My Thoughts on Benghazi

My thoughts on Benghazi based on all the open source reporting and of course I may prove to be way off base after we read the results of Ambassador Pickering's investigation:

My belief is that that our national security decision making process can and has to improve.

The Benghazi tragedy may reveal a number things that need to be examined and possibly be fixed:

• The decisions made at all levels resulting from both intelligence as well as previous attacks. 

• The availability of forces to the combatant commander - e.g. the lack of a dedicated immediate response force (the decision making on this important subject reaches back to the previous administration and the stand up of AFRICOM but was complicated by the inability to station forces on the continent as well as the fact that before AFRICOM was established EUCOM had responsibility for most of Africa and its forces traditionally responded tocontingencies in Africa so the rationale was that those same forces could be "dual-use" for both Europe and Africa. Benghazi may have revealed our incorrect analysis on this  - though if we cannot base a capable force (e.g., ground and air) on the continent the issue remains unsolvable).  

• Our crisis action decision making both leading up to the event based on intelligence as well as during the event itself. An entire analysis needs to be conducted about the availability of all forces in Europe, afloat, and those in Djibouti or other operational locations on the continent (keeping in mind the physics complication - we cannot change the time distance from either Europe or on the continent - but this goes to the importance contingency planning before crises occur, ensuring forces in the right location to respond, and then how we act during the crisis because as Eliot Cohen and John Gooch remind us that all military failure can be attributed to one or all of the three failures: 

o   Failure to Learn

o   Failure to Adapt

o   Failure to Anticipate

(We certainly seem to have failed to anticipate this one given the situation in Benghazi and the previous attacks there)

• Who was in charge on the ground in Benghazi and what were the command and support relationships among the agencies involved? (particularly military and CIA)

• Following the tragedy there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. Most specifically: Why the lack of transparency? I suspect that the rationale assome have pointed out has been to protect information about sources and methods, covert actions, and special operations forces. However there are two issue with that. First, is we had no hesitation about revealing numerous details following Abbattobad from how we tracked the target, to the close target reconnaissance to the operational details of the mission. Second is that now we are releasing detailed information about covert actions and the operational procedures and employment of special operations forces, including the national mission force (re: GEN Keane's detailed information on both the actions of the Chief of Base, the CIA's response force that now according to the DOD press release contained military personnel and the deployment of the national mission force and thecommander's in extremis force). (as an side I think there will be some irony when the argument is used that decision makers were responding to the criticisms of the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund and other organizations who criticized the Administration regarding release of Bin Laden raid operational details on CIA and SOF operations and so in this case they weretrying to prevent disclosure of such information despite the partisan and public demands). I understand the allegations of partisanship (both of statements made by one campaign as well as accusations that the lack of transparency is to protect a specific narrative by another but that allegation cuts both ways and most critically this obscures the real problem, and that is:

•  We have Americans in dangerous places around the world conducting the nation'sbusiness and we may not have a national security apparatus that is up to the task of dealing with the potential crises that they could be faced with (I emphasize may because we may learn that everything that was done was all that could be done). That is not a partisan statement but one of concern for national security. And I make it not attacking the Administration but to ask for a thorough and complete accounting not only for the actions on 9-11-12 but also those going back many years to include the decision on not providing a CIF to AFRICOM.  We have to recognize that North Africa is a dangerous place (and likely will be for a long time to come)and we need to be properly postured to be able to defend American personnel and interests.

• I would also ask for an analysis of whether our highly developed process for prosecuting the CT fight (drones, CIA, and SOF) with target list approval, deliberate planning and operations, and the find, fix, finish, exploit, andanalyze (F3EA) methodology have all combined to create a decision making culture that hinders crisis action decision making and making effective contingency plans to secure our diplomatic and other national security personnel around the world. We have become very good at acting at the times and place of our choosing with oversight from the highest level, but have we lost the ability to rapidly react to crisis where we do not have control or sufficient situational awareness and understanding the highest levels of decision making.  I think we may have strategic decision making paralysis when it comes to dealing with crises because we are so used to thorough deliberate planning based on very good intelligence and situational awareness at the highest levels.

• I know this is a very extreme and emotional analogy but will Benghazi turn out to be the Eagle Claw of the 21st Century and force a relook of our processes and procedures for supporting and conducting operations around the world from developing contingency plans to granting of authorities to the right command level so that crisis response can occur while the crisis is stil going on? Is Benghazi going to be the wake up call for our national security contingencyplanning and crisis action decision making process?  I was going over some past national security documents and in addition to NSDD 32 which was President Reagan's grand strategy document, I came across this NSDD 95 for crisis action at the NSC level.  The 5MB declassified document can be downloaded at this link: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-95.pdf It is worth reviewing because I bet some of the same shortfalls identified then exist today.

So I think we need a non-partisan discussion of this. We need a certain level of transparency so we can intelligently examine, critique, and discuss the event. 

But most importantly we need to identify and admit our shortfalls and immediately begin to correct them for the sake of dedicated selfless Americans in harm's way.