A Possible Motive for Scrubbing the State Department Memo

    A recent CNN report could shed some light on the motive for the removal of the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council report issued on 9/6/12, before the 9/11 anniversary attacks in Egypt and Libya.  As I reported on Wednesday, September 12, the memo read as follows:

Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012
OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However, constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot.

 In my previous post, I wrote:

The phrasing of the last sentence of the memo ("these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence" [emphasis mine]) could have even inspired complacency with its rather glib assessment of the potential threat.

Besides the obvious reasons, why would someone at the OSAC think it was worthwhile to make the memo disappear?  A clue is in the stated mission and objectives of the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council on its website [emphasis added]:

Mission
The U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (Council) is established to promote security cooperation between American private sector interests worldwide (Private Sector) and the U.S. Department of State.
The objectives of the Council as outlined in its Charter are:
A. To establish continuing liaison and to provide for operational security cooperation between State Department security functions and the Private Sector.
B. To provide for regular and timely interchange of information between the Private Sector and the State Department concerning developments in the overseas security environment.
C. To recommend methods and provide material for coordinating security, innovation, planning and implementation of security programs.
D. To identify methods to mitigate risks to American private sector interests worldwide.

In other words, this division of the State Department, the OSAC, is specifically focused on the Private Sector and overseas security.  Now, back to that CNN report I referenced above [emphasis added]:

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.
He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business.
"The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.
Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.

    As I've said before, there is as of yet no credible evidence that there was "credible evidence" of a terrorist plot planned for 9/11/12.  But for an agency charged with providing "regular and timely interchange of information between the Private Sector and the State Department concerning developments in the overseas security environment," this memo is embarrassing at best.  Could an image-conscious staffer at OSAC acting on impulse have deleted it?  Or at least have placed it behind the subscriber wall?  Or have been instructed to do so by a higher up?

    Certainly if someone at the OSAC deliberately erased the memo from the website, it was a ham-handed effort to paper over it.  At least one organization had already posted the report on its website on 9/6/12, the day it was issued.  The "memory hole" in the age of the internet just isn't that deep.  Until the State Department responds with an explanation about the fate of the report, the operational assumption will be that someone at OSAC thought that the memory hole just might be deep enough.

Update:  As long as I'm speculating, an even more conspiratorial thought would be that if the State Department is attempting to purge embarrassing memos from the notoriously permanent internet, perhaps the FBI should be stocking up on rubber gloves (for digging through State Department dumpsters for paper-shredder-trash-bags) and Scotch tape for reassembling documents.  Never hurts to be prepared.