WASHINGTON — The State Department made a “grievous mistake” by ignoring warning signs about lax security at the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, before the deadly terrorist attack on Sept. 11, a scathing Senate report released yesterday found.
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee’s findings ripped the State Department for brushing off repeated requests for more security from US staff in Libya and “flashing red” alerts to the growing terrorist threat in that hotbed of Islamic extremism.
The bipartisan report, titled “Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi,” delivered another blow to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is hospitalized in New York for what her office described as treatment of a blood clot.
“The system was, in fact, flashing red in Libya and Benghazi particularly,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the committee.
“The tragedy is, however, that the reaction to the flashing red indicators was woefully inadequate to the dangers that the flashing light was indicating. And, as a result, this tragedy occurred,” he said.
The blistering criticism followed another report by an independent State Department review board, which also singled out the department for security failures in the attack that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.