WASHINGTON — The Obama administration could have prevented the murderous terrorist attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, a Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes.
The scathing, 85-page, bipartisan report laid most of the blame on the State Department under then-Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, citing its failure to increase security, despite warnings about a growing terrorist threat.
“The State Department should have increased its security posture more significantly in Benghazi based on the deteriorating security situation,” said the report, released Wednesday.
To underscore the stinging criticism, it added bluntly that the attack was “preventable.”
The findings fueled criticism that has dogged President Obama and Clinton since the Sept. 11, 2012, assault that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the mission and a nearby CIA safe house.
The report does not directly implicate Obama or Clinton in the decisions that left the mission vulnerable or in the chaotic response to the attacks.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said that the administration “stonewalled” the investigation into who made the command decisions.
The report came out on the same day homeland-security experts warned a House panel that Obama had “no coherent” strategy to fight a resurgent al Qaeda in Libya, Syria and Iraq.
“If we don’t do something more than we’re doing now . . . we’re going to get attacked again,” former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told the House Homeland Security Committee.
Lieberman, the former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the Benghazi attack “was obviously a terrorist attack,” despite the administration’s reluctance to say so in the immediate aftermath.
The Senate report also blasted mistakes by the intelligence community, the Pentagon and even Stevens, who declined offers of added security.
The report blamed the intelligence community for immediately concluding that the attack stemmed from a spontaneous protest over an American-made video that mocked Islam.
The intelligence community “took too long to correct these erroneous reports, which caused confusion and influenced the public statements of policymakers,” it said.
The findings contradicted accusations, mostly by Republicans, that the White House and the department doctored CIA talking points to downplay terrorism.
Stevens was faulted for turning down extra security that was twice offered by Army Gen. Carter Ham, then the head of the US command in Africa.
But it also documented that Stevens sent cables to the State Department requesting more security, including one that went out less than a month before the deadly raid.
The report chastised the Pentagon for not having military assets at the ready in the region and blasted the FBI for not yet bringing the terrorists to justice.
The report noted the “lawless and chaotic” situation in Libya as a factor complicating the hunt for the terrorists, including the deaths of at least 15 people involved in the FBI investigation in Benghazi since the attacks.
“It is unclear whether their killings were related to the Benghazi investigation,” the report said.