Benghazi's Legacy of Broken Trust

When serving in harm's way, diplomats, spies and soldiers need to know that their government has their back.

By KEVIN G. NORTON

In 2009, I was a member of a small team of advisers to the Afghan police in Paktia province in the mountains near the southeastern Afghan border. One hot afternoon in early June, we received a desperate call for help from another American unit that was under a sustained attack. We drove out to their position as fast as we could, only to find several casualties and chaos. The Taliban cut off the attack soon after we arrived.

After we evacuated the casualties, the officer in charge of the unit told me that he could not find his interpreter. I led a small group of soldiers down into a wide field to look for the interpreter. We knew the danger: At any moment the Taliban could have resumed the attack and caught us in a very exposed position. We searched for more than 10 minutes before we found his lifeless body. It had been thrown from a vehicle that was hit by an improvised explosive device. We took another few minutes to locate his severed leg.

Why would we take such a risk to find an interpreter? Because he was a part of our team. He had taken on faith that we would do what we could to protect him and never leave him behind. Had we not done so, what message would it have sent to our other interpreters and partners? It would have been extremely difficult to ask others to take risks on our behalf or look out for us.

I am reminded of that day in the Afghan mountains whenever I think of the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 last year. There are many causes for concern or outrage regarding the attack and its aftermath. But the heart of the scandal is this: Four U.S. citizens, willing to put themselves in harm's way for the country's greater good, were left to die with no support from the government they represented.

While many lawmakers and commentators have pointed out this basic fact, what is less appreciated is what the Benghazi scandal means for others who go abroad to serve the country. Servants of the American people—diplomats, spies, soldiers, aid workers—who work in harm's way should be able to depart these shores confident that their government will do anything it can to protect them. This principle is at the very core of foreign service and is based on trust. Any breach of that trust is devastating to our efforts abroad.

In Benghazi, the U.S. government simply did not do all it could to protect its agents in the field. Leon Panetta, defense secretary at the time of the attack, later told Congress that U.S. forces were not deployed because "you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."

This was a stunning abdication of responsibility. Mr. Panetta and President Obama knew that Americans were under attack that night. Thousands of U.S. military personnel have given their lives to save their fellow Americans—civilians and soldiers alike—under similar circumstances.

At the conclusion of his recent speech on Memorial Day, Mr. Obama issued a challenge to all Americans: "Let it be our task, every single one of us, to honor the strength and the resolve and the love these brave Americans felt for each other and for our country." Those brave Americans include Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, including two former Navy SEALs, who died in Benghazi.

Amid the many recent scandals that have come out of Washington, there is a danger that the disastrous Benghazi episode will be put aside before it has been adequately explored—before Americans know exactly who did and did not perform capably and honorably during those terrible hours and their aftermath.

We do already know one essential truth about Benghazi: The sacred bond between the government and those who serve it was broken, and the message was delivered to Americans serving around the world. That's a scandal.

Mr. Norton is a national security consultant and former U.S. Army infantry officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A version of this article appeared June 19, 2013, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Benghazi's Legacy of Broken Trust.

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