Report on Beirutgate

"A tragically simple mistake." After weeks of discussion about possible failures of intelligence and other lapses leading up to the September bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, that was the conclusion of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. Had a steel gate or some other barrier been installed to protect the approach to the building, the terrorist attack would probably not have been successful. The report adds that the relocation of the embassy headquarters from Muslim West Beirut to Christian East Beirut was progressing slowly and that the contractor hired to build a gate was preoccupied with other projects. The embassy staff apparently did not put enough pressure on the contractor to get to work on the gate.

The Senate report was seen by some as an implicit rebuke to the Defense Intelligence Agency, which leaked its own report critical of the State Department for not paying enough heed to DIA reports about potential terrorist activity. "We did not mean to come down on the State Department side," said a committee staffer, but, he added, "DIA, by leaking the report, did not help the debate."