Editorial: Shifting Libya attack story raises red flags

• It did not spring from a spontaneous protest.
• Violence against Westerners had been escalating for months.
• It was a predictable vulnerability State Department failed to protect against.

Three weeks after an attack in Libya killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, we now know that it did not spring from a spontaneous protest, spurred by an anti-Muslim video, as the Obama administration originally described it. In fact, every aspect of the early account — peddled most prominently by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice — has unraveled.

Spontaneous? Hardly. The administration acknowledges that Ambassador Chris Stevens died in an organized terrorist attack, likely mounted by an Islamic extremist group and an al-Qaeda affiliate.

Without warning? Not exactly. Violence against Westerners had been escalating for months in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. In June, an improvised explosive device damaged a perimeter wall at the Benghazi compound. On Aug. 27, the State Department issued a travel warning, citing the threat of assassinations and bombings in both Benghazi and Tripoli. According to a journal found and described by CNN, Stevens himself was worried about safety.

Despite all those signals, the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi relied for protection on the young Libyan government and a small band of mostly private contract guards, according to news accounts. Fewer than 10 armed men, both Americans and Libyans, were in the compound when the attack began with gunfire and grenades on the 9/11 anniversary.

This, then, was not one of those failures that is only visible in retrospect. It was a predictable vulnerability that the State Department failed to protect against. And for the sake of Americans in other foreign outposts, that calls for much closer scrutiny than the administration has been willing to allow.

Facing skepticism from members of Congress, including Democrats, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta finally called the assault what it was: terrorism. But the administration has said little else, other than that its initial misinterpretation resulted from faulty intelligence.

Among the most significant unanswered questions: Did U.S intelligence fail to get warnings of a plot? Or were warnings ignored? Why weren't Marines stationed at such a dangerous post? Did Stevens seek more security only to be denied, or did the ambassador fail to act on the concerns expressed in his diary? And, most urgently, does the success of the attack suggest that other foreign outposts could be inadequately fortified?

No doubt the administration wants to be sure that it has the facts straight before risking a second blunder. But the longer it waits, the worse it looks, and the longer other facilities will have to wait for beefed up protection.

A decade ago, the U.S. generally closed missions in dangerous spots, but the Obama administration has continued a push, started by President George W. Bush, to keep missions open in such hot spots as Iraq and Afghanistan to pursue American interests.

Security budgets have grown tenfold, from less than $200 million in 1998 to $2.2 billion in 2008, but it is not always clear what all that money is buying.

Much of the increased security since attacks in 1998 on U.S. embassies in Lebanon, Kenya and Tanzania has been reactive and not strategically planned, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. That needs to change.

Ten years from now, a State Department official told us, the department might look back at Benghazi as the "unprecedented attack that led to the reassessment" of security at missions around the world. You'd think that the 1998 attacks — not to mention the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held at the embassy in Tehran for 444 days — would have been sufficient wake-up calls.

Obviously, they were not, and the reasons why need a full airing.