Bureaucratic rivalries may have hampered Benghazi security - sources
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Infighting and bureaucratic jealousies between the State Department and the Pentagon may have played a role in lax security arrangements prior to the deadly attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, congressional sources said.
Evidence of the bureaucratic rivalries, not previously reported, is contained in unpublished documents being studied by congressional investigators and is referred to in a classified version of a report on the attacks in Libya, which was turned over to Congress earlier this week, the sources said.
Two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the friction between the Defence and State departments included, but was not limited to, the State Department's unease over its reliance on a 16-person Pentagon security unit, known as a Site Security Team (SST).
The team's mission was allowed to expire in August, and there are disputed accounts over whether it could have done a better job of protecting U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans who died in the September 11 Benghazi attacks.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/21/uk-usa-benghazi-turfwar-idUKBRE8BK16D20121221
= new reply since forum marked as read
