This excellent New York Times special report was prepared in the wake of the August 7, 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Among other things, it details the (persistent but ineffectual) efforts of the US ambassador to Kenya to prepare for and prevent the attacks.

"The CIA and the FBI had been amassing increasingly ominous and detailed clues about potential threats in Kenya, officials said. But the State Department bureaucracy still dismissed [the ambassador]. She was even seen by some at the State Department as a nuisance who was overly obsessed with security, according to one official."