WASHINGTON (MCT) — The State Department took nearly three weeks to formally request U.S. military protection for FBI agents assigned to investigate the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed the U.S. ambassador to that country and three other Americans, according to a senior U.S. official and a person familiar with the matter.

A State Department spokesman denied that the request took that long, but the fact that the FBI team arrived only Thursday in Libya’s second largest city while journalists have been there since the day after the assault has added to what lawmakers and others criticize as a disorganized response by the Obama administration to the deterioration of security there.