By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
U.S. embassies and diplomatic outposts have skipped or exempted themselves from security requirements without the knowlege of the State Department in Washington, creating an ad hoc system so riddled with exceptions that the agency’s internal watchdog is raising new safety alarms just months after the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate.
In a rare show of bipartisanship Tuesday, foreign policy leaders in the House pushed the Obama administration to appoint a State Department Inspector General — a position that has officially gone unfilled for more than five years.
Investigators looking for lessons from the fatal terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might want to start on Capitol Hill, where Congress slashed spending on diplomatic security and U.S. embassy construction over the past two years.
Office space must meet greater physical security standards than warehouse space," Deputy Inspector General Harold W. Geisel wrote in a review completed Jan. 7, four months after the Benghazi tragedy.
State Department often unaware outposts are skipping security procedures →
• The State Department’s acting Inspector General Harold W. Geisel, has said he is developing a "scope of work" plan for his own inquiry, launched at the urging of Sens. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, and Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican.
