[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3579-S3580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. Reid, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Kaine, 
        Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Murphy, and Mrs. Feinstein):
  S. 980. A bill to provide for enhanced embassy security, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise at this moment, as chairman of 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, outraged at the implication 
that we in the Senate have not done enough to investigate what has 
happened in Benghazi; that we have not investigated it thoroughly; that 
we have not looked at the details, have not analyzed the information--
classified and unclassified--that has come before us.
  The committee has held four hearings--four--on the attack on Special 
Mission Benghazi. The very first hearing I chaired in January was on 
this topic with Secretary Clinton. In fact, we postponed the nomination 
hearing of Senator Kerry so that Secretary Clinton could come before us 
and explain what happened and why, despite her medical condition at the 
time.
  Let's make that very clear. One of the very first things we did, 
despite a pending nomination of a new Secretary, and the sitting 
Secretary's medical concerns, was to hold a hearing on this topic and 
air the facts. Prior to that, Chairman Kerry held a hearing of the 
committee on December 20 on the events that transpired in Benghazi with 
Deputy Secretaries Burns and Nides. There were also two classified 
briefings in December specifically on the circumstances surrounding the 
attack. The December 13 briefing included a video of the attack with 
high level officials from State, the Joint Staff, Defense Department, 
the FBI, and the intelligence community. They included Patrick Kennedy, 
Under Secretary of State for Management at State; Matthew Olsen, 
Director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Maj. Gen. Darryl 
Roberson, Vice Director of Operations at the Joint Staff; Gary Reid, 
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 
and Low Intensity Conflict; Jenny Ley, Deputy Assistant Director at the 
FBI.
  On December 19, there was a high-level classified briefing with the 
Accountability Review Board with Ambassador Pickering and Admiral 
Mullen.
  At his nomination hearing in January, Secretary Kerry also fully 
addressed this issue and then again at the committee's annual budget 
hearing this past April. Last week, the nominee to be our new 
Ambassador to Libya, Deborah Kay Jones, testified before the full 
committee--another opportunity for my friends on the other side to ask 
questions, to get the truth, not create their own truth for political 
purposes. That hearing was yet another opportunity to ask questions 
about the security situation on the ground. Yet Republican 
participation was limited to just a handful of Members.
  We have fully vetted this issue. We have held hearing after hearing. 
We have, on both sides, had the opportunity to have our questions 
answered. In fact, in total, between the House and the Senate, there 
have been 11 hearings on Benghazi, 25,000 pages of documents released, 
and now a full e-mail history of the interagency process.

[[Page S3580]]

  Our focus now should not be on the work product of the CIA or State 
on draft talking points we have seen in hundreds of e-mails released by 
the White House yesterday; it should not be to score political points 
at the expense of the families of the four victims. It should be on 
doing all we can to protect our personnel serving overseas and 
providing the necessary oversight and legislative authority to carry 
out the Administrative Review Board's recommendations.
  I would remind my friends and the American people that nothing has 
changed. The facts remain the facts. They are the same today as they 
were in September, in October, in November, in December, and in 
January. It is the rhetoric and the political calculus that has 
changed. In fact, the e-mails released by the White House further 
demonstrate that point.
  The original CIA-produced talking points, notably produced as the 
result of a request by the House Intelligence Committee for media 
interviews, clearly show that in the days immediately after the attack, 
the intelligence community was not sure what exactly happened or who 
was responsible. The points produced by the CIA said the agency's 
belief the events in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the 
protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault 
against the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its 
annex. That point stays in the talking points from beginning to end of 
the interagency process, with no debate, and is conveyed to the House 
Intelligence Committee.
  Throughout the e-mail discussions, the agency makes clear their 
information is limited and that there is a lot they simply don't know. 
In fact, the National Counterterrorism Center says in one e-mail:

       At this point we are not aware of any actionable 
     intelligence that this attack was planned or imminent. The 
     intelligence community is combing through reporting from 
     before and after the attack to determine the full extent of 
     who was involved.

  It became clear over time that this was, in fact, a calculated 
terrorist attack, but there was no political calculation involved in 
the initial assessment.
  So let's be honest about what is happening here. It is not about 
doing all we can to find the truth and making sure it never happens 
again; it is about political gamesmanship and finding someone to blame.
  I remind my friends, and the American people, again, nothing has 
changed. Some wish to make this a political issue to drive a purely 
political agenda. I believe our real focus, our honest focus, and what 
the American people truly care about is the security of our missions 
and the safety of our personnel. That has been, and will remain, the 
clear focus of the Foreign Relations Committee going forward, and I 
hope we will have the support of our Republican colleagues.
  In my view the Monday morning quarterbacking on this issue is 
politically driven--a perspective shared by former Republican Defense 
Secretary Gates, who said on Sunday: ``Frankly, I think my decisions 
would have been just as theirs were'' with regard to sending in Special 
Forces teams or overflights by fighter aircraft based in Italy.
  Former Secretary Gates said:

       Without knowing what the environment is, without knowing 
     what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms 
     of what is actually going on, on the ground, would have been 
     very dangerous.

  So I think we have common interests. I have been working hard to 
ensure full implementation of all 29 recommendations made by the 
Administrative Review Board--recommendations to ensure that going 
forward we are providing adequate personnel and resources to meet local 
conditions at more than 280 facilities in over 180 countries around the 
world, specifically where host nations are unable to provide adequate 
protection to our diplomats. I call on our Republican colleagues to 
join us in that effort.
  Today, I am introducing legislation. I hope we will be able to count 
on the support of all of our colleagues to enact this crucial, time-
sensitive legislation without delay, without obstruction, and without 
political grandstanding.
  The bill will provide authority to fund the Capital Security Cost 
Sharing Program to permit us to move forward with construction at high-
risk, high-threat posts. This account was created following the U.S. 
Embassy bombings in Kenya and in Tanzania, and at that time it would 
have allowed us to construct 8 to 10 facilities per year. However, the 
way the Congress is funding it, it presently is funding for 
construction of just two to three facilities per year, despite the fact 
that there are at least two dozen posts that fall into that high-risk, 
high-threat category. At that rate it will take us over 8 years to get 
around to construction at just the posts with the highest risk of 
attack.
  The bill authorizes funding for Arabic language training and for a 
Foreign Affairs Security Training Center to train diplomatic security 
personnel. It provides contract authority to the State Department to 
allow it to award contracts on a best value basis rather than to the 
lowest bidder where conditions require enhanced levels of security. At 
the administration's request, the bill will authorize disciplinary 
action in cases of unsatisfactory leadership by senior officials 
related to a security incident, which does not presently exist. This 
will allow appropriate disciplinary action to be taken against any 
future officials in a circumstance such as Benghazi.
  The bill requires planning to incorporate additional marine security 
guards at overseas facilities, and it requires extensive reporting on 
State's implementation of the Accountability Review Board's 
recommendations on the designation of high-risk, high-threat posts.
  I hope we can work together to do what has to be done to protect 
those who serve this Nation abroad. If we want to address the problem, 
we have an opportunity to do it. If we want to score political points, 
fine, but do not do it at the risk of American lives. Let's work 
together to fix the problem, not use it for political advantage.
                                 ______