Recommended they not be used . I read reports of that, sir. Okay. You were once an rso, correct . Yes, sir. In your distinguished career, do you ever remember recommending that a service not be used . That being hired over your protest or yourar recommendation . Not in my experience, sir. Okay. But you would have at some point recommended somebody or maybe not recommended anybody . Was it your job to look at the performance of these people tht you were w aware of . When when we have barredded contracts. When we find the contractor is not performing we have variety of ways to deduct money and ultimately find theyre not performing. If theyre found to be lacking and not performing contract they can be terminated. They can be barred if that goes that far. You mentioned. February 17th, martyrs brigade i believe what it was called. We were told that was the host company security. Is that true or not . I, i would hesitate to call that host Country Security, sir. At best it probably had sop control in that area of the city but this is based on what i read from the reports. Is there an individual that would be at the post that would be responsible for insuring that theon 17th brigade was responsible and dependable . Sir, i wasnt there at the time. As a former rso i can probably tell you there were likely limited choices and one of the things that an rso would do at that point if he was faced with limited choices was try to tran them as best he could, to try to make the best of whatever situation he was handed. He would have to train the february brigade . If he found that they were not up to the levels that he wanted, he would engage and assist in the training, making sure they understood the guard orders. Making sure they had capabilities that were necessary. Into okay. Lets say, and they were hired in case there was an attack inside of the compound to respond. Who would have had the Contact Information and who would have been responsible on the poet for contacting the, this protective brigade of martyrs . There were, as i read the report, sir, again, i was not here at the time, there were personnels . On the compound. They hadad telephone communicatn with their own groups. The agent that was in the with their own groups . With other personnel in the group. With other personnel. And there was communication on the part of rso who was in the operations center, lo was making phone calls and there were phone calls that were being made by the annex. Okay. Lets go to the tripwires that mr. Cummings was talking about. The Foreign Affairs handbook defines tripwires as events that activate, initiate or set in motion post plans to prevent harm to the post, its personnel, the u. S. Citizen community or other u. S. National interests. The handbook also notes that when a trip wire event occurs, it requires that an action be taken. Are you familiar with that . Yes, sir. Its my understanding that the tripwires, are preplanned, preapproved measures that should be taken in light after securityrelated incident or threat, is that true . That is true, sir. Has the state department emphasized to post the purpose of having tripwires . Has the state department . Having tripwires . Yes. P when a trip wire is breach, meaning something bad has happened, that breach is the trigger to take specific action, is it not . At a minimum it is a, it is a warning that the post must review what has occurred and then determine whether action needs to be taken, at a minimum. Take action, rather than just requiring that they set around and reevaluate the situation . Mi well, sir, tripwires are written in advance of activities. We try to cover a wide variety of situations that could occur. Predicting the future and exactly what your actions are going to be is very difficult. I think the purpose of tripwires really is to indicate, wait, happened. Has just this could be significant. We need to consider whether or not we need to take action in this case. Okay. As i said previously it was normally a post activity. Now c once a trip wire is tripp, it is looked at both by the post and by the various sections in washington. Would you consider a hole being blown in the perimeter wall of the temporary mission facility, would you consider that a trip wire . I would certainly say that is a good indicator sir, probably crossed the tripwire. That event would have probably, should have caused some action or discussion, correct . Yes, sir. Would an attack on another diplomats coming into benghazi that caused that country to pull out, would that have been a trip wire . I assume youre referring to the attack on the British Ambassador, sir . Ng i am. That is another tripwire, yes. Okay. I certainly think that is an indication of Security Problems and instability. And so those were two tripwires that you would consider significant, would you not . Yes, sir. And what was done with the security after those two tripwires weret, tripped . Sir, as i said, i was not here at that time. I was not in Diplomatic Security. You read reports. I read the reports. Im aware that the rsos were increasing physical security. They were engaged in building safere havens inside of the facility. They had engaged in training with the guards, training routines. They had run drills with the annex. I think they were, from what i read they were doing the types of things that an rso would do when he sees the situation beginning to deteriorate. Thank you for your testimony. Thank all of you for being here. And lets hope we can get some results out of this tragic event. Thank you, gentleman from georgia. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Schiff. Thank you. At the outset, mr. Chairman, i want to thank you for conducting the hearing today and for the way you worked with us to bring together witnesses and followup on the arb recommendations. I greatly appreciate it. I want to ask you gentlemen something that is in a bit after differenti direction than the questions youve had thus far and that is, i also serve on the appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations and i have a opportunity to meet with a lot of Foreign Service officers o and here in washingtn and aroundns the world. Many described to me what they consider the benghazi effect on their jobs and by that, they refer to such a heightened concern about security that many of them feel they can not fulfill their mission anymore. That they are confined to a bunker. That theyre not allowed to undertake things they think are necessary, the job responsibilities. And i think this sentiment was best expressed in june by Vice President of the american Foreign Service association, Matthew Asada who wrote, does our collective response to benghazi threaten to the make the Foreign Service less knowledgeable about the world, less effective on the ground and ultimately less influential with the host country and with the u. S. Government itself . Thats a question that ambassador stevens might have asked and wonder if you could share your thoughts on it as we implement the recommendations of the arb and of your panel. How do w we make sure that were not preventing our, people from doing their job . We all acknowledge this is a dangerous thing and, as my colleague pointed out, our facilities have beenen attacked, literally hundreds of times over the last couple of decades. It has happened in the past. It will happen again. We want to protect our people as best we can but we want them to be effective. Thats why theyre there. So if you each could share briefly your thoughts on are we striking the right balance or has the benghazi effect meant that were undermining the ability of our peep to do their work . An kong an man you are going to the heart of Risk Management and how we implement Risk Management. Tell you over many years with the support of congress weve made great stride in building safer and secure facilitagy is o that an attack on a facility that could hurt everybody, in one attack weve, done great things in terms of protect that. If you look at the number of attacks against our facilities and how few are been successful. Most have been driven off with the casualties by our security personnel or others only. We have made Great Strides in that but we cant lock people inside of embassies. The whole point of diplomacy to get out and, i think we need to understand, and a lot of processes that weve been talking about are at our highest threat, highest risk posts we have got the most security and in many cases it will be the most restrictive for our Foreign Service personnel. But weve got to have the security programs in place to get them outside of the wall as well. That means protective security details. It means armored vehicles. It means working with host Country Security services. Every single day that we run motorcade outside of our embassy in kabul or in iraq or sanaa or the ones we ran in tripoli we were taking risks. But every single day we were judging what that risk was versus need to get out and making sure we could balance those risks and we were not running most motorcades or not getting people out for very good reasons. They had to be very important reasons. In lower threat level posts were operating almost normally around the h world. We have physical security at our posts but our people get out every single day. That is the work of diplomacy. Talking with people. Understanding the country, representing the United States and bringing information back and you dont do that without talking to people. So i think all the efforts that weve made in terms of recognizing what are our high threat, highest risk posts, doing Risk Management and making sure were getting people out when we can but understanding if too many people get injured or it is too dangerous we cant operate or if were negligent or were not taking the threat seriously enough we wont be there either. Well close that post if we get too many People Killed or too many people injured or the threat is too high. Those are the types of things that we need to weigh every single day. And we do. I can understand the frustration of Foreign Service officers at our highest threat level posts. No, sir, they can not live out in the open economy. They can not just go to a coffee shop but we are still even in the highest threat locations getting them to meetings they need to get to. I dont think that is the issue for them much as they would like to be accompanied by spouses and go to local coffee shop. What they have expressed to me is not that which they understand but that they cant undertake the meetings they want in places they need to go to have those meetings and have contacts they need to be able to gather the information for our government. To be t able to convey the u. S. Position to people. They cant do their job because they are, theyre confined by, ander hyper conservative point f view perspective back in washington. And, you get that feedback. And are there any situations where you feel the pressure has been such to be so risk avoidant that were not alouing our people to do their job . I think in the immediate aftermath after benghazi there is a deep appreciation of that attack and we may have, the pendulum may have swung the other way for a while. I think today, with the systems that we have put in place, with the Risk Management that we are doing every day, with things like pbvp, the additional sources youre giving us i would not agree with that statement, sir. I think we need to take certain precautions and we do but i talk with ambassador deb jones when we were still in tripoli. I talked with the ambassador in sanaa about whether were getting out enough and doing things were need to be doing and they say yes, we are and it is the right balance. Chairman, let me ask a very different question because i have very limited time. One of the props we have in benghazi was overreliance on willingness, ability, or loyalty of local militias to provide security. Are there any places around the world today where you feel were continuing to place an overreliance on local militias fothr security of our facilitie . You know that was something that, we talked an awful lot about, congressman. The fact when you go into a situation like that you have to be able to evaluate the will and capability of a particular guide force and i think no matter where you go in the world you will always have to come up with that evaluation. If you dont have that will and dont have that capability, no amount of morn any you did not money you pay on the contract will resolve that. Thats why it goes back to the Risk Management. If you dont have the capabilities locally you have to go and bring them in your sell. I cant speak to where they arent, who has them, who doesnt have them where in the world but i really do think, when you look at the reaction of that guard force there, even leading up to that, tripwires that were, that were spotted there, i mean that was a real concern and again i just go back to, there wasnt the will. There might have been the will but there just was not the capability. On either question. Well, i think, first of all, sir, one of our recommendations, to start with as mr. Sullivan pointed out in his Opening Statement, when we first started withl, our panel we thought we were going to look at these tactical issues of building bunkers and building higher walls. We quickly realized that wasnt the answer because that doesnt facilitate diplomacy and we looked at strategic and looked at department and overseas posts and Risk Management. We asked ambassadors, deputy chiefs of missions and Foreign Service officers as we traveled overseas tell us about the state departments Risk Management process. Without exception, each one said there is none and they make it up. Sadly to this day, while they may be making progress, that is still a significant concern. Risk management process, as you indicated, sir the Foreign Service is a dangerous business. We have to be out there. We have to do these things that are National Security priorities but we have to do it under a risk i management process that effective and sustainable and transparent. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Well recognize gentleman fromac ohio, mr. Jordan. How many years do you have in the security field . Tl approximately 30 years. How much did you serve in the state department in that area. Almost 23. Did you get good valuations high reviews, strong reviews. Yes, sir. So good in fact, i looked at your resume you were put on security detail to protect the secretary of state, is that accurate. Yes, sir. Secretary Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. Two recent secretaries. That subpoena anment from the Obama Administration . Yes, sir. You. Trust the agents in the field, mr. Keil. I trust them implicit think. They have the best perspective. They know what is going on. Out of their assessment, their instock exchanges, guys on the ground putting their lives on the line just like you did, when they make a recommendation to the state department, you take that seriously . Yes. I would. And are you familiar with the fact that the twice on the ground in benghazi repeatedly asked for additional security repeatedly denied . Yes, sir. From what we saw. Routinely denied . They said, this thing is out of control. We need some more good guys here. And repeatedly asked for that and repeatedly denied. It was worse than that, mr. Keel . S possibly, sir. What they asked for. We need nor but what they had was actually reduce is that accurate . Yes. Wa we heard yearandahalf ago testimony from colonel wood on in benghazi and he said this, quote we were fighting a losing battle. We couldnt even keep what we had. Mr. Keil, my guess, were the United States of america. We got facilities all over the globe. My guess is every facility the security people would say, we could use a few more folks here. We would like a few more. My guess is that happens. But wasnt the situation in libya and benghazi somewhat unique . Sir, when you look at the intelligence, the threat reporting, the deteriorating security environment, and the numerous incidents, yeah, i would prioritize benghazi that is what im talking about. Ied attacks, assassination attempts on British Ambassador and they said this is as bad as it gets. The state Department Says no, well reduce what you had. If you were agent on the ground, mr. Keil, would you have been lobbying for more help to come to dawes gauze. I would probably do more than lobbying and extremely frustrated and push every button that i could possibly push. Flip it around. Youre guys in washington get requests from guys on the ground with more help, would you have fought to make that request happen. As a matter of fact, sir, my last position way as regional director for ds Regional Bureau vetting requests from the field. Would i have put a significant amount of priority on benghazi requests. So you had that job . Yes. Before the benghazi you had that job . Correct. You would have went to bat for these folks . Yes i would have. Mr. Keil, what is the overseas Security Policy board. Oversease Security Policy board is inneragency board is a genesis from the Beirut Embassy bombings, the Inman Commission, which created the Diplomatic Security service, inman standards. It is inneragency board that creates physical security, technical security, procedural securityvi requirements. So these were standards developed interagency that the state department standards, is that correct. State departme