Questions mount over Libya attack

Three weeks after a deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi little is known about how and why the assault happened or who was behind it, amid mounting concern over possible security lapses.
Four Americans died in the hours-long assault when the US compound and a nearby annex in the eastern Libyan city came under sustained mortar and gunfire. Among those killed was Chris Stevens, the first US ambassador to be killed on duty in more than 30 years.
But amid three separate investigations, the US administration has remained tight-lipped, trickling out often contradictory statements. It first described the attack as being part of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film before finally conceding last week "that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al-Qaeda."
The lack of information, coupled with the shock of the attack, has turned the events into a political football ahead of the November 6 elections, with Republicans slamming the Obama administration on security and foreign policy.
US officials denied calls for more security at its Benghazi consulate despite attacks on Westerners in the city in the weeks before the mission was hit by militants, top Republicans charged Tuesday.
The US mission in Libya had made "repeated requests for increased security" but they were ignored by Washington, Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said.
On Tuesday, Issa called on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to provide answers at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee next week.
In her reply, Hillary said a review board she has set up was "charged with determining whether our security systems and procedures in Benghazi were adequate" and properly implemented.
She promised to work with Congress as she also wanted "a full and accurate accounting of the events and a path forward to prevent them happening again."
Yet among all the posturing and US newspaper headlines, many legitimate and serious questions remain unanswered.
What was Stevens doing in Benghazi on September 11, the 11th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the United States? What was the security around the compound?
Was it a long-planned or an opportunistic attack? Was Stevens on an al-Qaeda hit list as he reportedly wrote in his diary? How exactly did the main compound catch fire? And why, three weeks on, has a team of FBI investigators still failed to visit Benghazi to search the blackened ruins of the compound?
Security in Benghazi had been bad since Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted last year, with militias becoming the de facto security forces in the absence of a working, functional army or police.