http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324205404578149800249850958.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack that killed him and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens documented his concerns about safety there. He made two separate requests for increased security that weren’t fulfilled—one to local Libyan authorities and one to the State Department in Washington. Both were similar to requests I made last year as a U.S. ambassador serving abroad, and both reflected a far too common frustration among American diplomats.
During my tenure as U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan from February 2011 to January 2012, our embassy continuously faced serious terror threats. As the Washington Post’s Joby Warrick reported on May 28, terrorists planned to murder Israeli and U.S. diplomats and their families—including, I feared, my own—in the capital of Baku. When the threats reached alarming levels during my first week on the job, it immediately became clear how vulnerable we would be to an attack by determined terrorists should they breach our embassy walls.
The key to keeping American personnel safe lay with Azerbaijan’s security forces, who worked with the U.S. to keep potential attackers away from the embassy’s perimeter. Azerbaijani operatives ultimately apprehended the terrorists before they struck. The preventive effort required an unusual level of collaboration between U.S. and Azerbaijani officials beyond the routine requirements under the Geneva Convention for host governments to protect foreign diplomatic facilities.