In what looks like a direct response to the attack on American diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, the State Department announced earlier today the appointment of an assistant secretary of state charged with monitoring security threats and directing resources to mitigate them.
Bill Miller, a former State Department special agent who coordinated regional security for the Coalition Provisional Authority and the American Embassy in Baghdad, will assume the post.
The State Department said in an announcement that the new assistant secretary will be responsible for “evaluating, managing, and mitigating the security threats, as well as the direction of resource requirements at high threat diplomatic missions.” Those missions include American diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.
In the months preceding the September 11th attacks in Benghazi – during which the American ambassador to Libya and three others were murdered – the State Department denied several requests for increased security there.