The State Department today sought to downplay leaving the attacked Benghazi Consulate totally unguarded for weeks after the attack, insisting that the reports of looting and the documents scattered all over the floors didn’t necessary prove a “breach” had occurred.
“If you take a look at those things that were found, they were all unclassified documents,” insisted spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, referring to yesterday’s Washington Post report on the papers scattered on the floor.
Yet what was still laying on the floor is only half of the story, and the Post report also detailed considerable looting and that “many documents may have disappeared.” What those documents might be is anybody’s guess, and Nuland provided no insight.
Instead she focused on what was still there, saying that it “wasn’t surprising to anyone” that documents detailing the evacuation plan were found on the floor. That the documents may have been taking out during the attack certainly isn’t a surprise, but that the site sat unguarded for weeks certainly is, and as the US finally gets investigators to the site their biggest problem isn’t that the Washington Post embarrassed them by getting there first, it is what might have gone missing from the day of the attack until now.