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Deputy Secretary Bill Burns admitted the months-long investigation into the September assault on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, had taken “a clear-eyed look at serious, systemic problems, which are unacceptable.”
He told reporters the department had “learned some very hard and painful lessons in Benghazi,” where four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed in an attack by dozens of armed militants linked to Al-Qaeda.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the whole department “take responsibility” for the issues highlighted by the Accountability Review Board (ARB) and accepted all of its 29 recommendations, he stressed.
But top Republican lawmaker Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the panel made it clear in their 39-page report that a lack of leadership and management “is to blame for the series of errors that resulted in the loss of life.
“The recent resignations of three State Department officials is not the end, as the administration must continue to be held accountable,” said Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House foreign affairs committee.
Clinton, who had to pull out of this week’s scheduled congressional hearings due to illness, must “answer for these failures,” she added in a statement. US television networks said Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell, head of the bureau of diplomatic security, and Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for international programs, had stepped down, citing unnamed officials.
The third person to submit their resignation was not identified. State Department officials would not immediately confirm the reports to AFP.
Only hours earlier the panel blamed “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels” in the bureaus of diplomatic security and Near Eastern affairs for “grossly inadequate” security in Benghazi. — AFP.
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