On Sept. 11, 2001, I was stationed as a DEA agent in Peshawar, Pakistan. It’s next to the tribal area, and at the time there were more than 1 million Afghan refugees living there.

I was living there with my wife and stepdaughter, and I remember watching the planes hit the towers on television and telling my family we would be going back to the United States.

My stepdaughter, who was very young at the time, asked me, “Why are we going back home if they are blowing it up?”

The next morning a tribal chief who was a good friend of mine called me and told me how sorry he was about the tragedy in New York. Knowing the growing danger in the area, he asked me if he could send men over to protect my house and family. I thanked him, but declined the offer, putting my faith in the State Department.

Several tense days later, we were evacuated back to the United

States along with the other families stationed in Pakistan. In December, after settling my family, I returned to Peshawar. I was now assisting the CIA by utilizing DEA sources to locate insurgents fleeing U.S. forces in Afghanistan and seeking safe haven in Pakistan.

In February 2002, while visiting the embassy in Islamabad, I was speaking with the Department of State assistant regional security officer, who informed me the ambassador was going to allow families to return to Pakistan. I told him I didn’t think much of the idea, knowing that the insurgents were fleeing Afghanistan and setting up shop in Pakistan. He stated that the ambassador was a single parent and, in order for her to bring her children back to Pakistan, she would have to allow all the families to return.

I left Pakistan shortly thereafter for my next assignment in Central America. In the beginning of March, the families began returning to Pakistan from the United States.

On March 17, during a church service near the embassy in Islamabad, a mother and daughter of one of those families were murdered and 10 other Americans injured in a grenade attack by a group of terrorists.

Should the families have been allowed to return to Pakistan?

If you knew what I knew, I think you would say no. The State Department knew what I knew, but they did it anyway.

The point here is that the systemic dysfunction identified within the State Department has been going on for years. The “Benghazi talking points” are only a symptom of that problem, as was the attack on the church.

Members of Congress are not blind or deaf, and most have been around long enough to know this problem has existed for decades. They are doing a great disservice to this country by not cooperating with each other to root out the problems in the State Department and other agencies of our government.

The reason Benghazi occurred was because terrorists perceived it to be a weak target — and they were right. The State Department failed to use good judgment when it came to providing adequate security, just as it failed to use good judgment by allowing families back to Pakistan.

The same people didn’t make these mistakes. The system allowed different people to make similar mistakes, by not having the proper checks in place to prevent obvious error.

DANNY DALTON, an unenrolled candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012, is a former agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI and U.S. State Department. He lives in Brunswick.