Embassy Warning in Libya: Lazybones Obama & Feckless HRClinton Asleep at the Tiller

As a former FSO Arabist in the Middle East, I would have thought it unheard of not to act on advance intel of the nature described in The Independent:

The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal.

American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the "safe house" in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed "safe".

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted.

Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy's security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely.

The Independent is a newspaper where former MI6 Brits and other UK intelligence types who do a bit of journalism after they retire usually fetch up.

What the article implies, besides serious dereliction of duty by State & other security officials, is that there is one or more moles in the American Embassy/Consulate network there who are connected to Al-Qaeda & other Arab terrorist groups.

The Obama Administration has up to now considered such security duties mere "housekeeping" far beneath the dignity of the Obamaites who consider themselves visionaries, evidently, in some sort of supervisory or monitoring role over "The Arab Spring."

Don't expect any heads, like that of Ann Patterson, to roll. That would imply management accountability---not something the Obama crowd take seriously.