The State Department building, an imposing structure, is located in the part of Washington that is known as the Foggy Bottom. The Metro Station closest to the State Department is called the Foggy Bottom, and naturally, the organization took on that nick-name. Pentagon may be known as the "puzzle palace," but the State Department is known as the "foggy bottom," for more reasons than its location! There are, however, annexes scattered throughout Washington area as well, so the State Department is literally all over Washington area.
Most people, other than those working for the State Department, do not really know how it is organized and how it really functions or doesn't function. Everyone is aware that U.S. government civilian employees working for various departments and agencies are categorized as General Schedule or GS (other than the Post Office). The ranking system goes from the low of GS-1 (with officer grading from GS-7) to the high of GS-15, which is equivalent to the military 0-6 Colonel (Army, Air Force, Marines) or Captain in the Navy. Above GS-15 (there used to be GS 16 through 18, but not any more) there is now the Senior Executive Service, the SES which is equivalent to General/Flag Officer rank. In the State Department, however, there are actually two categories of career employees, the GS employees and the FS or the Foreign Service. The FS ranking system goes in the opposite direction from GS, the lower the number, the higher the grade, so an FS-1 would be like the GS-15. After FS-1, there is the Senior Foreign Service, the SFS, which is like the SES or General/Flag Officer.
The difference is that the GS employees are stationed in Washington DC or elsewhere within the U.S., domestically, whereas the FS employees, as their name implies, are required to serve abroad at posts around the world. The third none career category are the political appointees, those that gained their positions through political appointment (connections!). The vast majority of employees in the State Department building in Washington and offices around the U.S. are GS type employees. However, the FS employees are encouraged to return to the U.S. and serve at least a tour (2, 3 or 4 years) to keep them familiar with how things work back home and also to prevent some from going "native" abroad! GS employees in turn are encouraged to take what is known as an "excursion tour" overseas and work at a post, usually in Consular or Administrative areas, but occasionally in other fields as well, so they will know what it is like to be at the other end! However, for the GS employees it is usually just a one shot deal, whereas the FS employees spend their entire government service careers abroad with occasional break in Washington.
Within the structure of the FS system, there are two distinct categories, the FO and the FP. The FO stands for the Foreign Service Officers. This is the traditional Foreign Service diplomatic officers career path. FSOs as they are known, enter the service by taking the rather difficult Foreign Service Exam that is offered annually, and generally speaking, you have to be a college graduate. The FP stands for Foreign Service Professional and they could be in any number of fields everything from communications, general services, medical, etc. FPs do not enter the Foreign Service through the same process. To reach the highest positions in the Foreign Service, you have to be in the FO category.
The State Department is the recipient and provider of information on foreign affairs matters of our government since the days of Ben Franklin who was our first diplomat. It is the State Department that gathers and provides information to the White House about foreign politics, economy, military and intelligence. Of course information on military and intelligence is also provided separately by Pentagon's DIA and CIA as well. All information that is gathered abroad goes to the State Department, to various offices and country desks (country specific offices). The important information goes directly to the Operations Center where the information is digested and provided in Secretary of State's briefing each morning. The Operation Center is manned by FSOs and all key positions in various offices and desks are manned by FSOs doing their stateside tours. All matters concerning security are directed to the Diplomatic Security Office and the Operations Center as well. So, matters concerning security at posts abroad are included in Secretary's briefing each morning.
In the past, prior to the 1980s when attacks on our diplomatic missions abroad escalated, an overzealous editor in the Operations Center might have, on occasion, left out information about security concerns at some small post abroad. But that was not the case after the various attacks on our missions in the 1980s took place. All requests or reports about security of our posts abroad was and is included in the Secretary's morning briefing paper. It is inconceivable that if there were over 60 requests for security assistance from Benghazi, that the Secretary was unaware of it! If all 60 plus requests were ignored and left out of the Secretary's briefings, then someone in the Operations Center was grossly negligent and should be in prison!
So, there's the brief and somewhat inadequate run down on State Department and how information is disseminated in the system. Information comes in from abroad, and disseminated to various offices according to the tags that were provided on the message. Important information and information concerning security, regardless of how it was tagged, goes to the Operations Center. The Operations Center digests all the incoming information and provides a briefing memo for the Secretary of State each morning....sort of a, "this is what happened around the world while you were sleeping" kind of a memo. As I said, if all those requests for help from Benghazi were indeed left out of the Secretary's briefings, then someone was indeed was seriously, criminally negligent. It wouldn't be all that difficult to find who was responsible. Each shift in the Operations Center has editors and the Supervising Officer of the shift. The Operations Center is open 24/7 so there are several shifts. It would be easy enough to find the dates of the requests on who was on the shift. Besides, copies of the Secretary's briefs should be available, unless they were all destroyed!
Watching this last "Benghazi Hearing" taking place, I was appalled at the committees lack of understanding of how the State Department works, and therefore, their inability to ask the proper questions. At the same time, I was appalled that Hillary was able to get away by simply answering that she did not know of 60 plus requests for increased security from Benghazi, that she left that up to the "experts." It is one thing to leave the job of security to the experts, nobody expects the Secretary to handle everything personally, but it is another thing to say that you were totally unaware of the 60 plus requests for help! There is something terribly wrong with the system if that is indeed the case. The State Department is far from being perfect and it has made many mistakes in the past, but this bit about not knowing, not being informed, is hard to swallow.
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