Beirut to Benghazi: A Timeline of Embassy Attacks

We mourn, but then we must move forward.

The loss of American lives is always a tragedy. When these losses occur overseas, especially in areas of conflict, we get angry and demand answers. Never has this been more true than with the September 2012 attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead. Since then, Republicans have been on an obsessive hunt for any information that might place blame for the tragedy on the White House. The response has been overwhelming and just a tad excessive. Both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary John Kerry have been called to testify to Congress. The House of Representatives has conducted more than 13 hearings, written more than 25,000 pages of documents and held more than 50 briefings about the events in Benghazi.

On August 6, 2014, the House Intelligence Committee released yet another report on Benghazi. According to Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel, "Our investigation found the intelligence community warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened." Essentially, the events were not a result of malicious intentions—only a tragic misread of the available information. This conclusion matches every previous Congressional report and hearing.

Despite these findings, a House Select Committee created in May 2014 will continue to call hearings to examine evidence from the attacks. Apparently, Republicans think there is more to find. It has been almost two years since the Benghazi tragedy, and yet, Congress continues to spend time and taxpayer money rehashing the same information over and over.

But it wasn’t always this way. Unfortunately, attacks on US embassies are not a new phenomenon. The Global Terrorism Database, a service of the University of Maryland, College Park, has compiled information on over 125,000 terrorist attacks across the world. Their data shows that there have been more than 30 deadly attacks on US embassies and consulates since 1970. The timeline below shows attacks that resulted in at least two casualties. Note that the events in Benghazi technically occurred over two days in September 2012.

Timeline includes attacks on US embassies and consulates since 1970 with at least two casualties.

So how have similar situations been handled by Congress? On April 18, 1983, with President Ronald Reagan in office, a suicide bomber drove a truck into the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The resulting blast killed 63 people, 17 of whom were Americans, including top CIA personnel. This incident is still the most deadly terrorist attack on American diplomatic ground. On October 23, 1983, another bomber drove a truck of explosives into a US Marine compound in Beirut, killing over 240 servicemen. Despite the fact that Congress was controlled by Democrats, the White House was not blamed for the attack. The Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, ordered a hearing and investigation—just one.

The investigation concluded, finding that “very serious errors in judgment were made”, and the document suggested urgent security measures for President Reagan to implement overseas. Just months after the report was written, in March of 1984, another US embassy was bombed in Beirut. The CIA’s station chief, Bill Buckley, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. In the wake of this third tragedy in Beirut in eighteen months, Congress didn’t hold any hearings. All of the culpability went to the perpetrators, not our government.

There are a lot of lessons here. First, safety measures can always be improved. In both the Beirut and Benghazi bombings, the intelligence community had intercepted information that could have prevented the attack. Unfortunately, in a dangerous world, those particular threats were not given priority. But time cannot go backwards, and we cannot save the four brave Americans we lost in Libya. We should always adapt and advance our security measures, but we must go on.

In the aftermath of the Beirut attacks, Congress was outraged—at the terrorists—at the people who brutally ended the lives of so many. A thorough investigation followed, and the resulting report identified specific weaknesses in our defense. Our security tactics evolved as a result and Americans were safer. And the episode was over. No subpoenas. No endless hearings and briefings. No political cudgel to hold over the opposition party throughout midterm elections. Instead, there was a resolution.

My advice to Congress is this: We mourn, we investigate, we improve; but then we move forward. We must—otherwise our enemies succeed by keeping us stuck in the past.