posts with newer, much more robust, much 

safer facilities that we build with, you know, funding from Congress and the Overseas Office of Buildings. 

We look at the threat, and we make determinations—now, in the 

aftermath of Benghazi, we have categorized our 30 highest-threat, 

highest-risk posts. We sent out teams specifically to those posts, 

and in addition to just making sure that they meet the security 


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standards, are there things that we need to do in addition to the 

security standards that make sense? These were multi-agency 

teams that we sent out. 

We continue to look at the threat information from every post 

around the world that we get every single morning. We start at 8 

a.m. every morning looking at the threat information that we get. 

But one of the critical lessons we learned from Benghazi is that 

there are many times—and we know this from times past—that we 

don’t get specific threat information before an attack. If we did, we 

would thwart the attack. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

Mr. STARR. And, you know, Congresswoman Brooks talked about 

how many attacks that we have suffered over the years. That’s our 

document that we put out to ensure that people know what the environment is. 

We look at the threats, and then we determine, what do we have 

to do? We have been practicing risk management for years. In 

many cases, we take our dependents out of posts, or we may 

downsize the post, or in critical places we may actually close the 

post for a certain amount of days or we may evacuate the post. 

There are times when we go to the U.S. military and ask Department of Defense to augment our protection on the ground. In 

Sana’a and in Tripoli, we had nearly 100 Marines with us. 

So, on a daily basis, we look at exactly what’s happening at our 

posts overseas, try to make sure that we are aware of whatever intelligence is out there, try to make sure that we are fully aware 

of the larger instability question, ‘‘What does that mean to us?’’, 

and put the right resources in the right place and take the proper 

steps. 

Mr. SMITH. So as a result of the ARB, on this specific instance, 

what do you think you learned specifically about Benghazi? What 

should have been done there that wasn’t? 

And, actually, let me ask Mr. Sullivan that question. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. You know, sir, our focus was not to evaluate what 

happened in Benghazi. Our focus was to, you know, come up with 

best practices. During the course of that, we did become aware of 

certain things that did happen in Benghazi. This may be a way of 

answering your question. 

When we met with the Assistant Secretary—and we met as a 

panel—we quickly determined that we were going to take our approach from a tactical approach to a more strategic approach. We 

recognized that, you know, they didn’t need us to tell them what 

type of weapons to get, what type of fire equipment to get, that 

they needed—we needed to approach this from a strategic perspective. 

I think one of the things you see in any type of a situation where 

things go bad is communication. And I think this comes down to 

communication. And, you know, we made recommendations under 

planning and logistics; we made four different recommendations 

there. And I believe for any type of a trip, whether it be to 

Benghazi or wherever you go, there has to be a cohesive plan, there 

has to be logistics, you have to do a very good job of risk management. 


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Obviously, there was a communication breakdown for that visit 

to Benghazi. I think it was mentioned earlier that there were numerous tripwires there. I think in that spring, starting maybe in 

March of 2012 and going up until July or August of 2012, there 

were numerous incidents that were occurring in Benghazi. I think 

one embassy moved out; the British moved out of Benghazi. That 

needed to be communicated. That needed to be discussed. They 

needed to talk about, you know, what were the mitigating measures they were going to take to protect our people at that mission. 

And, again, I think that, unfortunately, four people paid the 

price because that communication didn’t occur and that planning 

and logistics, quite frankly, didn’t happen the way we are recommending it should occur and which I have every confidence that 

Assistant Secretary Starr and his staff are working on right now. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Keil, did you want to add something on that? 

Mr. KEIL. I think, Congressman, the first question is not about 

how many people you send, how many walls you build, and how 

high they are. The first question has to be—and that’s where we 

change from a tactical approach on our panel to a strategic approach on our panel. The first question has to be, do we need to 

be there? Do we need to be in Benghazi? Do we need to be in Peshawar? 

And the Department lacks a risk management process to make 

those informed decisions. Do we need to be in those places? Do the 

risks—are the risks less than the national security priorities or the 

policy gains? The Department does not have that process to determine do we need to be there and do we need to stay. 

And that’s the center and the heart of our report. The Department needs that process. Not just give them more people, not just 

give them more guns, not just build the walls higher. Do we need 

to be there? And if the national security priorities outweigh the 

risks, fine, then go. There’s nothing wrong with that. We are not 

saying don’t go. But you need that risk management process, which 

the Department lacks, to make those determinations. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. 

Mr. STARR. Congressman, could I just—my good friend Todd Keil 

here—could I just say perhaps it should be past tense, ‘‘lacked’’ as 

opposed to ‘‘lacks’’? This is one of the things that we have concentrated on most over the past 2 years. It is the heart of the Vital 

Presence Validation Process. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. And talk about that because Chairman Gowdy 

talked at the outset about the necessity of this panel. There is no 

question that there was a necessity to look at what happened in 

Benghazi and learn from it. But we have done that with a number 

of different reports, and as you point out, we have made this 

change now. 

So what is different about that communications level as a result 

of the ARB and some of the other studies that we have done? 

Mr. STARR. Sir, the biggest single change that I would really like 

to point out is the Department’s acceptance—not just acceptance 

but embracing this concept that, first and foremost, as Todd just 

alluded to, Mr. Keil just alluded to, we need to ask the question, 

why are we in the most dangerous places? 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 


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Mr. STARR. And the 30 places that we identified as the highestthreat, highest-risk, that’s exactly what we are doing, going 

through every single one of those 30 and doing this Vital Presence 

Validation Process. 

The first step is, what is our national interest for being there? 

Why should we run these high risks that we have already identified as a high-threat, high-risk post? And if the answer comes out 

that the risks don’t outweigh why, you know, we should be there, 

the national interest, then we are going to make decisions that either we have to put additional security in or we are going to have 

to withdraw our presence. 

Mr. SMITH. And we have actually, in the last year, pulled out of 

posts as a result of that process, correct? 

Mr. STARR. Not as a result of that process. That’s the longer strategic process. But the risk management process and the principles 

of it, yes, exactly so. We have pulled out or closed posts because 

of these things. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Washington. 

The chair would now recognize the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. 

Pompeo. 

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Starr, you said in your just recent testimony that there was 

no immediate tactical warning—that’s the same thing that the 

ARB found—about the incident before Benghazi. Is that correct? 

Mr. STARR. That’s my understanding, yes. 

Mr. POMPEO. And it is also the case that, in your experience, 

that’s often not the case, that there’s an immediate tactical warning? 

Mr. STARR. That is very true, sir. 

Mr. POMPEO. And so I want to talk about that intelligence. You, 

in your opening statement, didn’t mention anything related to findings 21 and 22 that had to do with intelligence. In fact, none of 

these matter, VP2 is not an important fact if you don’t have the 

threat analysis right. Ranking them, all of the various things 

you’ve talked about are meaningless if you don’t have the threat 

analysis correct—that is, if you don’t have the right intelligence 

and have it in the right place. 

Would you agree with that? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. But I would just add that it is not just the 

intelligence. You also have to look at the entire situation in the 

country. It’s analysis and intelligence. 

Mr. POMPEO. Yes, of course. I would agree with that, as well. Indeed, there were some 20 incidents that were referred to by Mr. 

Sullivan a bit ago in and around from March of 2012 up and 

through the death of the four Americans where there was an incredibly deteriorating situation in and around Benghazi. Would you 

agree with that, as well? 

Mr. STARR. The situation was deteriorating. 

Mr. POMPEO. And finding number 21 said careful attention 

should be paid to that kind of thing, when the situation deteriorates. In your July 14th fact sheet, your only response to that particular finding was that the Department has addressed this recommendation. 


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Can you tell me what that is, what it is you’ve done to address 

this recommendation? 

Mr. STARR. I can discuss part of it in open session, sir. 

As I alluded to earlier, literally, we start every morning at 8 

a.m., looking at every bit of threat intelligence and threats that 

come in from a wide variety of sources, not just the intelligence 

community but from our posts and the reporting. 

Beyond that, we bring in personnel from the regional bureaus, 

the political officers and others that are with us, that we are not 

just looking at the threat intelligence. Because, as you pointed out 

and as we well know, in many cases, we don’t pick up the threat 

before an attack. 

Mr. POMPEO. I don’t want to interrupt, but if you can tell me if 

this is different pre-Benghazi as opposed to post-Benghazi, this 

process, I’d appreciate that as you go through. 

Mr. STARR. This is different, sir. We are incorporating the regional bureaus with us. We are looking at the political reporting in 

addition to the intelligence reporting. 

We are looking at sources that we get from private companies, 

from NGOs in the area, the entire question of instability, what is 

the overall threat profile, and I would say that a much better job 

of looking at the entirety of the threat situation as opposed to just 

whether or not we know whether there’s a specific threat against 

us. 

Mr. POMPEO. And after all the incidents in the previous years 

that have been recounted so eloquently this morning, you weren’t 

doing that before the incidents of September 11, 2012, or before the 

ARB’s findings? Is that right? The State Department wasn’t doing 

that? Is that what I understand from your testimony? 

Mr. STARR. I think we’re doing it better than we were before. 

Mr. POMPEO. And can you tell me if any of these changes would 

have made an impact on the lives of those four Americans in 

Benghazi, had we been doing those before that date? 

Mr. STARR. Hard for me to say, sir. I was at the United Nations 

at that time. I can tell you that, at the U.N., when I was the Under 

Secretary General, we were aware of the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi. On the date of the attack, September 11, 2012, 

I still had U.N. personnel in Benghazi as well. 

Mr. POMPEO. Let me change topics just a little bit. 

One of the findings of the Best Practices Panel that now dates 

just a bit over a year ago was that the State Department had not 

interviewed the DS agents who survived the attack at the Benghazi 

Special Mission Compound as of that date. 

Is that still the case? 

Mr. STARR. The agents were interviewed by the FBI. The agents 

were interviewed by Diplomatic Security. 

Mr. POMPEO. So the State Department now—so was the panel incorrect or did you conduct these interviews after the panel’s report—the independent panel’s report? 

Mr. STARR. The FBI 302s and the interviews were done prior to 

the Best Practices Panel. We had discussed tactics with the agents, 

but we were not—we had not fully debriefed them on the incident 

because we had the FBI 302s. 


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Mr. POMPEO. It may have been important to know what the folks 

on the ground saw that night. Right? In order to implement the security considerations, it would be very important to know what 

those people saw? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POMPEO. The same for the folks who were their TDY who 

weren’t there that night but had been there previously. 

Has the Department of State interviewed all of those persons at 

this point? 

Mr. STARR. Has the Department of State—all of the—I hesitate 

to say ‘‘all.’’ We have interviewed a number of people that we 

thought relevant to the attack. 

Mr. POMPEO. When those interviews were conducted by the Department of State, were they conducted individually or in groups? 

When the interviews were conducted by the Department of State, 

were they conducted individually or were they group interviews? 

Mr. STARR. Individually. 

Mr. POMPEO. All right. So I asked that question because, you 

know, the ARB conducted group interviews. And I’ve seen that dynamic. I was in business for 16 years before this. When the boss 

is sitting around, the underling isn’t often as candid as they might 

be in a situation where they were there independently. 

So as we look at the ARB’s findings in trying to evaluate if they 

are sufficient for you to do what you need to do, that is, to implement them, it’s important to know the basis for what the ARB did 

as well. And I appreciate that. 

So these interviews were conducted by the Department of State 

individually? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you. 

Mr. Keil, Mr. Cummings referenced the State Department’s Inspector General’s report. One of the things that it said is—it indicated that at least two Secretaries of State have asked the question 

about whether the ARB was a sufficient process, that is, is it capable of handling investigations of the complexity of the kind that we 

see here. 

Do you think that the ARB itself is sufficient to make this transition from facts known about an incident to conducting good security policy moving forward? 

Mr. KEIL. I think there are limitations in the law that establishes the ARB and it—especially when you’re talking about a complex catastrophic incident, they have significant limitations in what 

they can and can’t do. So it clearly impacts their effectiveness. 

Mr. POMPEO. And, Mr. Starr, back to you, finding 23 goes to 

some of those limitations. It goes to the ARB’s capacity and its authority to recommend disciplinary action on the basis of unsatisfactory leadership. It indicates that you all are prepared to help us 

change the statutory authority of the ARB so that they can do that. 

Are you prepared to testify today that you’ll help us continue to 

make sure that the ARB does, in fact, have the ability to make 

sure that the leaders of organizations are held accountable for any 

errors that they may have made? 


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Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. And it’s my understanding that we have 

been looking at this and working with the Congress since December of—sorry—January of 2013 on this. 

May I also just say that one of the points that I think is important to make is that, while the ARB in several cases may not have 

the expertise to look at everything, the fact that the ARB recommended that we consider putting together a Best Practices 

Panel that could then delve further into the specifics I think proves 

that the ARB can make recommendations that can go beyond what 

they can do and look even further. 

I think that’s a very good example of the fact that, while the 

ARB may not have the exact expertise that you’re talking about, 

recommendations can be made that bring in other experts to do 

these things. 

Mr. POMPEO. I appreciate that. 

And so you think it’s important that the ARB have the capacity 

to at least recommend some type of disciplinary action against senior leaders in various agencies that they’re reviewing? 

Mr. STARR. The ARB already has the ability to recommend disciplinary action if they find a breach of duty. I think what we’re 

looking at now is whether or not—if they find a lack of leadership. 

I would support that as well. 

Mr. POMPEO. Right. Right. Thank you. That’s exactly what I was 

asking. 

I have a handful of questions that go to the scope of the ARB. 

Mr. Starr, I know you weren’t on that—none of you were—but I 

want to make sure we understand precisely what’s there. 

Do you know if the ARB had the opportunity to interview the 

CIA employees and contractors who were on the ground that night 

who might know something about the security at the SMC as well 

as the other facilities in Benghazi that evening? 

Mr. STARR. I do not know the answer to that, sir. 

Mr. POMPEO. Do you know if they have had the opportunity to 

interview the DIA people who might have known something about 

the intelligence and the security situation on the ground that 

night? 

Mr. STARR. I’m sorry, sir. I do not know the answer to that. 

Mr. POMPEO. Great. 

I won’t go through the rest. There’s a handful more questions 

about what I think the scope of the ARB has in its information. I 

think they’re important. 

I also wondered if you had all had a chance to review any of the 

intelligence that had been gathered as a result of the capture of 

Abu Khattala, who would know a fair thing about what was going 

on that night on the ground as well. 

And so I’m interested in whether you all have had the chance to 

incorporate that into your ideas about implementing the ARB. 

Mr. STARR. We are aware of the debriefings. We’re looking at 

some of the debriefing material that is relevant to us, and we are 

taking the proper steps based on what we find. 

Mr. POMPEO. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. Chair would now recognize the gentleman 

from Maryland, Mr. Cummings. 


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32 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I thank you very much. 

Mr. Starr, I want to pick up where Mrs. Brooks left off. 

How is the Department tracking its compliance with the 

Benghazi ARB recommendations? Can you tell me briefly. 

Mr. STARR. Mrs. Brooks is correct that the MPRI office is the one 

that is actually doing the tracking as we go through these. 

But I can tell you that I have had many meetings with the Deputy Secretary, myself, anyone that has anything to do with the response of a particular ARB answer or Best Practices Panel answer 

or the management panel answer where we have sat with the Deputy Secretary and literally gone through every single one of the 

recommendations: Where are we? How have we answered it? What 

is the response? How far along in implementation are we? 

We have these meetings about every other month. She’s out at 

the moment. But, literally, she has been on top of this and tracking 

it since the beginning. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so you said that there were seven ARB recommendations that have not been completed. Is that right? Is that 

what you said? 

Mr. STARR. We are still in progress or nearing completion on 

seven of them, but they’re not totally fulfilled. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And do you have a timeline on those? 

Mr. STARR. Some of those, sir, are what I would refer to as evergreen recommendations. And I’ll give you an example. One of the 

recommendations was for better language training for the Diplomatic Security agents. 

Since that time, we worked with FSI and specifically put together some courses in Arabic, Urdu and French. We call them Arabic, Urdu or French alert courses. They’re much shorter. They’re 

specific to training DS agents in the types of language capabilities 

that they need in a short period of time. 

We have the courses in place, but the reality is it’s going to take 

me a long time, you know, as I—as agents get ready to rotate overseas, then put them into the training and then get them trained. 

So that’s the type of recommendation that’s going to actually be 

open for a long time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So—but all of them aren’t like that, are they, of 

the seven? 

Mr. STARR. Many of them are evergreen recommendations. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, what I’m trying to get to—— 

Mr. STARR. Some of them will be closed in 2015. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yeah. Let me tell you where I’m going with this. 

I’ve seen over and over again in my 17 years in Congress that 

departments will come in, say they’re going to do things, and then 

they wait. There’s no checking up on them. A new Congress comes 

in and the next thing you know, it hasn’t been done. We want to 

be effective and efficient. This is a moment that we’ve got to take 

advantage of. 

So can you—of those seven, the things that you know can be 

done in a definite amount of time, can you give us a timetable on 

those so that we can, at least while we are a committee—can hold 

the Department accountable? Is that a reasonable request? 

Mr. STARR. I think that’s a reasonable request, sir. I’d rather not 

do it orally right at this moment, but we can supply you with the 


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information on where we are on those recommendations, implementation panel. 

I would say, sir, that there is no doubt in my mind that we are 

going to implement every one of these recommendations. I think 

one of your questions is whether or not we have been implementing 

ARB recommendations. One of the exercises we went through last 

year was to review every single ARB recommendation that has 

been made since 1988. 

The office of MPRI, that office that is tracking these—we sat 

down with them and went through every recommendation in the 

past to make sure that we were doing our best to fulfill those, and 

that office is going to track these in the future as well. 

I think I—I can understand some hesitancy about whether, you 

know, this—if we drag these out, they’re not going to get done. I 

can assure you, sir, that, while I am there, while Secretary Kerry 

is there, we are going to make sure that every single one of these 

recommendations is fulfilled. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. As I get older, I realize that we’re not going to 

be here but so long. We are in the places that we’re in for a season, 

and it may come to an end in any—in all kinds of ways. 

That’s why I want you, as I said in my opening, under our watch. 

I want some definite timetables so that we can hold somebody accountable. Other than that, we’re going to be going through—Mr. 

Keil said it best—we’ll be going through this over and over and 

over again. 

Can you understand what I’m saying? 

And so—but you just gave me some more information that I’d 

like to add on to your list. If there are crucial things that we’ve 

been looking at, recommendations from 1988 that you are working 

on, would you add those, the significant ones—going back to Mrs. 

Brooks now—that you haven’t been able to complete that you’re 

working on so that we can have a timetable on that? 

I think that the most important thing that we can do coming out 

of this—and I promised the father of Tyrone Woods. I looked him 

in the eye. And he asked us one question—and, by the way, every 

family that we talked to said the same thing: Make it safer for 

somebody in the future. 

So, Mr. Starr, are you with me? I just want to make sure you’re 

with me. 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. I am. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. So will you come back to us—how 

much time do you need to give us what I just asked for? 

Mr. STARR. Let me take this back to the Department and let me 

work through this. I will try to get you these answers as fast as 

possible. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. 45 days? 

Mr. STARR. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Very well. 

Mr. Chairman, we can talk about this. But, Mr. Chairman, it 

may be appropriate later on for us to have a hearing just on the 

progress that has been made. And I know that’s the chairman’s decision, but I don’t—I think we need to make sure that we stay on 

top of this. 


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Mr. Starr, the independent ARB found that the tripwires, which 

are security incidents, that are supposed to trigger reviews and responses were ‘‘too often treated as indicators of threat rather than 

essential trigger mechanisms for serious risk management decisions and actions.’’ 

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence came to a similar 

conclusion in its bipartisan report. It said ‘‘There were tripwires designed to prompt a reduction in personnel or the suspension of operations at the mission facility in Benghazi. And although there is 

evidence that some of them had been crossed, operations continue 

with minimal change.’’ 

As a result, the ARB recommended that the State Department 

‘‘revise its guidance to post and require key offices to perform indepth status checks of post tripwires.’’ Is that right? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And in response to this recommendation, the 

State Department set up a ‘‘tripwires committee’’ in Washington. 

As I understand it, the purpose of this entity is to review 

tripwires when they are triggered to help ensure that post and the 

relevant regional bureaus respond quickly to deteriorating security 

environments. 

Mr. Starr, who is on that committee? 

Mr. STARR. Regional bureaus—representatives from regional bureaus. It’s chaired out of the crisis management group out of the 

State Department operation center. 

I think the biggest single change, sir, is that, in past years, the 

tripwires were usually something that the post itself would look at 

as part of their emergency action plan and then, if they’d crossed 

a tripwire, they would determine what action needed to be made 

and then report to us what decisions they were going to have. 

At this point, the major change is that anytime a post crosses a 

tripwire, it has to be reported to Washington. At that point, CMS 

gathers a group of people that review what tripwire was crossed. 

They look at the implications on it, and we make decisions on what 

should happen. 

Now, in many cases, the post may have already made the decision, but this is a new review that goes on back on the Washington 

level as well and with a much greater degree of oversight and a 

much greater degree on emphasis on action if a tripwire is crossed. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Can you give me an example that’s actually happened with regard to that, what you just said. 

Mr. STARR. Sir, I would say that tripwires are not just security 

concerns, but I’ll try to concentrate on a security concern. 

The activities in Kiev and Ukraine recently, at the beginning of 

those activities, when it was clearly unsure what was happening 

and we had civil disorder in the city, the post reported that quite 

a few tripwires had been crossed for instability and for insecurity. 

Decisions were made at that point, and we made a decision that 

we were moving our dependents and nonessential personnel out of 

Kiev. We moved them out until the situation had ceased, had rectified itself. 

We looked at what we call reverse tripwires. Was the situation 

really changed and what had changed? And then we made the decision—we ultimately made the decision to return the families in 


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about 2 weeks after the situation in the middle of town that could 

have affected our personnel was resolved. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I look forward to receiving the information that 

we requested. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank the gentleman from Maryland. 

The chair will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 

Westmoreland. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you. 

Mr. Starr, the ARB found that—systematic failure in the security 

posture in Benghazi and it was inadequate for the special mission 

compound. 

And just a little side note here. 3 days after the attack, we had 

been calling at the Embassy. We were told that it was a temporary 

mission facility. And now it’s being called the special mission compound. 

Was there any reason for the terminology continuing to evolve 

into something? 

Mr. STARR. I think, sir, as it was neither an embassy nor a consulate nor a consular agency, there was just some—— 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Do you call it a temporary mission facility 

or do you call—— 

Mr. STARR. I think the term of ′′temporary mission facility′′ is 

probably the right definition. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. So—all right. 

Anyway, they had hired the Blue Mountain, I believe, is that correct, to do the screening of any visitors and the perimeter protection? 

Mr. STARR. My understanding from the ARB and other reports 

was that it was a contract with the Blue Mountain security company for Libyan individuals and agreements with—I think it was 

the 17th militia as well. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. That was the host country security, was the 

17th Brigade? 

Mr. STARR. Well, in the absence of a practical and real host country security, I think that was the best that they could do. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. But the Blue Mountain was unarmed. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. STARR. Correct. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Who’s responsible for vetting these contractors like Blue Mountain that’s going to be used at some of these 

facilities? 

Mr. STARR. In terms of—vetting in terms of a contract and performance and those types of things? 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yeah. Uh-huh. 

Mr. STARR. Normally, sir, it’s—we have an open competition 

process. How we contract for guard services is a function that has 

been given to us with very specific requirements from Congress. 

It’s open competition, and the—you know, whoever can bid on it 

and meet the requirements does it. I think, in contingency-like situations like we were finding in Benghazi, there was probably, probably, very little competition, very little—— 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. So was this the lowest priced bidder? 


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Mr. STARR. That, sir—I’m not there at the time. I can’t really tell 

you. I don’t—— 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Are you aware that two contracts that 

these people had in Tripoli were canceled and that the RSO at the 

temporary mission facility had recommended that they not be 

used? 

Mr. STARR. I have read reports of that, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. You were once an RSO. Correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. In your distinguished career, do you ever 

remember recommending that a service not be used that you were 

familiar with anywhere and then them being hired over your protest or your recommendation? 

Mr. STARR. Not in my experience, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. But you would have at some point 

recommended somebody or maybe not recommended anybody? I 

mean, was it your job to look at the performance of these people 

that you were aware of and report it? 

Mr. STARR. As an RSO, when we have guard contracts, if we find 

that our contractor is not performing, we have a variety of ways. 

We can deduct money or we can ultimately find that they are not 

performing. 

And if they’re found to be lacking and can’t perform the contract, 

they can be terminated, they can be barred. They can actually be 

barred if that, you know, goes that far. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. All right. You had mentioned the 17th— 

February 17th, the Martyrs’ Brigade, I believe is what it was 

called, and we have been told that that was basically the host company security. Is that true or not? 

Mr. STARR. I would hesitate to call that host country security, 

sir. I think, at best, it probably had some control in that area of 

the city, but this is based on what I’ve read from the reports. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Is there an individual that would be at the 

post that would be responsible for ensuring that the 17th Brigade 

was responsible and dependable? 

Mr. STARR. Sir, I wasn’t there at the time. As a former RSO, I 

can probably tell you that there were likely limited choices. 

And one of the things that an RSO would do at that point, if he 

was faced with limited choices, was try to train them as best he 

could to try to make the best of whatever situation he was handed. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. He would have to train the February brigade or—— 

Mr. STARR. If he found that they were not up to the levels that 

he wanted, he would engage and assist in the training and making 

sure that they understood the guard orders and making sure that 

they had the capabilities that were necessary. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. Now, let’s say that—and they were 

hired to—in case there was an attack inside the compound to respond. 

Who would have the contact information? And who would’ve been 

responsible on the post for contacting this protective brigade of 

martyrs? 

Mr. STARR. There were—as I read the reports, sir—again, I was 

not here at the time—there were personnel on the compound. They 


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had telephone communication with their own groups. The agent 

that was in the—— 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. With their own groups? 

Mr. STARR. With other personnel in the group. With other personnel. 

And there was communication on the part of the ARSO, who was 

in the operations center, who was making phone calls, and there 

were phone calls that were being made from the annex. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. Let’s go to the tripwires that Mr. 

Cummings was talking about. 

The Foreign Affairs handbook defines tripwires as events that activate, initiate or set in motion post plans to prevent harm to the 

post, its personnel, the U.S. citizen community or other U.S. national interests. The handbook also notes that, when a tripwire 

then occurs, it requires that an action be taken. 

Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. It’s my understanding that the tripwires 

are preplanned, preapproved measures that should be taken in 

light of a security-related incident or threat. Is that true? 

Mr. STARR. That is true, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Has the State Department emphasized to 

the post the purpose of having tripwires? 

Mr. STARR. Has the State Department? 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Having tripwires. 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. When a tripwire is breached, meaning 

something bad has happened, that breach is the trigger to take 

specific action; is it not? 

Mr. STARR. At a minimum, it is a—it is a warning that the post 

must review what has occurred and then determine whether action 

needs to be taken, at a minimum. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Take action rather than just requiring that 

they sit around and reevaluate the situation? 

Mr. STARR. Well, sir, tripwires are written in advance of activities. We try to cover a wide variety of situations that could occur. 

Predicting the future and exactly what your actions are going to be 

is very difficult. 

I think the purpose of tripwires really is to indicate that, ‘‘Wait. 

Something has just happened. This could be significant. We need 

to consider whether or not we need to take action in this case.’’ 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. 

Mr. STARR. As I said previously, it was normally a post activity. 

Now, once a tripped wire is tripped, it is looked at both by the post 

and by the various sections in Washington. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Would you consider a hole being blown in 

the perimeter wall of the temporary mission facility—would you 

consider that a tripwire? 

Mr. STARR. I’d certainly say that’s a good indicator, sir. Probably 

crossed the tripwire, at that. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And that event would have probably— 

should have caused some action or discussion. Correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. WESTMORELAND. Would an attack on another diplomat’s 

coming into Benghazi that caused that country to pull out—would 

that have been a tripwire? 

Mr. STARR. I assume you’re referring to the attack on the British 

Ambassador, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I am. 

Mr. STARR. That’s another tripwire, sir. Yes. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay. 

Mr. STARR. I certainly think that’s an indication of security problems and instability. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And so those were two tripwires that you 

would consider significant; would you not? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. And what was done with the security after 

those two tripwires were tripped? 

Mr. STARR. Sir, as I said, I was not here at that time. I was not 

in Diplomatic Security. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, you’ve read reports. 

Mr. STARR. I’ve read the reports—— 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes. 

Mr. STARR [continued]. And I’m aware that the RSOs were increasing physical security. They were engaged in building safe havens inside the facility. They had engaged in training with the 

guards, training routines. They had run drills with the annex. 

I think they were—from what I’ve read, they were doing the 

types of things that an RSO would do when he sees the situation 

beginning to deteriorate. 

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, thank you for your testimony. 

Thank all of you for being here. 

And let’s hope we can get some results out of this tragic event. 

Chairman GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. 

The chair will now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Schiff. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you. 

At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for conducting 

the hearing today and for the way that you have worked with us 

to bring together witnesses and follow up on ARB recommendations. I greatly appreciate it. 

I want to ask you gentlemen something that cuts in a bit of a 

different direction than the questions you’ve had thus far, and that 

is—I serve also on the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and 

Foreign Operations, and I have an opportunity to meet with a lot 

of Foreign Service officers both here in Washington and around the 

world. 

Many of them have described to me what they consider the 

‘‘Benghazi effect’’ on their jobs. And, by that, they refer to such a 

heightened concern about security that many of them feel they cannot fulfill their mission anymore, that they are confined to a bunker, that they’re not allowed to undertake things they think are necessary to their job responsibilities. 

And I think this sentiment was best expressed in June by Vice 

President of the American Foreign Service Association, Matthew 

Asada, who wrote, ‘‘Does our collective response to Benghazi 

threaten to make the Foreign Service less knowledgeable about the 


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world, less effective on the ground and, ultimately, less influential 

with the host country and the U.S. government itself? ’’ 

That’s a question that Ambassador Stevens might have asked. 

And I wonder if you could share your thoughts on it. As we implement the recommendations of the ARB and of your panel, how do 

we make sure that we’re not preventing our people from doing 

their job? 

We all acknowledge this is a dangerous thing. And, as my colleague pointed out, our facilities have been attacked literally hundreds of times over the last couple decades. It’s happened in the 

past. It’s going to happen again. We want to protect our people as 

best we can, but we want them to be effective. That’s why they’re 

there. 

So if you each could share briefly your thoughts on: Are we striking the right balance or has the ‘‘Benghazi effect’’ meant that we 

are undermining the ability of our people to do their work? 

Mr. STARR. Congressman, you are going to the heart of the question of risk management and how do we implement risk management. 

I will tell you that, over many years, with the support of Congress, we’ve made great strides in building safer and securer facilities so that an attack on a facility that could hurt everybody in one 

attack—we’ve done great things in terms of protecting that. 

And I think, if you look at the number of attacks against our facilities and how few have actually been successful—most have been 

driven off with casualties by our security personnel or others 

only—we’ve made great strides in that. 

But we can’t lock people inside embassies. The whole point of diplomacy is to get out. And I think we need to understand—and a 

lot of the processes that we’ve been talking about are at our highest-threat, highest-risk posts. We’ve got the most security and, in 

many cases, it will be the most restrictive for our Foreign Service 

personnel. 

But we’ve got to have the security programs in place to get them 

outside of the wall as well, and that means protective security details and it means armored vehicles and it means working with the 

host country security services. 

Every single day that we run motorcades outside of our embassy 

in Kabul or in Iraq or in Sana’a or the ones that we ran in Tripoli, 

we were taking risks. 

But every single day we were judging what that risk was versus 

the need to get out and making sure that we could balance those 

risks and that we were not running those motorcades or getting 

our people out for not very good reasons. They had to be very important reasons. 

In lower-threat-level posts, we’re operating almost normally 

around the world. We have physical security at our post, but our 

people get out every single day. 

That’s the work of diplomacy: Talking with people, understanding the country, representing the United States, and bringing 

information back. And you don’t do that without talking to people. 

So I think all the efforts that we’ve made in terms of recognizing 

what are our highest-threat, highest-risk posts, doing risk management and making sure that we’re getting the people out when we 


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can, but understanding that, if too many people get injured or it’s 

too dangerous we can’t operate or, if we’re negligent or we’re not 

taking the threat seriously enough, we won’t be there either. 

We’ll close that post if we get too many people killed or too many 

people injured or the threat is too high. Those are the types of 

things that we need to weigh every single day, and we do. 

I can understand the frustration of Foreign Service officers at 

our highest-threat-level posts. No, sir. They cannot live on the open 

economy. They cannot just go to a coffee shop. But we are still, 

even in the highest-threat locations, getting them to the meetings 

that they need to get to. 

Mr. SCHIFF. But I don’t think that’s the issue for them, as much 

as they would like to be accompanied by spouses and go to a local 

coffee shop. 

What they’ve expressed to me is not that, which they understand, but that they can’t undertake the meetings they want in the 

places they need to go to have those meetings and have the contacts they need to be able to gather the information for our government, to be able to convey the U.S. position to people. They can’t 

do their job because they’re confined by a hyperconservative pointof-view perspective back in Washington. 

And do you get that feedback? And are there any situations 

where you feel the pressure has been such—to be so riskavoidant—that we’re not allowing our people to do their job? 

Mr. STARR. I think, in the immediate aftermath after Benghazi, 

there is a deep appreciation of that attack and we may have—the 

pendulum may have swung the other way for a while. 

I think today, with the systems that we have put in place, with 

the risk management that we are doing every day, with things like 

VPVP, the additional resources that you’re giving us, I would not 

agree with that statement, sir. 

I think we need to take certain precautions, and we do. But I 

talked with Ambassador Deb Jones when we were still in Tripoli. 

I talked with the Ambassador in Sana’a about whether we’re getting out enough and doing the things that we’re doing. And they’re 

saying, yes, we are, and it’s the right balance. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Gentlemen, let me ask a different question because 

I have very limited time. 

One of the problems we had in Benghazi was an overreliance on 

the willingness, ability, or loyalty of the local militias to provide security. 

Are there any places around the world today where you feel 

we’re continuing to place an overreliance on local militias for security of our facilities? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. You know, that was something that, you know, we 

talked an awful lot about, Congressman. The fact that—you know, 

when you go into a situation like that, you have to be able to evaluate the will and the capability of a particular guard force. 

And I think, no matter where you go in the world, you’re going 

to always have to come up with that evaluation. And if you don’t 

have that will and you don’t have that capability, no amount of 

money you’re going to pay in that contract is going to resolve that. 

And that’s why, again, it goes back to risk management. If you 

don’t have those capabilities locally, you know, you have to go and 


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bring them in yourself. And I can’t speak to where they aren’t— 

you know, who has them and who doesn’t have them where—in the 

world. 

But I really do think, when you look at the reaction of that guard 

force, you know, leading up to that, those tripwires that were spotted there, I mean, that was a real concern. And, again, I just go 

back to there wasn’t the will—there might have been the will, but 

there just was not the capability. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Keil, on either question. 

Mr. KEIL. Well, I think, first of all, sir, one of our recommendations—well, to start with, as Mr. Sullivan pointed out in his opening statement, when we first started with our panel, we thought 

we were going to look at these tactical issues of building bunkers 

and building higher walls. 

We quickly realized that wasn’t the answer because that doesn’t 

facilitate diplomacy, and we moved to the strategic and looked at 

the Department in overseas posts and risk management. 

We asked Ambassadors, Deputy Chiefs of mission and Foreign 

Service officers as we traveled overseas, ‘‘Tell us about the State 

Department’s risk management process.’’ Without exception, each 

one said there is none and they make it up. And, sadly, I think, 

to this day, while they may be making progress, that’s still a significant concern. 

Risk management process—as you indicated, sir, the Foreign 

Service is a dangerous business. We have to be out there. We have 

to do these things that are national security priorities, but we have 

to do it under a risk management process that’s effective and sustainable and transparent. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank the gentleman from California. 

The chair will now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Keil, how many years of experience do you have 

in the security field? 

Mr. KEIL. Approximately 30, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. And how many years did you serve in the State Department at that same area? 

Mr. KEIL. Almost 23. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you get good evaluations? High reviews? Strong 

reviews? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. So good, in fact—I looked at your resume—that you 

actually were put on the security detail to protect the Secretary of 

State. Is that accurate? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. Secretary Warren Christopher and Madeleine 

Albright. 

Mr. JORDAN. Protecting two Secretaries of State. 

And then your most recent service in the public sector was as Assistant Secretary at Homeland Security. Is that right? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. And that’s an appointment from the Obama Administration? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you trust the agents in the field, Mr. Keil? 


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Mr. KEIL. I trust them implicitly. They have the best perspective. 

They know the ground truth. They know what’s going on. 

Mr. JORDAN. Under their assessment, their instincts, they’re the 

guys on the ground putting their lives on the line just like you did. 

So when they make a recommendation to the State Department, 

you take that seriously? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes. I would. 

Mr. JORDAN. And are you familiar with the fact that the guys on 

the ground in Benghazi repeatedly asked for additional security 

and were repeatedly denied? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. From what we saw. 

Mr. JORDAN. Routinely denied. They said, ‘‘We need’’—‘‘Look, this 

thing is out of control. We need some more good guys here’’ and repeatedly asked for that and repeatedly denied. 

And it was worse than that, wasn’t it, Mr. Keil? 

Mr. KEIL. Possibly. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Yeah. 

Because what they asked for, they not only—they said, ‘‘We need 

more,’’ but what they had was actually reduced. Is that accurate? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. We heard about a year and a half ago testimony 

from Colonel Wood, who was on the ground in Benghazi, and he 

said this: ‘‘We were fighting a losing battle. We couldn’t even keep 

what we had.’’ 

Now, Mr. Keil, my guess is—you know, we’ve heard—we’re the 

United States of America. We’ve got facilities all over the globe. 

And my guess is, at every facility, the security people would say, 

‘‘We could use a few more folks here. We’d like a few more.’’ My 

guess is that that happens. 

But wasn’t the situation in Libya and Benghazi somewhat 

unique? 

Mr. KEIL. Sir, when you look at the intelligence, the threat reporting, the deteriorating security environment, and the numerous 

incidents, yeah. I would prioritize Benghazi. 

Mr. JORDAN. Some have talked about, ‘‘We had IED attacks, RPG 

attacks, assassination attempt on the British Ambassador. This is 

as bad as it gets.’’ And they said, ‘‘We need more good guys here.’’ 

And the State Department says, ‘‘No. You’re not going to get that. 

In fact, we’re going to reduce what you had.’’ 

If you were an agent on the ground in Benghazi at the time, Mr. 

Keil, would you have been lobbying for more help to come to 

Benghazi? 

Mr. KEIL. I’d probably be doing more than lobbying. I’d be extremely frustrated and try to push every button I could possibly 

push. 

Mr. JORDAN. Flip it around. You’re the guy at the desk in Washington. You get the request from these guys on the ground for more 

help. 

Would you have fought to make that request happen? 

Mr. KEIL. As a matter of fact, sir, my last position with DS, I 

was the regional director for DS Regional Bureau, vetting those requests from the field. I would have put a significant amount of priority on Benghazi requests. 

Mr. JORDAN. Oh. So you had that job? 


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Mr. KEIL. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Before Benghazi, you had that job? 

Mr. KEIL. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. And you would have went to bat for these folks? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes. I would have. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Keil, what’s the Overseas Security Policy 

Board? 

Mr. KEIL. Overseas Security Policy Board is an interagency 

board that is the genesis from the Beirut Embassy bombings; the 

Inman Commission, which created the Diplomatic Security Service; 

the Inman standards. It’s an interagency board that creates physical security, technical security, procedural security requirements—— 

Mr. JORDAN. So these were standards developed interagency. So 

they’re the State Department standards. Is that correct? 

Mr. KEIL. State Department leads OSPB. 

Mr. JORDAN. And this resulted from the Embassy bombing in 

Beirut where 63 people were killed, 17 Americans? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. And were the standards followed at the Benghazi 

facility? 

Mr. KEIL. Sir, we saw a memo which authorized the continued 

opening of the Benghazi mission, which referred to it as the special 

mission compound. In talking with people, and based on my experience, it was a purposeful effort to skirt the standards. 

Mr. JORDAN. So the standards weren’t followed? 

Mr. KEIL. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, my understand is there’s a waiver process 

that you have to follow if, in fact, you’re going to deviate from the 

standards. 

Was the waiver process followed? 

Mr. KEIL. That was one of our recommendations, sir. And when 

you’re not following the standards, you don’t have to follow the 

waiver process either. 

Mr. JORDAN. So they didn’t follow standards or the waiver? 

Mr. KEIL. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Keil, what’s your overall impression of the ARB 

report? 

Mr. KEIL. Mr. Sullivan and I testified before the House Oversight 

and Government Reform Committee. Ambassador Pickering referred to the ARB as being fiercely independent. 

In that same hearing, Admiral Mullen admitted to Oversight and 

Government Reform that he was reporting on ARB proceedings to 

the senior staff of the State Department outside of the precepts and 

the requirements of being a member of the ARB. I don’t think that 

fits anyone’s definition of being fiercely independent. 

Mr. JORDAN. You don’t think it was independent at all? 

Mr. KEIL. Not based on what was—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Frankly, I share your belief. I mean, when Secretary Clinton gets to appoint the co-chairs of the board, when 

Cheryl Mills calls him up and asks him to serve, when neither Secretary Clinton or Cheryl Mills are interviewed, when they get a 

draft report before it goes public, in essence, they get to edit the 

report before the rest of the world gets to see it. 


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And as you point out, when Admiral Mullen told the committee— 

told the committee he—now, think about this. He’s been on the job 

a few days. As the cochair of the supposedly independent ARB, 

been on the job a few days, he interviewed Charlene Lamb and he 

discovers that Charlene Lamb is going to 2 days later come in front 

of the Oversight Committee and he realizes she’s not going to be 

a good witness. 

What does he do? Just what you referenced, Mr. Keil. He gets 

on the phone and calls the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State 

and says, ‘‘Hey, Charlene Lamb is not going to be a good witness. 

She’s not going to reflect well on the State Department.’’ He gives 

a heads-up to the very person he’s supposed to be investigating. So 

of course this thing wasn’t independent. 

I mean, think about—we asked Mr. Mullen, ‘‘Why do you care 

whether she’s a good witness or a bad witness? It’s your job to get 

to the truth for the American people and for the families of those 

four individuals who lost their lives, not to give a heads-up to the 

higher-ups in the State Department.’’ So it was anything but independent. 

But here is—there was one good thing that came out of the ARB, 

in my judgment, at least one good thing. They created the Best 

Practices Panel that you and Mr. Sullivan sat on. Right? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. And you guys made a whole bunch of recommendations? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. How many recommendations, again? 

Mr. KEIL. 40 recommendations. 

Mr. JORDAN. 40 recommendations. 

And some of them are more important than others. Is that right? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. And the most important one is which one? 

Mr. KEIL. The creation of an under secretary for Diplomatic Security. In fact, sir, in our executive summary, we said one clear and 

overarching recommendation that’s crucial to the successful and 

sustainable implementation of all of the recommendations in this 

report is the creation of an under secretary. 

Mr. JORDAN. And is that the first recommendation you listed in 

your report? 

Mr. KEIL. It’s recommendation number 1. 

Mr. JORDAN. So it’s recommendation number 1. 

Most of the others hinge on the implementation of that recommendation? 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. It’s designed to give accountability and responsibility to one particular person at the State Department. Is that correct? 

Mr. KEIL. To identify those who are—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Yeah. Something Mrs. Brooks talked about in her 

opening questions. 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. Designed to give accountability and responsibility to 

someone at the State Department. 


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And is this the first time that this recommendation has been put 

forward, Mr. Keil? 

Mr. KEIL. No, sir. Our Board—or our panel—excuse me—was a 

bit surprised to actually uncover a memo from now 15 years ago 

that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had signed after the 

East African Embassy bombings, ordering the creation of an under 

secretary for Diplomatic Security. 

Mr. JORDAN. So we have the Overseas Security Policy Board created after Americans were killed in Beirut. That wasn’t followed. 

We have a recommendation from Madeleine Albright, the lady you 

protected, that says we need to create an under secretary after 

Americans were killed in the East African Embassy bombings. 

Mr. KEIL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. And that wasn’t followed. 

I mean, has the State Department said they’re going to implement this at all? 

Mr. KEIL. They said it’s one of the recommendations they are not 

going to implement. 

Mr. JORDAN. They’re not going to implement it. They’re not going 

to implement it. 

My question is real simple, Mr. Chairman: What’s it going to 

take? What’s it going to take for the State Department to put in 

place the practices that are going to save American lives? 

They didn’t listen to the guys on the ground, the pros who know 

what they’re doing in a situation that anyone looks at and says, 

‘‘Wow, we need more Americans there to help.’’ 

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. 

What’s it going to take? The ranking member in his opening remarks said this is a transformational moment. Well, somebody better tell the State Department that because—I mean, think of this 

track record. I hope the member is right. I hope they get it. 

But if they’re not going to listen to two guys with the experience 

that Mr. Keil and Mr. Sullivan have and say the one thing we 

need—the one main thing we need is this person of accountability, 

the one main thing, how—that everything else hinges on, I mean, 

talk about the arrogance of the State Department. 

So, hopefully, one of the things this committee can do is at least 

convince them to follow these guys, what they said. At least convince them of that. 

Mr. Keil, thank you for your service. It’s an amazing record what 

you have done for our country. 

Mr. Sullivan, yours as well. We appreciate the work on the Best 

Practices Panel. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. JORDAN. 42 seconds, I would yield. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Why don’t you ask the question of the State Department? 

Mr. JORDAN. You can ask him that question. The way this 

works—— 


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Mr. CUMMINGS. What’s your—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Reclaiming my time, you’re welcome to do it, Mr. 

Chairman. I think you spent a lot of time on Mr. Starr. I chose to 

focus on Mr. Keil, who’s got 30 years of experience, appointed by 

the Obama Administration, 23 years in the State Department, 

viewed so highly that he was actually on the protective detail for 

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. 

I chose to use my 10 minutes on Mr. Keil. Minority can use their 

10 minutes on whatever witness they want. In fact, this is a hearing they called. You can handle it however you want to. 

With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Ohio. 

I now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Sa ́nchez. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to all the witnesses for joining us for what I hope 

will be a productive and a forward-looking hearing on what can be 

done and what is being currently done and what we have yet to 

do in terms of trying to prevent a tragedy from Benghazi from happening again or, at the very least, minimizing the potential for 

something like that to happen again. 

I am going to begin my questions sort of in the same realm of 

where the questioning left off, talking about the security accountability framework within the Department of State. 

The Best Practices Panel, which was led by Mr. Sullivan, determined, ‘‘Clearly defined accountability and responsibility for security at every level is fundamental for effective security management within an organization.’’ And the panel recommended the development of an accountability framework. 

Is that correct, Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. In response to that recommendation, the Department created a security accountability framework that the Department explained clearly defines key actors, their roles and responsibilities, and governance mechanisms. 

Mr. Starr, I’d like to begin with you. Can you please describe the 

responsibilities at each of the various leadership levels. 

Mr. STARR. I think the first leadership level starts with the Secretary of State. The Secretary acknowledges that he is ultimately 

responsible for the security of our personnel overseas. 

Beneath that in the accountability framework, the next person 

that has the direct responsibility for security is me, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security. 

And I would have to say that we looked long and hard at the recommendation of whether it needed to be an under secretary position or an assistant secretary position. It was a recommendation by 

the panel. 

The Department looked at this very seriously, ultimately 

weighed all of the points behind it, and made a decision that what 

was probably more important is whether or not I, in my position, 

had the direct access to the Secretary that was necessary. 

And under both the accountability framework and then the FAM, 

we have modified it so that I am directly reportable to the Secretary for security threat information and security threats against 


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our people. I do still report to the Under Secretary for Management. 

Now, we think that that’s key because, isolated and alone, Diplomatic Security would not have some of the capabilities that we 

have when we work closely with the management bureau, with 

Overseas Building Operations, with IRM and others. But I just 

wanted to put that back in the record. 

One of the things that the accountability framework does is talks 

about the fact that all of us in the Department of State are responsible for security, but it specifically designs the roles of the deputy 

secretaries and what they do. It defines roles that the Under Secretary for Political Affairs and the Under Secretary for Management has. 

The most important thing that it does is define roles for the 

other assistant secretaries, the people that I work side by side with 

every single day, who run the regional bureaus, the NEA Bureau, 

the WHA Bureau, the EUR Bureau, and it assigns security responsibility to them. And, in fact, their job descriptions have been 

changed to reflect the security responsibilities. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Let me—— 

Mr. STARR. All of this is contained in the accountability framework. 

And then one final thing, which I think is critical, we can’t do 

the security that we need to do unless every individual Foreign 

Service officer understands that they have a role in their own security as well, and it goes to defining that. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. So those expectations have been communicated, 

then, on down the security framework. Is that correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. And State Department employees have a clear understanding of what the chain of command, so to speak, is for security decisions and security decision-making? 

Mr. STARR. Overseas it was always clear. It ran from the RSO 

and the Deputy Chief of Mission to the Chief of Mission and that 

letter of responsibilities that the Chief of Mission has. So it was always clear overseas. 

It was a little less clear within the Department who had the responsibilities, and this document goes a long way taking information that was already in the FAM and putting it together into a 

clearer framework. Yes. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. If I can go back for just a second to the number 

one recommendation about creating a different position that would 

be in charge of security, explain some of the thought-making process that went into the ultimate decisions not to accept that recommendation and to essentially make you responsible for security. 

Mr. STARR. Well, first and foremost, I think it has to be acknowledged that I am responsible, whether I am the Assistant Secretary 

or whether it will be changed to an under secretary position. The 

Department looked at this and had to weigh different things. An 

under secretary typically has additional responsibilities than one 

focus on something. 

If you look at other under secretaries and the range of things 

that they do, one of the things the Department made sure of was 

that this position, my position, A, had the access that we need to 


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the Secretary and to the other leadership and, second, that I wasn’t 

being diverted from the just pure security role by other duties. 

Under secretary positions in many cases would carry other duties. 

My predecessor was the Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and the Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, the Office 

of Foreign Missions. One of the things that we did in the aftermath 

of Benghazi was to separate those two functions, and now there’s 

an ambassador in charge of overseas foreign missions. I am not distracted by that role. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Okay. 

Mr. STARR. I can focus exclusively on security. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate the answer. I have two other questions I’d like to ask, and I’d like to get to them. 

Mr. Sullivan, do you think that the new framework that the Department of State has adopted clearly defines accountability and 

responsibility for security? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Congresswoman, we haven’t been fully briefed on 

that. From what I heard just now, I mean, I think that’s a great 

start. But, clearly, there does have to be accountability. People do 

have to know, you know, who’s in charge of security. 

And, also, to the point that was made earlier, how all the employees feel around the world, I mean, I think that that leadership 

is important to let them know that they’re valued, that they’re supported, and that those people that are making decisions are going 

to be made accountable for those—every employee is going to be 

made accountable for those decisions that they’re making. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. 

I want to hit on the issue very quickly—I have very limited 

time—about temporary staffing. 

Several investigations into the attacks in Benghazi found that 

the temporary staffing of security officers was what contributed to 

poor security at the Benghazi facility. The bipartisan Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Reform Committee found—I’m 

going to quote from that report—‘‘For example, DS agents stationed 

in Benghazi were always on temporary duty assignments, remaining there for relatively short periods, often no longer than a 

month.’’ 

The Independent Accountability Review Board concluded that 

the utilization of temporarily assigned agents in Benghazi was 

problematic—and I’m quoting from their findings—‘‘the short-term 

transitory nature of Benghazi staffing to be another primary driver 

behind the inadequate security platform in Benghazi. Staffing was, 

at times, woefully insufficient, considering the post security posture 

and high-risk, high-threat environment. The end result was a lack 

of institutional knowledge and mission capacity which could not be 

overcome by talent and hard work alone, although the Board found 

ample evidence of both in those who served there.’’ 

So based on one of the ARB’s recommendation, the Department 

has set a policy for one-year minimum tours at high-threat posts 

and a minimum of 120 days for temporary duty assignments. 

Now, Mr. Starr, you’ve held a number of positions during your 

tenure at the Department, including that as a regional security officer. 


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Why is it valuable for security officers to spend longer durations 

at posts? And what’s the benefit to developing an understanding of 

the local environment? 

Mr. STARR. It is critical. In your first 30 days on the ground in 

a place, you are just trying to figure out where you are, how things 

are operating, where the threats are. 

We absolutely concur with that recommendation of taking steps 

to ensure that the personnel that we put on the ground are there 

for longer periods of time. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. And has the Department been able to achieve 

those requirements in its actual practice? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, it has. The fact is that we don’t actually have 

any temporary facilities at the moment. I can give you an example, 

though, that—you know, we just reentered Bangui. We have mobile 

security teams of agents on the ground with U.S. Marines that are 

there. 

Those agents are going to stay for a much longer period of time, 

probably up to 90 days, until we’re sure that we have the proper 

security that we can then start replacing them with the permanent 

personnel that we’re going to have on the ground. The 30-day rotations, as the ARB pointed out, were not conducive to the security 

operation. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. And are there any other incentives that the Department can provide or can think to provide for personnel to undertake those longer assignments? 

Mr. STARR. I don’t think it’s a question of necessary or additional 

incentives. I think it’s a question that we needed to understand 

that constantly rotating like that was not in our best interest. 

I think my agents clearly understand that, and I think it really 

isn’t about additional incentives. It’s about just knowing that that’s 

not the proper procedure and we needed to change it. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Not a great practice. 

Thank you for your forthright answers. 

And I yield back to the chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from California. 

The chair would now recognize the gentlelady from the state of 

Alabama, Mrs. Roby. 

Mrs. ROBY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Returning to the questioning of Mr. Jordan about the waiver 

process briefly, Mr. Starr, the Overseas Security Policy Board sets 

the physical security standards that must be met, and it’s also my 

understanding that they’re either temporary, interim, or permanent. Correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Mrs. ROBY. And overseas diplomatic facilities can be further classified as residential, office, or other categories as well? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. And how was Benghazi classified in 2012? 

Mr. STARR. My understanding from the reports is that it was the 

temporary mission facility. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. And was that classification found in the OSPB 

standards? 

Mr. STARR. No. 


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Mrs. ROBY. Are there any OSPB standards for a temporary office 

facility? There’s not. Right? 

Mr. STARR. Our outlook on that is that, whether it’s temporary 

or interim or permanent, that we should be applying the same security standards that the OSPB has put in place and that, if we 

can’t, then we need to look closely at what risks we run—— 

Mrs. ROBY. So the—sorry to interrupt you. 

But the office and the residential do not require a higher level 

of security if they’re in that category? 

Mr. STARR. Office—there are higher levels. When we build offices, when we build facilities, those have a higher level of security 

than residences do. 

Mrs. ROBY. The Benghazi facility was being used as both. Correct? 

Mr. STARR. Yeah. I’d say that’s an accurate portrayal, from what 

I understand. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. And so, in a dual case where it’s being used 

as a residential and an office, what standards apply? The higher 

standards. Correct? 

Mr. STARR. Correct. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. And so those OSPB standards should have applied to the Benghazi facility? 

Mr. STARR. That is the way that I would apply them now. As I 

say, I wasn’t here. But if we had a similar situation, we would be 

applying the higher standards. 

Mrs. ROBY. I just want to make sure this is very clear. 

Your policy is that anytime a facility is being used for more than 

one purpose, whatever type of facility has the higher—or the highest level of physical security standards, those standards should be 

applied? 

Mr. STARR. That is correct. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. But that didn’t happen in Benghazi? 

Mr. STARR. Not—I would have to say I can’t answer that question. 

Mrs. ROBY. Looking ahead, when you talk about in this era of expeditionary diplomacy, is it possible for the State Department to 

open a temporary residential facility? 

Mr. STARR. We don’t have any at the moment. I can’t imagine 

that we would or that I would approve it. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. 

Let’s turn to the Marine Security Guard detachments. Were Marine Security Guard detachments ever deployed to the Benghazi 

compound? 

Mr. STARR. No. 

Mrs. ROBY. The Benghazi compound, we’ve already established 

by multiple questions here, it was a temporary facility. And Marine 

Security Guard detachments are never deployed to temporary facilities, correct? 

Mr. STARR. Not in my experience. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. So the increase in Marine Security Guard detachments as a result of the ARB recommendation 11, therefore, 

would not have actually helped in Benghazi, correct? I mean, if it’s 

a temporary facility and they can’t be deployed, then it won’t help. 


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Mr. STARR. Oh. I just want to make the point, I’m not saying 

that additional personnel on the ground would not have helped. 

But, yes, you are correct that we would not—in my experience, we 

would not have put a Marine Security Guard detachment into a 

temporary facility. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. 

So we’ve also already established here today that there’s currently 30 posts that are considered high-risk, high-threat. How 

many have benefited, of those 30, from the Marine Security Guard 

personnel? 

Mr. STARR. I would have to get back to you with the exact number. I think—I think about 20. We have opened four Marine detachments since Benghazi at our high-threat, high-risk posts. 

There are still some that do not have Marine Security Guard detachments. There’s a variety of reasons why they do not. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. Is it your intent to get to a place where you 

have these Marine Security detachments at all of the high-risk, 

high-threat locations, posts? 

Mr. STARR. I would like to have Marine Security Guard detachments at every one of our high-threat, high-risk posts. There are 

impediments that in some cases cannot be overcome. 

Mrs. ROBY. At the ones that currently do not have the Marine 

Security detachment, how exactly does the Department plan to 

augment security at these high-risk, high-threat without highly 

trained Marine Security Guards? 

Mr. STARR. In some cases, we have made up by using Diplomatic 

Security agents. In some cases, it’s a mixture of Diplomatic Security agents and other security elements that we have within Diplomatic Security. In some cases, we have made risk-managed decisions where we have taken personnel out and lowered our presence—in some cases, our families are not there—or we lowered the 

number of employees to minimum numbers. 

In many cases, we make representations with the host governments, and now we analyze whether or not the host government 

has both the capability and the will to provide the necessary level 

of protections. And if we find that we don’t have those types of protections or we think that the risks are too high, then we won’t be 

there. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. 

If an ambassador at a high-risk, high-threat post picks up the 

phone and calls the seventh floor of the State Department today 

asking for additional security, physical or personnel, who ultimately makes the decision to grant or deny that request? 

Mr. Starr. 

Mr. STARR. The last person in the chain would be me. The request would probably not go to the seventh floor; it would probably 

go to me on the sixth floor, or it would go through the RSO to our 

personnel. 

But I can tell you that, today, I have available mobile security 

teams to deploy. We work very closely with—— 

Mrs. ROBY. But, ultimately, I’m just—I’m asking who makes that 

decision. 

Mr. STARR. It can be approved at lower levels—— 

Mrs. ROBY. What’s the lowest level it can be approved? 


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Mr. STARR. Oh, I think the lowest level would be the regional director of the—of Diplomatic Security. 

Mrs. ROBY. And if an ambassador sends a cable, would it be the 

same—rather than picking up the phone, it would be the exact 

same? 

Mr. STARR. Exactly the same. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. 

And would the decisionmaking process change if it was not a 

high-risk, high-threat post? 

Mr. STARR. No, it would not. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. And was Benghazi considered high-risk, highthreat or a critical threat? 

Mr. STARR. Pardon me. I actually don’t know what the rating 

was of Benghazi. We did not have the 30 identified high-threat, 

high-risk—— 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. 

Mr. STARR [continuing]. Posts listed at that point. 

Mrs. ROBY. Well, who denied the additional Diplomatic Security 

personnel requested in Benghazi by those who were working and 

living there and in Tripoli? Who was the person that denied that? 

Mr. STARR. I’m going to have to refer you back to the results of 

the ARB. I came back 5 months after the attack. I wasn’t—— 

Mrs. ROBY. What I’m trying to get at, is that same person who 

was also responsible for ensuring the physical security of Benghazi, 

is that the same person that is vested with that responsibility 

today? 

Mr. STARR. I think the Board pointed out that there were lapses 

in judgment on the part of the Director and several others, including the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs. 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. 

If a DS agent at the post writes back to headquarters requesting 

additional physical security upgrades or increased personnel performing security duties, who is responsible for making the decision 

to deny or grant that request from a DS agent? 

Mr. STARR. I think the first thing that would happen is that the 

discussion would go on, is this an individual request from DS? Has 

it been vetted through the emergency action committee at the post? 

Is this a post request? 

Mrs. ROBY. Okay. And is it affected by whether you’ve categorized this as a high-risk, high-threat? 

Mr. STARR. We pay more attention to our high-threat, high-risk 

posts on a daily basis, but I would tell you that any request for additional security resources for any of our posts overseas is going to 

be met with immediate action. We would make decisions on how 

we can best fulfill those requirements. 

Mrs. ROBY. So, to get to the point, even if a post is not high-risk, 

high-threat, we know in certain parts of the world things are very 

volatile and can unravel in a moment’s time, despite threat assessment or not. And what I’m getting at is, is the Department, now, 

today, in light of what happened in Benghazi, prepared to pay better attention when the folks on the ground are saying, ‘‘We need 

help,’’ and—which was not what happened in the days and weeks 

leading up to the attack in Benghazi. 


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Mr. STARR. My answer to you is unequivocably ‘‘yes.’’ That is 

what I have been spending my time since February 1st in 2013 on, 

making sure that we have the resources, the programs, the knowledge, the capabilities to respond quickly and effectively to any cry 

for help. Moreover, not just respond to the cries for help, but to try 

to better place ourselves before those come in and make sure that 

we’re ready for these things. 

Mrs. ROBY. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. I thank the gentlewoman from Alabama. 

The chair will now recognize the gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. 

Duckworth. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and also the Armed Services Committee, I’ve spent a great 

deal of time working on all of the—working my way through all of 

the reports on the attacks in Benghazi. And as the committee begins our work here today, I think the most appropriate way that 

we can honor the brave Americans who lost their lives in Benghazi 

is to make sure that we learn from those past mistakes and never, 

ever make them again. And I heard that from the family members, 

as well. Let’s never let their buddies down the way we let their 

family members down. 

And so I want to go back to the discussion on the security and 

interagency cooperation. But, first Mr. Keil, I was there the day 

that Admiral Mullen testified, and I have to disagree with you. You 

may question his professional integrity, but when Admiral Mullen, 

a man who served in Vietnam, 43 years of military service defending this great Nation, comes before our committee and swears an 

oath of office and says—and then testifies that he was fiercely independent in the ARB, I would tend to believe him. And, in fact, the 

ARB was incredibly scathing of the State Department in its report. 

And I want to go to that report. 

Mr. Starr, I just want to follow up a little bit on what my colleague, the gentlelady from Alabama, her line of questioning about 

the Marine Security Guard details. So if you don’t have a—if you 

have a post that does not have a detail because they’re not at a 

temporary facility, for example, can you talk about other details 

that can be there? Are there other military options that can be assigned to those temporary details? You talk about the mobile security teams, Marine augmentation units. Are there other options if 

the Marines can’t actually be assigned there full-time? 

Mr. STARR. Yes, there are other options. We currently are trying 

to expand 35 more detachments, but it should be noted that, at the 

moment, we have more than 275 diplomatic facilities, counting the 

embassies, consulates, and consulate generals. We have only 173 

Marine Security Guard detachments. We have never had enough 

Marines, nor will we ever, to cover every single post. And in many 

of our posts around the world, if we put a Marine Security Guard 

detachment in, we would probably have more Marines than we had 

Foreign Service Officers at some of these places. So we carefully 

look at where we need to use this scarce resource. 

We have had excellent cooperation from the Marine Corps in 

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ments. As I say, we have opened 17 more detachments since 

Benghazi, on our way to opening 35 totally. And we should be done 

by the end of next year. 

Additionally, the Marines have created something called Marine 

Security Augmentation Units, where we can send additional Marines in under the rubric of the Marine Security Guard program 

that helps us where we have different situations. 

But the thrust of your question was, what do we do in places 

where we don’t have Marines or we don’t have permission to send 

Marines? We have different capabilities. 

We have Diplomatic Security agents that are high-threat, highrisk-trained, our highest-level operators, mobile security operators. 

We have the ability to request from the Department of Defense— 

and they have never let us down—for things like FAST teams to 

come in and protect our embassies and consulates when we need 

that. 

We have a robust program where we have security contractors. 

In many cases they’re Americans, but sometimes they’re thirdcountry national contractors. But we have used contractors for 

many years. Now, there are some downsides to that, and there are 

some countries that won’t allow them. And we’ve learned some very 

painful lessons over the years about contractors, that we have to 

have incredible amounts of oversight and make sure that we’re 

using them properly. But it is still a tool. 

We have local guard forces and local protective elements that we 

hire directly from the country that we’re in. And I would tell you 

that some of these units in places around the world, even unarmed, 

have done amazing acts of heroism protecting our people. 

And then, ultimately, we have the host-country services, which 

we now evaluate for both whether they have the capabilities to protect us or the will to protect us. And in those cases where they may 

not have the best capabilities or we may think that we’re challenged, one of the things that the additional funding that Congress 

has given us is the ability to start a program where we can train 

those host-country forces, whether it be police or national guard, 

directly around the embassies and increase their capabilities. 

So we have a number of different possibilities. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. You had said, Mr. Starr, that the State Department has always engaged in the process of risk management and 

is well-experienced at it. I have to say I was disappointed with the 

risk management process that was undertaken leading up to the 

Benghazi attacks, and I would hope that that risk assessment and 

mitigation process has become more robust. 

I want to speak specifically to interagency cooperation between 

DOD and the Department of State. You said that DOD has never 

let you down. On that night, the ARB and various reports, including Armed Services Committee, has stated that there was no way 

that those F–16s, that those military—U.S. military forces could 

have made it there in time to save our Americans’ lives. 

What have we done since to make sure that in the future they 

can be present in time to save American lives? As these special 

dates come up, September 11th, these anniversaries, or as you hear 

more chatter that is going on and you think there might be the potential for greater risk, what tripwires are in place, what processes 


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are in place for you to call the DOD and say, hey, maybe you need 

to help us and reposition some forces so that if we do have another 

Benghazi we can call and that those F–16s can be there in time 

in the future so that we don’t lose American lives? What process 

is happening between DOD and Department of State at this point? 

Mr. STARR. The Department of Defense has put together a program that they essentially refer to as the new normal. 

We have looked closely at what capabilities DOD can bring for 

defensive use at the American embassies and consulates overseas. 

There has to be a realization that we don’t have bases everywhere 

in the world. In many cases, while we would like to be able to say 

that the Department of Defense could respond to any one of our 

embassies within 4 hours, physical distances, just the amount of 

distance between where our military is stationed and where our 

diplomatic facilities are make it impossible. 

And then, even if they could respond in a certain amount of time, 

this idea that, you know, we’re magically going to get paratroopers 

coming out of the back of planes and they’re going to land on the 

American embassy isn’t realistic. We still have to go through airports, we have to get permission from host countries to get personnel in, we have to transport them from the airport to the embassy somehow. And in the midst of a crisis, this isn’t really realistic about what’s going to happen. 

What we’ve worked with DOD on is making sure that we’re better prepared to predict what is going to happen, looking at instability. And as DOD has often said, we’d rather be on the ground 

in advance of something happening than trying to react after something happens. 

Now, it doesn’t mean in certain cases that they haven’t been on 

a very close leash with us. I can give you the example of Tripoli 

recently, where we had in many cases Special Forces and helicopters and Marines on less than 1-hour notice to respond to the 

embassy. And in high-high-threat, critical-threat situations, those 

are the types of things that we’re working with DOD on, to make 

sure that they have very close-at-hand response capabilities. 

But I can tell you that, with 275 locations around the world, we 

can’t do that often. We can’t do that everyplace. DOD is seeking increased basing options. And I would highly recommend a discussion 

with DOD on this about where they are going in terms of basing 

closer and more closely to U.S. embassies and facilities. They have 

excellent plans. They are working closely with the State Department on this. 

But, ultimately, we’ve got to do a better job of making sure that 

we have the right preparations on the ground in advance. In those 

situations that are absolutely critical, we’ll have DOD very close to 

us. And they’ve worked tremendously with us in places like Tripoli 

and Sana’a and other places. 

So I just have to tell you I have the utmost respect for the way 

that the Department of Defense, U.S. Marine Corps, and Army and 

Air Force have responded—and the Navy—have responded to our 

needs. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. In the last minute that I have left, can you talk 

about, at what level at the State Department does that request to 

DOD have to take place? 


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For example, in the case of Tripoli recently, where you said that 

they had them on a 1-hour leash to respond, does that come from 

you, or can it come from lower? If an ambassador determines that, 

through his risk analysis assessment with his Diplomatic Security 

team that’s there, that he needs this, how far does he have to go 

before you can have something like a FAST team that’s ready to 

come in or something along those lines? How high up through the 

State Department bureaucracy does he have to go? 

Mr. STARR. In an emergency, the Ambassador is going to call the 

commander of the nearest combatant command. And they meet all 

the time; they talk with each other. And in an emergency situation, 

he can pull the string immediately. 

In a less-than-emergency situation, in a way that we’re looking 

at it to try to preposition ourself, he would state something or 

make a request, or we may make the request and say, we think 

you need this. We would work through the Office of the Executive 

Secretaries, who send an exec-sec back and forth. I can instigate 

it. The Ambassador can instigate it. The Assistant Secretary of the 

regional bureau can instigate it. 

In most cases, it’s a collaborative effort, and we’re talking with 

each other. We’re either having a SVTS or we’re having phone conversations. But in the most extreme cases, the Ambassador can go 

directly to the combatant commander that is closest to him and request support and then, even, notify us afterwards. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from Illinois. 

The chair would now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Roskam. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank the three panelists for your testimony today. 

Mr. Keil, what’s a special mission compound? 

Mr. KEIL. Sir, if I could just take 2 seconds, I’d like to clarify one 

point that Ms. Duckworth made. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Feel free. 

Mr. KEIL. I wasn’t making any subjective judgment on Admiral 

Mullen. I was simply stating the facts. The precepts and regulations of the ARB say you cannot discuss the proceedings outside of 

the ARB. Admiral Mullen, he admitted he did that. It’s a statement 

of fact. It’s not a subjective judgment. 

Mr. ROSKAM. In legal terms, that’s called ex parte communication. 

But go ahead and answer. 

Mr. KEIL. Thank you. I didn’t go to law school. 

Sorry, sir, could you give me the—— 

Mr. ROSKAM. Yeah. What’s a special mission compound? 

Mr. KEIL. I don’t know. To be honest, in our review, Under Secretary Kennedy, in authorizing that, made up that term in order 

to avoid the OSPB security standards. 

Mr. ROSKAM. It’s an interesting thing; yesterday, in our office, we 

did a LexisNexis search of ‘‘special mission compound, not 

Benghazi.’’ Now, there may be other ways to search, there may be 

other ways to look out over the landscape. The result of looking for 


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that term yielded nothing. Throughout all those data files, all 

across the fruited plain, absolutely nothing. 

So what does it mean if something is simply, then, redefined? 

What does it mean if something is said, ‘‘Well, we’re just going to 

declare this as something other than that which is to be regulated’’ ? That means you have no regulations. Isn’t that right? 

Mr. KEIL. Correct, sir. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Mr. Sullivan, you mentioned in your opening statement one of the regrets that you have as a member of the panel 

is that the Department of State didn’t adopt your recommendations 

as it relates to waivers. What is your recommendation as it relates 

to waivers? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, we think—we believe waivers are—waivers 

are needed, and we want to see those waivers. Because when you 

have a waiver, what that will do is set in motion standards. And 

people all recognize that, once you have those standards, you have 

to meet those standards. 

What we saw in this particular instance was, since there were 

no standards, there was no waiver, there really were no standards 

set. And I think somebody brought up the fact before that there 

were a lot of people coming in that were TDY and some very dedicated people, some very hardworking people, and some extremely 

well-intentioned people and dedicated people. However, these were 

people that were extremely inexperienced, and they were coming in 

for 30-day periods. And they would come in for 30 days, they would 

identify vulnerabilities, they would take care of that vulnerability, 

and then the next person would come in, and that process would 

continue. And—— 

Mr. ROSKAM. So you’re saying you need an orderly process by 

which things are waived, not declarations on the part of the Department of State that it’s all waived. Is that right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. It goes back to what we talked about before: risk management. And, you know, in its simplest terms, risk 

management is all about identifying the threat, identifying the vulnerability, and then coming up with the mitigation for that threat. 

And we just did not see that formalized process ongoing. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Secretary Starr, question: You said earlier, in an 

answer to Congressman Smith, that on Benghazi they didn’t get 

the threat information. 

Now, I understand that ‘‘threat information’’ may be a term of 

art, but to Mr. Westmoreland’s point earlier, certainly a bomb 

blowing up on the side of a wall, the whole litany of events that 

took place beginning March 18th, 2012, until the first time there 

was a communication from Ambassador Stevens, isn’t that enough 

information? 

So you’re not saying nobody was aware of the nature of the 

threat. Is the threat a term of art? 

Mr. STARR. Congressman, thank you for the question. 

I think the distinction that I was trying to make was that there 

was no specific threat information that had been developed by the 

intelligence community—— 

Mr. ROSKAM. In other words—— 

Mr. STARR [continuing]. To say that we were under attack. 


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Mr. ROSKAM [continuing]. These people are coming over the hilltop at this moment in time. 

Mr. STARR. Right. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Okay. Let me ask you this——— 

Mr. STARR. And, as I said, we don’t normally get that. I think 

your point that there were a number of different things going on— 

I think people were aware of the overall level of instability. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Okay. Well, here’s my point. In the Senate Intelligence Committee report, they reported, on June 6th of 2012, Ambassador Stevens recommended the creation of teams and so forth. 

The team was never created in Benghazi despite the Ambassador’s 

recommendation. 

There were other events subsequent to that. Then Ambassador 

Stevens reaches out again, sends a cable to the State Department 

headquarters, requesting a minimum of 13 temporary duty personnel. And the State Department never fulfilled his request, and 

headquarters never responded to the request with a cable. 

And then they follow up on August 16th of 2012, a month before 

these events. Again, a cable to the State headquarters, Stevens 

raised additional concerns, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

Now, go to the ARB. The ARB says one thing two times about 

Ambassador Stevens, and it’s worth noting. They said this about 

him: ‘‘His status as the leading U.S. Government advocate on Libya 

policy and his expertise on Benghazi in particular caused Washington to give unusual deference to his judgments.’’ They said that 

on page 6 of the report. They cut and pasted—they liked it so 

much, they put it on page 34 of the report. 

And yet, ignoring the Ambassador, who, by their own admission, 

is the expert in the area, and ignoring his requests for support, 

that’s not giving unusual deference to his judgments, is it, Mr. Secretary? 

Mr. STARR. Difficult question, Congressman. 

Mr. ROSKAM. No, it’s very straightforward. 

Mr. STARR. No, I don’t think it is. I think it’s a difficult question. 

I think that Chris Stevens was a tremendous ambassador with a 

tremendous amount of—— 

Mr. ROSKAM. Look, there’s no question that he was tremendous. 

There’s no question that he was a hero. He made—— 

Mr. STARR. From what I——— 

Mr. ROSKAM [continuing]. Specific requests of the Department. 

The Department in the ARB said this person is uniquely qualified, 

Secretary, and he was ignored. 

Mr. STARR. And I think this is why the ARB recommendations 

are what they are. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Well, this is why the ARB recommendations and 

the panel say you can’t have this kind of waiver authority. 

When Ms. Roby asked you the question, are there any plans for 

temporary facilities in the future, you were pretty clever in how 

you responded. You said, we don’t have any plans for it, and I’m 

not likely—and I’m paraphrasing now—I’m not likely to approve it. 

And you know what that tells me? That tells me you can do it all 

again. That tells me that you can take the special mission compound, you can call it something else, you can call it a temporary 


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consular facility, you can take two adjectives and put it in front of 

a noun and call it some other thing, and do it all again. 

So here’s the question: If Madeleine Albright signed off on certain recommendations, if the Best Practices Panel makes certain 

recommendations, why is it that the State Department is clinging 

to this legacy of power that has failed? Why are you grasping on 

it so much? Why not walk away from it? 

And nobody here is criticizing a very tough job, but the nature 

of the job, Mr. Secretary, means that this, to Mr. Cummings’ point, 

needs to be the transformational moment. And why not be the 

transformational moment to say, we’re not just going to choose to 

redefine things, and we’re going to revisit how we do these waivers, 

and we’re going to do everything we can, in cooperation with Congress, to honor Chris Stevens’ legacy, to honor the legacy of those 

who suffered, who you served with and you know. 

But why cling to this old thing that just isn’t working? Are you 

the only one that doesn’t see it? 

Mr. STARR. Congressman, I think I have a distinct view, having 

served 29 years for the State Department, 4 years for the United 

Nations, and I’m back again. 

I think that in accepting all of the recommendations of the Accountability Review Board, I think in accepting 38 out of 40 recommendations made by the Best Practices Panel, I think the Department has made tremendous progress and efforts in the time 

that I have been back and Secretary Kerry—— 

Mr. ROSKAM. But the opportunity—— 

Mr. STARR. Not every—— 

Mr. ROSKAM. You want to knock it out of the park right now, Mr. 

Secretary. 

Mr. STARR. Not every recommendation is gold. Every recommendation needs to be looked at from the recommendation’s 

standpoint but then from the organization as well. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Okay. So take your argument. A couple of minutes 

ago, you made this point as it relates to the responsibility of a Foreign Service Officer, that they have a responsibility to be mindful 

of their own security. That was in response to Ms. Sa ́nchez. Every 

Foreign Service Officer must understand that they have a role in 

their own security. I agree with that wholeheartedly. 

And yet, when Ambassador Stevens played a role in his own security on cable number one, cable number two, and cable number 

three, that responsibility was not absorbed or reflected in the State 

Department. 

And you’re not offering anything as it relates to fundamental 

change. Because based on what the rules are right now, Mr. Secretary, you have the authority, you have the capacity, and you’ve 

got the flexibility to do the Benghazi structure again. Am I wrong? 

Mr. STARR. The rules have been changed. Who is responsible is 

clearly defined. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Who is responsible is fourth down on the food 

chain. And by your own recommendations—— 

Mr. STARR. Well, sir, I would disagree with that. I am responsible. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Yeah, but I’m telling you—— 


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Mr. STARR. I can give you the latest example, when we’re trying 

to open a facility in southern Turkey. We had a request to put personnel in on the ground for start operations, for humanitarian operations. They’re in there TDY. We need a facility. 

We are in the process of leasing a facility. We know where it’s 

going to be. A request came to me from the people on the ground 

saying, can we use it in advance of the security upgrades being 

done, being accomplished? My answer: No. 

Mr. ROSKAM. Okay. That’s beautiful. And in light of Mr. Cummings’ response and his admonition to us that we’re here for a season, you’re going to be there for a season, and in another season 

someone is going to succeed you. And in that new season, when 

someone with your judgment and your deference doesn’t have that 

level of capacity and they don’t have your kind of stick and your 

background, they’re going to be under tremendous pressure, and 

they’re going to say, ‘‘Yes.’’ 

I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. The chair thanks the gentleman from Illinois 

and recognizes himself. 

It strikes me that there are at least two issues at play, two major 

issues. Number one is the efficacy of the ARB process itself, whether or not it is in our best interest to allow any entity to essentially 

grade its own papers. We don’t do that in any other category of life. 

We don’t get to sentence ourselves when we’re in court. We don’t 

get to grade our own papers in the classroom. 

The other aspect of the efficacy of the ARB is who they interviewed and who they didn’t interview, whether or not they have to 

accept recommendations or don’t have to accept recommendations. 

That’s a separate issue to me, is whether or not the ARB process 

works, whether or not it has shortcomings. 

The second issue is, let’s assume, arguendo, that the ARB process works. Let’s just make that assumption for the sake of argument. Is anyone following the recommendations of the ARB? 

So, Mr. Secretary, I want to read something to you. ‘‘We are disturbed at the inadequacy of resources to provide security against 

terrorist attacks. We are disturbed at the relative low priority accorded security concerns. And we praise the Ambassador for seeking security enhancements long before the attack.’’ 

Do you know what that comes from, Mr. Secretary, what I just 

read? 

Mr. STARR. I believe it’s part of the Accountability Review Board 

report. 

Chairman GOWDY. From 1999. That was the—— 

Mr. STARR. Dar as Salaam and Nairobi, correct? 

Chairman GOWDY. That was the ARB from 1999. And you can 

lay it almost perfectly over what happened in Benghazi. 

And one other point. The 1999 ARB made it really clear, they 

went out of their way to make it clear, they were disappointed that 

the recommendations that came after the bombings in Beirut were 

not being implemented, something called the Inman Commission. 

So the ’99 ARB criticizes existing State Department employees for 

not following the Inman Commission from 14 years prior. That is 

a quarter-century’s worth of recommendations, and yet here we sit. 


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So what I want to do—because, honestly, I commend Mr. Schiff. 

His was a wonderful idea, and I thank each of you for coming. But 

given the inescapable interconnectivity between recommendations 

made after Beirut and after eastern Africa and now after Benghazi, 

we’re going to look at some of those past ARB recommendations. 

And I’ll give you one, Mr. Secretary. ‘‘For diplomatic buildings 

abroad not meeting Inman’’—of course, Inman being, again, Beirut 

bombing—‘‘not meeting Inman standards, essential physical security upgrades should be made immediately.’’ That was the recommendation of the 1999 ARB. 

Mr. Secretary, I’m going to read you another one. This goes to 

Mr. Cummings’ point, which I thought was a wonderful point. ‘‘Diplomatic petitions should be made to all governments with whom we 

have relations to remind them of their obligation to provide security for our embassy.’’ 

Who in Libya were we to call? Who? Mr. Cummings’ point is a 

wonderful point. It was so good, the 1999 ARB made the recommendation: Make sure the host country is aware of its obligations. Who did we call in Libya? 

Mr. STARR. Is that a question, sir? 

Chairman GOWDY. Yeah, when I pause, that’s generally an indication I’m waiting on you to answer, but I’ll make it more clear in 

the future. 

Mr. STARR. I think this is the heart of the question. There are 

times when, for the national interests of the United States, we are 

going to have to have diplomats, humanitarian programs, rule-oflaw programs, and other things in places where the host country—— 

Chairman GOWDY. Mr.—— 

Mr. STARR [continuing]. Does not have a government. 

Chairman GOWDY. Mr. Secretary—— 

Mr. STARR. And in those cases we must take the lessons from 

this ARB and previous—— 

Chairman GOWDY [continuing]. Was there a government in Libya 

for us to contact? 

Mr. STARR. No, not at that time. 

Chairman GOWDY. All right. So that recommendation of the 1999 

ARB we were not able to do. 

Let’s move to one that perhaps we were able to do. This was also 

a recommendation from the 1999 ARB. And, again, the ARB is presented to us as a panacea. I mean, that’s the evolution of what 

happens, is there’s an attack, there’s a blue ribbon panel, we’re 

going to study, we’re going to make recommendations, and this is 

never going to happen again. 

So back to the 1999. ‘‘ The Secretary of State should personally 

review the security situation of diplomatic facilities, closing those 

which are highly vulnerable and threatened.’’ Why do you think the 

1999 ARB went out of its way to use the word ‘‘personally’’? 

Mr. STARR. No comment, sir. 

Chairman GOWDY. What—is the answer privileged? I mean, 

that’s a recommendation from the 1999 ARB, the Secretary of State 

should personally review. And I’m asking you, with all due respect—we’re not going to get to the word ‘‘review.’’ We’ve got to get 

past the word that modifies ‘‘review,’’ ‘‘personally.’’ 


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62 

Why did they think it was important that the Secretary of State, 

himself or herself, personally review? 

Mr. STARR. I think, ultimately, the Secretary, who bears the responsibility for the security, has to be brought the information that 

is necessary for him to make decisions. 

Chairman GOWDY. All right. 

Mr. STARR. That is my job. 

Chairman GOWDY. Okay. 

Mr. STARR. I have gone to the Secretary of State on different occasions, and we have talked specifically about the security of different places. Tripoli was one of them in particular since I have 

been back, but we have also looked at Sana’a. We’ve talked about 

Kabul. We’ve talked about the other locations, as well. 

Where I have concerns about the safety and security of our personnel and if I believe that we are not doing the things that we 

need to do, then it is my responsibility to bring it to the Secretary. 

Chairman GOWDY. And I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. Was it 

done on September the 10th of 2012? Was it done prior to 

Benghazi? Because this recommendation has existed for more than 

10 years. 

Mr. STARR. I was not here at that time. I’m sorry, I cannot tell 

you. 

Chairman GOWDY. Well, your answer mirrors what the 1999 

ARB further said, which is, first and foremost, 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. 

Is that being done now, and was it being done prior to your tenure? 

Mr. STARR. In the time that I was here previously—and I have 

served under multiple Secretaries of State—I have heard every 

Secretary talk about the importance of security. I have heard every 

Secretary state to the personnel, the Department, that security is 

their function, their personal security has to be their function. And 

that goes for Madeleine Albright, that goes through Secretary Clinton, Secretary Rice, and with Secretary Kerry, who has also made 

those statements and has made statements that the safety and security of our personnel is absolutely one of our highest priorities. 

Chairman GOWDY. And I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. But, 

again, I think words have consequences, and they have meaning, 

and most people use words intentionally. And the 1999 ARB intentionally used the words ‘‘personally’’ and ‘‘active.’’ That, to me, does 

not mean talking about something. A personal review is not simply 

talking about it. 

Is the personal review ongoing? Is that ARB recommendation 

still accepted, I guess, is my question. Does the State Department 

still accept these recommendations from the 1999 ARB, and is it 

being done? 

Mr. STARR. Yes. I think the best and clearest example that I can 

give you today is a new process that we put into place, the VPVP 

process, the Vital Presence Validation Process, where we, again, 

look at what are our vital national interests and why should we be 

in these high-threat, high-risk locations. We put this process up, 

and it goes all the way to the Secretary. 


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Chairman GOWDY. All right. And that is a great point which 

leads very nicely into the next point I was going to make or ask 

you about. What is it about that recommendation that is so talismanic that it couldn’t have been made prior to the attack in 

Benghazi? 

Mr. STARR. I think the Department of State has practiced risk 

management from the day that I—— 

Chairman GOWDY. With ‘‘risk management’’ being: We’re going to 

weigh the risk of being somewhere with the benefits of being somewhere. 

We know the risk of being in Benghazi. Can you tell us what our 

policy was in Libya that overcame those risks? In other words, why 

were we there? 

Mr. STARR. These questions, I think, have been fundamental to 

the Department for over 30 years. It is the reason why in many 

places we have evacuated or we have shut down operations or 

we’ve taken our families out or we’ve gone down to essential personnel only or we’ve asked for Marines to come in and support us 

while we’re there. I don’t think—— 

Chairman GOWDY. Right. And my point being, Mr. Secretary, 

none of that was done in Benghazi. 

So what—we know the risk in Benghazi. My colleagues and you 

and others have done a wonderful job of highlighting some of the 

tripwires, I think is the diplomatic term. What policy were we pursuing in Libya that was so great that it overcame all of the 

tripwires and all of the risk? 

Mr. STARR. Not being here at the time, sir, I cannot answer that 

question for you. 

I do believe, personally, from my time at the United Nations, 

that many of us understood that if we lost the eastern half of 

Libya, that if we lost the confidence of the people after the revolution in Libya, that we were going to pay a terrible price. 

And I don’t want to put words into Chris Stevens’ mouth. I think 

he was an immensely talented diplomat. And I was not here at 

that time. But I think it was clear in Chris’ mind why he needed 

to go to Benghazi and what he was trying to accomplish. 

I think today we have more formalized processes to make sure 

that those decisions are documented. The VPVP process makes us 

go through a process that I don’t think was there prior to 

Benghazi. I think the results of the Accountability Review Board 

and the Best Practices Panel and the recommendations that we’ve 

accepted ensure that, as we go forward, we’ve got a clearer, more 

precise, more mandated process for risk management. 

But I would tell you, sir, that every single day for the years that 

I was with the Department of State, we were weighing the safety 

and security of our personnel versus what our national security priorities were. And I think that’s a fundamental tenet that you will 

find that everybody in the Department agrees with. 

Chairman GOWDY. Well, I appreciate you bringing the hearing, 

towards its conclusion, back to Chris Stevens and back to the other 

four who lost their lives. But Mr. Stevens was equally clear that 

he needed help. He was equally clear that the situation was getting 

worse in Benghazi. He was equally clear in asking the people who 


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sent him there to represent us to provide adequate security. And 

none was forthcoming. 

With that, I would recognize the ranking member for his closing 

remarks. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. First of all, I want to thank you all for being 

here today. I thank all of you. 

One thing I want to remind all of us is that we are Americans, 

everybody trying to do the best they can to protect our people. 

When we look at what happened in Benghazi, there are a lot of 

lessons to be learned. The question is not only have we learned 

them, but then how do we address them. 

And, you know, quarterbacking—what do they call it, Mondaymorning quarterback?—I think when you look back on things, a lot 

of times, you realize the things you could have done differently that 

probably would have made things better. But, you know, we cannot 

bring back the past, but I think we can make a difference right 

now. 

It’s clear that our diplomats are in some very dangerous situations. I think we all agree on that. And so now we’ve got to figure 

out how we go about protecting them even better than we have in 

the past. 

And so that’s why, Secretary Starr, I asked you about coming 

back to us and letting us know exactly what you’re working on, 

those things that you still have to do, and reporting back. It is so 

important because, when all the dust settles, the question is, what 

did we accomplish? 

I’ve been here 17 years, and I’ve seen a lot of arguments back 

and forth, but I think we must concentrate on being effective and 

efficient and getting something done. The arguments that have 

been made and the frustration that you hear from both sides, trying to figure out what happened—and I believe that everybody is 

acting in an honorable way with great intentions—but I want you 

all to understand we’re just trying to figure out what happened so 

that we make sure, if there were things that went wrong or could 

have been better, that it does not happen again. That’s what it’s 

all about. 

So, Mr. Chairman, again, I want to thank you for this hearing, 

and I want to ask you to do something for me. I want to bring Mr. 

Starr back in either December or January. He’s already told us 

that in 45 days or less he can tell us about what he’s working on 

and give us some kind of timetable. But I want him to come back 

and tell us what has been achieved. And that’s very, very important for me and, I feel, for the whole committee. 

And, Mr. Chairman, if you will, I mean, that’s your call, but I 

think it would be unfortunate if, when this committee ends, that 

we have not addressed these recommendations and addressed them 

in a way that would please the families of the deceased. 

And that brings me back to them—four great Americans who lost 

their lives. And I think we all made a commitment in one way or 

another to them that we would do everything in our power to find 

out what happened and at the same time to make sure we did the 

best we could to protect our folks overseas, to tighten up security 

if that’s appropriate. And it is, and we’ve got to do that. 

And so, with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you. 


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Chairman GOWDY. I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland for all of his help in, frankly, getting ready for this hearing 

and the cooperative nature with which he has always worked with 

me. 

And I think it’s an excellent idea. We will work with the Secretary. I don’t want to pick a date that is inconvenient with his 

schedule. December suits me better than January. Just, I’d rather 

do it sooner rather than later. But we will work with the Secretary, 

and I will work with you on the nature of whether or not that 

would be a hearing with all of our colleagues, whether or not that 

would be with just you and me. We’ll work all that out, but I will 

pledge to you it will be done. And it will be done in December if 

it suits his schedule. 

And I also want to just say this. I mean, we were given two different tasks—and I say ‘‘we’’; the House voted for us to be in existence—find out everything that happened before, during, and after 

the attack in Benghazi; and then do everything—and the Speaker 

has been very clear in my conversations with him about this—do 

everything you can to make sure that it never happens again. 

And part of that is taking recommendations that have been made 

in the past and asking whether or not they’ve been implemented. 

The other part of that, frankly, frankly, is anticipating things that 

might possibly happen. We do not have to wait on a tragedy to 

make recommendations. 

And I noted, Mr. Cummings, during the Secretary’s opening 

statement—I’m not minimizing this at all. If it comes across as me 

minimizing it, I am not. But he mentioned that they were 

partnering with the New York Fire Department. That’s a great 

idea, but it does necessarily lead some of us to conclude, why could 

that not have been done previously? I mean, fire has been around 

a long time. It’s been a weapon for a long time. Why now? And 

that’s not fair for me to ask him, which is why I didn’t ask him. 

But the notion that we have to wait on something bad to happen 

before we can act to do something that all 12 of us agree ought to 

be done. 

So, again, I thank all of my colleagues. I want to thank Mr. 

Schiff again for giving me this idea. I hope he will share some others with me. 

And, again, as we adjourn, I want to adjourn in memory of Chris 

Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty and pledge a 

process that is worthy of their memory and one that our fellow citizens can respect regardless of their political ideations. 

And, with that, we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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