Written by
Dr. Kenneth Quinn
The Desmoines Register
Sep 15, 2012
The storming of the American Consulate in Benghazi and the killing
of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his colleagues brought
home to me the memories of my own embassy confronting multiple threats
during the time I was ambassador in Cambodia from 1996 to 1999.
Our
embassy in Phnom Penh was a makeshift arrangement thrown together
following the reopening of the country to an international presence just
a few years earlier. It consisted of a series of small single-family
houses in the center of town around which the United States built an
8-foot-high wall. On all four sides of the compound were busy streets
with constant flows of traffic. A gas station sat ominously on one
corner.
This was a period of considerable political volatility in
Cambodia, with remnants of the genocidal Khmer Rouge still operating
furtively in urban areas, rival political factions driving around in
large armed gangs and criminals roaming the city at night. Given the
perception of American influence, the U.S. Embassy was a constant target
for demonstrating crowds either seeking U.S. support for their side in
the conflict or criticizing us for some aspect of our policy.
As a
result, violent clashes would often occur right outside the embassy
wall, and on several occasions, rifle fire sailed across the compound
and protesters were beaten or shot within eyesight of embassy staff.
Apart
from actions at the embassy, our staff of approximately 35 Americans
lived in houses scattered around the city, each of which could be
vulnerable to criminal assault or just being caught up in clashes that
might erupt in their neighborhood. My own residence was hit with a
rocket and ringed in gunfire for more than two hours, with my wife and
three children inside.
What made the situation even more difficult
was that we had no U.S. Marines to guard the embassy, nor any type of
armed protective force. We did have a group of local Cambodian guards,
but none of them carried weapons. We were essentially on our own.
When terrorist bombers struck
the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, it brought home just
how vulnerable our own situation was. We began taking all the actions
that we could locally to try to improve the situation. I went to the
Cambodian government to demand that some of the streets running by the
embassy be closed, since any terrorist with a truck bomb could have
literally driven up to our front door and detonated explosives. Security
experts estimated that in such a situation, every person in our embassy
would be killed.
It was difficult to get the government to go
along with shutting down its main streets (it would be the equivalent of
blocking off parts of Grand Avenue in Des Moines), but I succeeded. In
addition, I approached the owner of the gas station that was right next
to our facility and convinced him to lease the property to us so we
could close it.
At first he demanded $1.3 million, but after a
frank conversation he cut the price by a million dollars. It’s not too
often you get to save the taxpayer a million dollars, but in this case
it wasn’t the money that was important, it was the safety of all our
employees.
Even with all of these improvements and the greatly
increased intelligence activities that we carried out to try to identify
would-be terrorists in the country or coming into it, the embassy was
still incredibly vulnerable. As a result, we initiated urgent requests
to the State Department in Washington to approve our immediately finding
a new location with more “setback” to provide a buffer zone against any
would-be truck bombing terrorists.
Budgets were tight and
department officials told us that there was no money nor would we even
be on the list for new construction over the next five to 10 years.
Given the immediate threat, I felt that that was way too long and that
we could not leave our employees at such risk. My deputy ambassador and I
made trips to Washington to plead our case and sent message after
message explaining our situation, but this was to no avail.
Finally, the State Department
sent me a cable message signed by the secretary of state instructing me
to proceed with limited security improvements to our compound and to
remain there. Those improvements could not be made without my agreement.
After thinking about it overnight, I called a meeting of my staff and
told them that I was faced with two choices: to accept the orders from
Washington and go forward with limited but inadequate enhancements to
our compound, or to refuse the State Department’s orders. I told them
that I was choosing their safety over complying with the instructions
from Washington.
I next sent a personal message to the secretary
of state saying that I put my employees’ safety above all other
considerations, and while I understood the ramifications involved, I
could not in good conscience follow her orders and thus refused to do
so.
My deputy, a very brave young officer, then sent a follow-on
message in which she said, in effect, “If the ambassador is removed, I
won’t follow the orders either.”
It’s a big deal to refuse to
carry out the State Department’s orders. But in this case, it got
action. There is now a new, very safe embassy in Phnom Penh with a great
deal of setback and Marines guarding the compound.
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