The chairmen of five House committees today in an interim report to Speaker John Boehner, R-Oh, accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of lying to Congress about reducing security in Benghazi, Libya, before last September's attacks, vowing to continue reviewing what it described as a "cover up" over the nature of the attacks and hold administration officials accountable.

The report is a compilation of investigations by the Republican staff of five House committees: Oversight, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, Intelligence, and Judiciary. The five committees have not "officially adopted" the report, it notes. 

"The U.S. government did not deploy sufficient U.S. security elements to protect U.S. interests and personnel that remained on the ground," the chairmen found. "Senior State Department officials knew that the threat environment in Benghazi was high and that the Benghazi compound was vulnerable and unable to withstand an attack, yet the department continued to systematically withdraw security personnel. Repeated requests for additional security were denied at the highest levels of the State Department."

On March 28, 2012, then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz requested additional security in Libya. The chairmen point to an April 19, 2012, response cable bearing Clinton's signature that "instead articulates a plan to scale back security assets for the U.S. Mission in Libya, including the Benghazi Mission." According to the report, embassy staff interpreted this to mean that Foggy Bottom wanted a study to justify removing two security teams.

In June, Chris Stevens, the new ambassador, asked to keep the two security teams through upcoming elections, but his request was denied.

Clinton, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January, said the cables never rose to her attention. Tuesday's report to Boehner included Clinton's response at the time: "Well if I could -- 1.43 million cables a year come to the State Department. They are all addressed to me. They do not all come to me. They are reported through the bureaucracy."

It's not clear who in the State Department sent the April 19 response. But as a general rule, "every single cable sent from Washington to the field is sent over the secretary of state's name," a former State Department official noted, adding, "Though they are trying to make this new, it's not. After 30+ hearings and briefings, thousands of pages, this has all been addressed."

The chairmen pin ultimate responsibility on President Barack Obama for failing "to proactively anticipate the significance of September 11 and provide the Department of Defense with the authority to launch offensive operations beyond self-defense."

After the attacks, the chairmen argued, "The Administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video." 

The Republicans also criticized the president for putting the post-attack investigation in the hands of the F.B.I. instead of military and intelligence officials. The decision, they argued, "significantly delayed U.S. access to key witnesses and evidence and undermined the government's ability to bring those responsible for the attacks to justice in a timely manner."

The three main findings, according to the executive summary, are:

• "Reductions of security levels prior to the attacks in Benghazi were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, up to and including Secretary Clinton. This fact contradicts her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on January 23, 2013."
• "In the days following the attacks, White House and senior State Department officials altered accurate talking points drafted by the Intelligence Community in order to protect the State Department."
• "Contrary to Administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect classified information. Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior Administration officials."

"The committees will continue to review who exactly was responsible for the failure to respond to the repeated requests for more security and for the effort to cover up the nature of the attacks, so that appropriate officials will be held accountable," wrote the chairmen.

More than half of Boehner's Republican conference has asked him to create a select committee that could concentrate on the investigation. Such a move would ramp up political pressure on President Obama, but Boehner so far has resisted that call as a move that would cost time and money.

In the report, Republicans use the Benghazi attacks as basis for wider criticism of Obama's foreign policy across the Middle East, which they argue shows a "lack of a comprehensive national security strategy or a credible national security posture in the region." The chairmen predict that "this singular event will be repeated" unless Obama "properly postures resources and security assets."

Additionally, the chairmen further accuse the president of not being forthcoming to the public about threats to the United States. They call on Congress to be "an effective counterweight to the administration's failure to adequately communicate the nature and the extent of the threats our country faces today."

The State Department referred questions to the White House, which responded with the following statement by National Security Staff spokesperson Caitlin Hayden:

"The report just released by the House Republican Conference on Benghazi appears to raise questions that have already been asked and answered in great detail by the Administration. We have taken extraordinary steps to work with five different committees in Congress in investigating what happened before, during, and after the Benghazi attacks. The Administration has provided over ten thousand pages of documents, senior agency officials have appeared in ten congressional hearings on Benghazi; agency officials have provided more than 20 briefings for members and staff; and agencies have permitted members to view classified video footage from the night of the attacks. Most importantly, the State Department’s Accountability Review Board -- the independent body charged with reviewing the attacks and evaluating the interagency response -- released its report which specifically found that the interagency response was “timely and appropriate” and “helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans,” while also making important recommendations to improve security that we are in the process of implementing." 

House Demcrats responded to the interim report with a letter, signed by the ranking members of each of the five committees, accusing their colleagues of issuing "a partisan Republican staff report on Benghazi without any vetting for accuracy or consideration by Committee Members."

The U.S. military had no time to react fast enough to save the life of Amb. Chris Stevens the night the mission in Benghazi was overrun by armed attackers, an independent investigation of the incident has determined.

The finding by the Accountability Review Board, which includes former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Amb. Mike Mullen and former Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering (pictured above arriving in Congress, on Wednesday), was released in the group’s final report on Tuesday. The panel supports Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s assertion, first made in October, that the military did not have enough time to rescue the Americans under attack on Sept. 11.

“There simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference,” the panel concluded. The authors praised the speed of the medical evacuation operation AFRICOM was able to muster from Tripoli to Germany, and the arrival of a Marine FAST response team to protect the embassy in Tripoli on Sept. 12.

The report does not address, however, Panetta’s additional assertions that Gen. Carter Ham, AFRICOM commander, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, Joint Chiefs chairman, also determined during the attack that they did not have enough information to justify the risk of sending troops to aid the Benghazi victims in any capacity.

“I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation,” Panetta said at the time, though he insisted contingency troops were available in the region.

Ham revealed in a recent George Washington University appearance that AFRICOM in October created its own rapid-response force, but not in response to the Benghazi attack. Previously, the command shared a force with European Command. “It was a planned transition,” Ham said.

The new AFRICOM-dedicated Commander’s in-Extremis Force gives Africa its own capacity for small teams of special operations forces trained in counterterrorism to respond at a moment’s notice to events in the area. It will be based in Fort Carson, Colo., but likely team members will be forward deployed closer to Africa, according to Stars and Stripes, which first reported the development this week.

The Benghazi report mostly critiques the performance of State Department security operations before, during, and after the attack. For the military, the panel concluded that communications and coordination between Washington and Libya, including AFRICOM, was effective.

The military wasn’t entirely stagnant the night of the attacks. AFRICOM moved a drone over Benghazi shortly before the diplomatic security team departed, the panel determined. A second drone relieved the first to continue surveillance into the next day. Meanwhile, U.S. Embassy and other personnel who evacuated Benghazi for Tripoli later were picked up by an AirForce C-17, sent with a C-130 from Germany, to evacuate the wounded. The report said the military’s coordination of medical teams saved the lives of two Americans. Several wounded departed for Ramstein Airbase the afternoon of Sept. 12 on the C-17, with the help of the Libyan government.

As you watch tonight’s presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on foreign policy, remember this: there are few things Americans care less about than foreign policy. And, conveniently, there are fewer things Americans know less about than foreign policy.

But Americans have opinions, nonetheless. Since 2010, there have been more Americans saying they wanted to pull troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible than those saying the United States should stabilize that country first. By a roughly 60-30 percent gap, Americans are more worried about China’s economic strength than its military power. More than 60 percent have no faith that sanctions will sway Iran to give up its nuclear program. And more than 65 percent of Americans think the administration is treating Israel just fine. As for Russia, only 2 percent of Americans think it’s the greatest threat to the United States.

National security is not run by referendum, however. But keep those statistics and these others released last Friday in mind when Obama and Romney try to strike a balance tonight between looking like a strong commander-in-chief, but not one who is wasteful or itching to get the U.S. too involved around the world. Americans want a tough president, but one who is ready to focus his attention back home, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest findings.

What does that mean for these five issue areas that have been announced for tonight’s debate?

“America’s Role in the World”

This topic goes to the heart of the U.S. military’s footprint around world and how the next president intends to use it -- and never mind the militarization of foreign policy, because that’s a phrase barely mentioned in the Pentagon. Obama has presented Congress a five-year plan that offers a robust global counterterrorism presence with a significant downsizing of the Army and Marine Corps, a plan strongly backed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a pivot/rebalancing toward Asia. That means a leaner military. Defense spending could get aired out tonight here and it could be interesting. The brass are on record that they want to reset, refit, and retrain the force for the post-Iraq and Afghanistan world. Few are calling for what Romney is advocating: a significant increase in the troop presence in the Middle East and a 4 percent GDP-sized spending account for the Pentagon. More likely, the candidates will present their views in basest of terms: the open hand of Obama versus the “no apology” of Romney and American exceptionalism. But will they challenge each other?

“Our Longest War -- Afghanistan and Pakistan”

There is less daylight between Obama and Romney on any topic than Afghanistan. That’s mostly because Romney has not offered any different course other than promising to be more attentive to commanders on the ground, which allows him to imply Obama has not done so. In his Tampa acceptance speech, Romney didn’t mention Afghanistan. Republicans are divided over what to do there next. And even though Democrats by 98 percent think Obama’s pullout order too slow, the president gives Romney little room here. The U.S. and NATO are committed to the 2014 deadline -- whether you believe the U.S. will keep fighting that long or not. Unless moderator Bob Scheiffer draws something out of the candidates, those watching among the 67,000 troops in Afghanistan can expect little more than a rehashing of the justification for extending the war another two years.

“Red Lines -- Israel and Iran”

Romney has tried most to distinguish himself as a better friend to Israel than Obama. But as they speak, the United States and Israel are preparing to begin a massive war game that’s unofficially geared as a united defense against an Iranian missile threat -- the expected response from Tehran should anyone try to knock out their nuclear program.  “Who loves Israel more?” is now staple campaign fare. Look for Obama tonight to defend his love for Israel and press Romney to say what, exactly, he’d do differently than the current administration. Look for Romney to allege that Obama’s sanctions-loving, Israel-ostracizing public posture is only making the region less stable.

“The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism”

Obama might use some of this time to explain just how extensively the Pentagon is preparing for or engaged in counterterrorism operations country-by-country across the Middle East and North Africa. U.S. officials are working the new post-Arab Awakening governments to secure relationships and military ties they’ll need to track and keep a thumb on al Qaeda and other extremists. Under Obama, security and stability still drives Middle East policy. Romney will likely continue to hit Obama on botching Benghazi, on not helping the Syrian rebels enough, and for allowing extremism to spread throughout the region. It could be the most interesting exchange of the night, especially if the president opts to highlight U.S. military activity in the region under his watch.

“The Rise of China and Tomorrow’s World”

For some national security watchers, this topic should be called “The Rise of China’s Military.” But it’s not, for a reason. Most Americans are far more concerned about China’s economic rise than they are about J-20 stealth fighter test runs. Romney has made trade with China a centerpiece of his campaign. Don’t expect a debate over strategic power here -- it’s probably the segment to step out and grab popcorn as the candidates discuss manufacturing jobs and currency manipulation. Or to flip over to what tens of millions of other Americans tonight will actually be paying close attention to: Monday Night Football.

The Defense Department is determining how the U.S. military can get more involved in the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups spreading across North African countries.

Actually, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said so openly, two months go. Exactly how the U.S. should get more involved in the region, though, reached new levels, according to a Washington Post story on Tuesday, which reports that the White House "has held a series of secret meetings in recent months" on the issue. 

In the Pentagon today, however, officials are pretty even toned about it all. There is no desire or planning in the building toward "unilateral" military actions in North Africa, which the Post described as being heard out in the White House -- including unilateral drone strikes. In fact, the E-Ring is told the focus is on working with national militaries in the region to give them what they need, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, to include drones, and a whole lot of other training.

But there remains a whole lot of grey to figure out, including what can be done, what permissions are needed, and what drone assets can be shifted to eyeball the vast width of the African continent from as a far away as Pakistan.

"There are no plans, at this stage, for unilateral U.S. military operations in Mali or in the region," Pentagon press secretary George Little said in Tuesday's press briefing. "As always, we're paying very close attention to the situation in the region, and stand ready should our partners in the region and regional actors such as ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) request our assistance. But at this time, that's where we are."
 
Little said the Pentagon is focused on building capacities in the region, but would not say on the record if additional drones were part of any assistance requests coming from North Africa. "With regard to specific requests, I wouldn't get into those in a public forum. I'm not prepared to make any announcements today."

The Pentagon has made no secret that it is willing, eager even, to get a much higher level of counterterrorism operations in North Africa going. Panetta, on the first stop of his Middle East visit in Tunisia in July, said, "We continue to be concerned about continuing Al Qaida presence in places like Yemen and Somalia and in North Africa.  And so for that reason, we strongly urge countries like Tunisia to develop a counterterrorism operation that can deal with that. And there are a number of efforts that we can assist them with to develop the kind of operations, the kind of intelligence that would help them effectively deal with that threat.  And they expressed a willingness to work with us on that effort."

The phrasing was important: "They expressed a willingness to work with us." In other words, the U.S. is doing the asking there, wanting countries like Tunisia to open their borders to American intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to get an early crack against terrorists groups who want to use the largely unwatched, remote, and sometimes ungoverned spaces across North Africa.

On the way into Tunisia, Panetta also told reporters, "I will reaffirm the commitment of the United States to the stability of the Middle East and North Africa. Our goal is to advance security by supporting peaceful change throughout the region. This means we believe that establishing strong partnerships with new governments in the region."

"They have growing concerns about how to deal with Al Qaeda, how to deal with AQIM [Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], and they've also indicated growing concerns about how to protect their borders."

So, step one: establish partnerships (where more are needed, like in post-revolution Tunisia). Step two: ask North African governments to "work with us." Step three? Well, that appears to be what the White House is hearing out.

As has been reported, Africa Command's commander, Gen. Carter Ham, in several African countries, has given public assurances the U.S. wants no unilateral involvement in Mali. But that's not what the Pentagon wants, anyway. It wants to help North African militaries help themselves.

The bottom of the Washington Post story gives a handy primer on how AQIM has grown outward from Algeria to Mali, and how the U.S. has armed, equipped and aided neighboring countries to handle spill-over concerns. Some of Mali's government officials have said they wan the ECOWAS to help take the counterterrorism lead. That's what they're saying in the E-Ring, too.

For the second year in a row, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will meet with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in New York City alongside the United Nations General Assembly opening session.

Panetta will attend the Friday meeting, a U.S. defense official confirmed to the E-Ring late Monday, amid simmering questions over Syria's borders, which are pulsating from civil war; Egypt's expansion of counterterrorism operations on the Sinai; Iraq's quickening spiral into disarray; and whether -- or when -- the U.S. should use military strikes to halt Iran's nuclear progress.

The GCC is a partnership between the monarchial states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain, all linked by their massive oil reserves.

The group has emerged recently as a bloc opponent to Iran's meddling in Syria's civil war. The Sunni-majority GCC states criticize the Shiite-dominated Iranian regime for opposing the Sunni rebels in Syria.

Any U.S., Israeli, or NATO strike on Iran certainly would cause enormous regional turmoil, and recent reports cited one Iranian official threatening to target U.S. military bases in the region in retaliation. But Panetta and top Pentagon officials like Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Jim Miller, under secretary of defense for policy, have consistently maintained there is more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work on Tehran's leaders.

In his eighth visit to New York's grand week for diplomacy, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday deflected reporters' questions about the political dispute between Israel, which he referred to as "the Zionists," and the Obama administration over red lines. Ahmadinejad appeared to dismiss the issue as quickly as Panetta did two weeks ago.

Last year's GCC meeting with Panetta drew attention because of security questions surrounding the pro-democracy Arab uprisings stretching from Tunisia to Bahrain.

This year's meeting follows renewed protests, but this time by anti-Western demonstrators and extremists that have caused the Pentagon do deploy additional Marines and ships to the Middle East for backup embassy security duty.

Panetta said recently of the demonstrations that he felt that extremist elements were taking advantage of the security vacuum that was left behind by toppled dictatorships, but were as ineffective in swaying popular opinion as the KKK is in the U.S.

The Pottery Barn rule may apply to Libya after all.

U.S. defense officials on Wednesday told the E-Ring that the rapid reaction teams of roughly 50 Marines sent to Libya within hours of a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi could be the beginning of a much longer-term presence.

One senior military official said those forces could be there for "as long as needed -- days, weeks, even months," and may indeed be a precursor to an even larger U.S. military presence to come.

"The Department of Defense is ready to respond with additional military measures, as directed by the president," said a senior administration official, speaking to reporters on a conference call later Wednesday.

But already one thing is clear: the White House decision to send additional Marines to Libya within hours of the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens highlights President Obama's decision last year not to send ground troops in the first place, before or after the fall of Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime.

"In some sense, what you're seeing today is the consequence of that decision," said Nora Bensahel, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. 

Colin Powell's famous warning before the U.S. invaded Iraq dictated -- "you break it, you own it" -- was his prediction that if the U.S. toppled a country's government, it was responsible for providing security at the very least to the population in the conflict's aftermath.

In Libya, however, the Obama administration took great caution to avoid the Pottery Barn rule. Through NATO-led air operations wholly dependent on U.S. intelligence and drone capabilities the U.S. did not send ground troops. Instead, allied forces found and toppled al-Qaddafi from the skies above.

Unlike in Iraq, when the regime fell there were no American G.I.‘s on the ground to whom went the responsibility of patrolling street corners, manning security checkpoints and enforcing nighttime curfews. In short, there were no U.S. troops for pro-al-Qaddafi insurgents or anti-Western terrorists to kill.

That legacy figures at varying degrees into the administration's reticence to involve the U.S. military in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, or other pro-democracy movements across the Middle East and North Africa region.

In Libya, at least, that could change.

"We're working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats," Obama said, in a Rose Garden statement. "I've also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world.  And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people."

"The goal," explained a U.S. defense official, "is to short up security around our installations." That is the role of the Marine Corps' Fast Anti-Terrorism Reaction Teams, or FAST teams, at least initially.

Sending the Marines now is the right decision for immediate force protection, Bensahel argued, but it doesn't necessary mean the administration was wrong to keep ground troops out of Libya until now. The groups conducting or provoking violence in Libya, she said, are relatively small.

"It's very very difficult to say how could you prevent this from happening. I think the unfortunate truth of what happened yesterday... is some amount of these attacks are going to be inevitable."

Bensahel argued it would require foreign troops across the entire country to ensure there was no unwatched space for them to exist, or hide in between attacks on embassies or other sites. "We would have had to deploy tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops throughout the country to do that successfully," she claimed.

Even if the U.S. left smaller troop numbers just to protect key buildings, cities or regions, they would be left at risk of likely attacks.

"You were looking at either a very large ground commitment or you accept some amount of risk," she said, neither of which is good. Either way, despite the week's events, it's too early to know if Obama was right.

"It may yet turn out to be the right strategic call, we just don't know yet."

More than U.S. troops, what many feel Libya needs is its own capable security forces.

"Eventually what is really needed is Libyan security institutions, a strong Libyan police force and Libya army," said Laura Dean, who was in Libya in July as an elections observer for the Carter Center.

Dean was in the much calmer west, near the Tunisia border, and Tripoli.  The level of competence of security forces or militias depends on where you are, she said.
"Each militia has its own character, and where I was they were quite trusted, doing the day-to-day [security], patrolling the toll road."

So, security was not a countrywide problem.

"With few exceptions, we didn't feel there was a danger," she said of the West. "There was much more palpable tension in Benghazi." There, polling stations were torched around the time of the elections.

But Dean said she was so encouraged just two months ago from meeting so many Libyan people working toward the elections and democracy that the news of the consulate attack hit hard.

"Very surprised... I think because when I was there there were foreigners that were detained, but not -- the fact that it was so sudden and they were killed so violently, yes it was incredibly shocking and upsetting."