State Department Followed Benghazi Attack as It Happened
State Department Followed Benghazi Attack as It Happened - Bloomberg
The U.S. State Department monitored the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, “in almost real-time,” according to an official who oversees diplomatic security.
Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said a security agent activated a danger-notification system as the attack began shortly before 10 p.m. local time on Sept. 11.
“From that point on, I could follow what was happening in almost real time,” Lamb said in written testimony prepared for a hearing today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating the attack and whether security was adequate.
State Department officials said yesterday they had never concluded the attack grew out of a protest over a video depicting the Prophet Muhammad, as some Obama administration officials had said last month. The officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said there had been no protest at the U.S. consulate that day and the attack came suddenly.
Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, today defended the initial accounts from the administration that the attack resulted from a protest that spiraled out of control