3 State Department Officials Resign In Wake Of Benghazi Report

Here's my post from earlier today on the Accountability Review Board charged with investigating the Benghazi attack. While the board was prohibited from fixing individual blame absent near criminal negligence, they made it pretty clear where they thought the fault belonged.

Three State officials took the hint and walked the plank.

Doesn't anybody get fired any more? You know, kicked out the door in disgrace.

Eric Boswell, assistant secretary of diplomatic security, and Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs, submitted their resignations, a senior official said. A third official in the Near East Affairs bureau also resigned, the official said.

Boswell and Lamb oversaw security for the Benghazi mission. Lamb testified before Congress about the security precautions. Documents show Lamb denied repeated requests for additional security in Libya.

Veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering, who chaired the review board, said the members placed primary blame "at the assistant secretary level, which is in our view the appropriate place to look, where the decision making in fact takes place. Where, if you like, the rubber hits the road."

In the meantime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promises to testify before Congress by mid January.

So, the highest level person to pay for Benghazi seems to be Susan Rice. In reality her, um, contribution, to the debacle was after the fact and probably tied more to Senators wanting to see their buddy John Kerry get the State gig.

Hillary will ride off into glorious, big book advance retirement and Obama will continue trying to piece together a second term national security team not filled with losers.

Beyond the politics, hopefully State will have learned from this very costly and realize that they will be doing more expeditionary diplomacy in the future and the need to figure out how to minimize the risks as much as possible. Our enemies are tireless and ruthless, we need to be the same.

posted by DrewM. at 06:39 PM

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