After Benghazi, U.S. Pressing Ahead on Security Upgrades WASHINGTON - By late this summer, the State Department plans to send dozens of additional diplomatic security agents to high-threat embassies, install millions of dollars of advanced fire-survival gear and surveillance cameras in those diplomatic posts, and improve training for employees headed to the riskiest missions. The price tag for the security improvements proposed after the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 has reached $1.4 billion to meet the most urgent needs, including additional personnel. Diplomats and lawmakers say it will take years and billions more dollars to fully carry out the changes called for by an independent review panel that investigated the assault, which killed four Americans. The panel issued 29 recommendations, five of which deal with classified intelligence issues and were not made public. The department is racing to fulfill the recommendations as threats against United States Embassies in Egypt, Yemen and other hazardous places have sharply increased in recent months. But the department's ability to correct the security flaws, the financing for it, and the review panel itself, led by the veteran diplomat Thomas R. Pickering, have all come under attack from House Republicans who have seized on the Benghazi issue. "It remains to be seen how well the State Department implements the board's recommendations," said Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But for any changes to succeed, they must embrace responsibility and accountability at senior levels, which hasn't happened in this case. Even Democrats who have criticized Republicans for what they say is the politicization of the Benghazi episode vow to scrutinize the government's response. "We need to make sure they're following through," said Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the Foreign Affairs Committee's ranking Democrat. We have to make sure there are no future Benghazis. Secretary of State John Kerry, eager to highlight the department's efforts to address security at diplomatic buildings in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, outlined the recommendations that have been put in place during remarks at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Va., on Monday. He said that the department had increased training and security personnel, adding Marines to the diplomatic posts that face the highest threats. "And we're making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials," he said. Mr. Kerry said the department was working with the Pentagon to link embassies and consulates more closely to the military's regional commands. President Obama, seeking to regain his footing amid repeated questions over the attack and his administration's handling of it, sought last week to put the onus on Congress to pay for carrying out the 29 recommendations made by the board. "We also need Congress to work with us to provide the resources and new authorities so we can fully implement all of the recommendations of the Accountability Review Board," Mr. Obama told reporters at a White House news conference. Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, said that the financing for the improvements, which Congress shifted away from the department's operations in Iraq, "addresses expeditiously" the investigative panel's recommendations. The White House has also requested $4.4 billion for diplomatic security measures and construction as part of its annual budget submission to Congress. In its report last December, the State Department's five-member investigative panel, called the Accountability Review Board, addressed seven main categories of problems, mostly related to the department. These included the ineffective security provided by the Libyan government; staffing shortfalls, including high turnover among American diplomatic security personnel; faulty fire-safety and security equipment, including surveillance cameras; and poor performance by specific officials. Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.