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Clinton Cites New Security Steps After Libya Attack Facing Congress, Clinton Defends Her Actions Before and After Libya Attack
(about 11 hours later)
WASHINGTON — In long-awaited testimony, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday asserted that she had moved quickly to improve the security of American diplomats after the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans and prompted a scathing review of State Department procedures. WASHINGTON — In one of her final appearances as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday vigorously defended her handling of last September’s attack on the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans and prompted a scathing review of State Department procedures.
“As I have said many times since Sept. 11, I take responsibility,” Mrs. Clinton said, reading from a prepared statement. “Nobody is more committed to getting this right. I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger and more secure.” “As I have said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is more committed to getting this right,” she said, reading a statement during a day of testimony before Senate and House committees. “I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger and more secure.”
Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning in what may have been one of her last major public appearances as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton sought to avoid the controversy over whether the attack was the work of terrorists that dogged Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations. She suggested that she was inclined to see the attack as a terrorist act from the start. But Mrs. Clinton, whose appearance before Congress had been postponed since December because of illness, quickly departed from the script. She jousted with Republican lawmakers over who deserved blame for the security problems at the compound, and choked up as she described being at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington when the bodies of the Americans killed in the assault arrived from Libya.
“The very next morning, I told the American people that heavily armed militants assaulted our compound and vowed to bring them to justice. And I stood with President Obama as he spoke of ‘an act of terror,’ ” she said.
In a rare moment of confrontation, Mrs. Clinton responded to persistent questions from Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, by saying that there was too much focus on how the Benghazi attack was characterized in its early hours and not enough on how to prevent a recurrence.
“What difference at this point does it make?” she said, raising her voice and noting that there were “four dead Americans.”
“It is our job to figure out what happened and to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she snapped.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, began his questions by saying, “It’s wonderful to see you in good health and as combative as ever," and then proceeded to level his own attack on his former Senate colleague. He said that Mrs. Clinton had failed to answer lingering questions about the assault in Benghazi and about Obama administration policy in Libya before the episode.
Mr. McCain asserted that the Obama administration’s aversion to nation-building precluded it from adequately helping Libya organize and train its own forces. Specifically, Mr. McCain said that the administration failed to provide the kind of training, equipment and other assistance that would help the fledgling civilian government in Tripoli confront the growing menace from militias in Benghazi and other parts of Libya.
He said there were a number of obvious warning signs before the September attack in Benghazi, including an attack on the British ambassador’s convoy in that city in June.
“Well, Senator, I understand your very strong feelings,” Mrs. Clinton responded, adding, “And we just have a disagreement.”
In response to Mr. McCain’s criticism that the administration had failed to help the new Libyan government deal with its numerous security challenges, Mrs. Clinton said that Congress had delayed aid to Libya and that she would provide a list of steps that had been taken to train and equip Libyan forces.
Referring to the collective ability of Congress and the administration to agree on a coordinated, effective response to Libya, Mrs. Clinton said, “We’ve got to get our act together.”
After jousting with Republican senators at the morning hearing, Mrs. Clinton was scheduled to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the afternoon. Representative Ed Royce, the California Republican who is the chairman of the House panel, set the tone for that session in his prepared opening statement, one that rejected the assessment by an independent State Department review that the fault for the inadequate security in Benghazi lay principally at the assistant secretary level.
“This committee is concerned that the department’s most senior officials either should have known about the worsening security in Benghazi — or did know,” he said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is still led by Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, whose confirmation hearing as Mrs. Clinton’s successor is Thursday. To avoid the perception of a conflict of interest, the hearing was led by Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, who is the incoming chairman. Mr. Kerry was not present as the hearing began.
In her testimony to the committee, Mrs. Clinton asserted that she was never made aware of the security requests from Benghazi by Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his subordinates. “I did not see these requests,” she said. “They did not come to me. I did not approve them. I did not deny them.”
“These requests do not normally come to the secretary of state,” she added. “They are handled by security professionals in the department.”
Mrs. Clinton choked up as she recounted the grim moment in September when she and President Obama received the bodies of the four Americans killed in the Benghazi attack at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington.
“I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews,” she said. “I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.”“I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews,” she said. “I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.”
Mrs. Clinton was to have testified in December, but her appearance was delayed by illness and then a concussion, which led to her brief hospitalization. Republicans have been insistent that Mrs. Clinton needed to testify about her own role before leaving her State Department post, and she readily agreed. The continuing controversy over the attack, which resulted in the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, has cast a cloud over Mrs. Clinton’s final months at the State Department. It also has enormous political implications for Mrs. Clinton, the former New York senator who is already regarded as the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination if she chooses to run. It was the first time she had faced extensive questioning about her role in the episode.
Mrs. Clinton first publicly took responsibility for the September attack in an Oct. 15 interview with television reporters. Since then, however, she has committed herself to putting in place all of the recommendations of the independent review that was led by Thomas R. Pickering, the former American ambassador, and Mike Mullen, the retired admiral who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In essence, Mrs. Clinton’s approach was to accept the responsibility for security lapses in Benghazi but not the blame.
She asserted that headway was being made on putting in place the panel’s recommendations, repeating themes that had been made to Congress by senior State Department officials last month. “I feel responsible for the nearly 70,000 people who work for the State Department,” Mrs. Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning. “But the specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi, you know, were handled by the security professionals in the department. I didn’t see those requests. They didn’t come to me. I didn’t approve them. I didn’t deny them.”
“And, as I pledged in my letter to you last month, implementation has now begun on all 29 recommendations,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Our task force started by translating the recommendations into 64 specific action items. All of these action items were assigned to specific bureaus and offices, with clear timelines for completion. Fully 85 percent are on track to be completed by the end of March, with a number completed already.” When the question of her role was taken up again in the afternoon hearing by Representative Ed Royce, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that she had been briefed on a series of events that indicated that security in Benghazi was deteriorating in the months before the attack. They included the placement of a bomb at the outer wall of the compound in June and an ambush that month on the British ambassador.
Mrs. Clinton sought to put the events in Benghazi in a broader regional context, noting the presence of an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in northern Mali. But she said she had gone along with a recommendation from subordinates that the Benghazi post be kept open and assumed that they would take the necessary steps to protect it.
Mrs. Clinton first publicly took responsibility for the Sept. 11 attack in an Oct. 15 interview with television reporters. Since then, she has committed herself to putting in place all of the recommendations of an independent review that was led by Thomas R. Pickering, a former American ambassador, and Mike Mullen, the retired admiral who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
For all of the hours of testimony, the hearings did little to clarify the role of the White House in overseeing the American presence in Libya before the attack or explain why the Pentagon had few forces available on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to respond quickly to any assault on diplomatic outposts in the region.
One of the sharpest exchanges of the day came when Mrs. Clinton responded to questions from Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, by saying there was too much focus on how the Benghazi attack had been characterized in its early hours and not enough on how to prevent a recurrence. Republicans have repeatedly charged that Obama administration officials deliberately played down the attack, focusing much of their criticism on Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations and once Mr. Obama’s choice to succeed Mrs. Clinton.
“Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?” Mrs. Clinton said, her voice rising. “It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, began his questions by saying, “It’s wonderful to see you in good health and as combative as ever,” and then proceeded to complain that she had failed to answer lingering questions.
Mr. McCain asserted that the Obama administration’s aversion to nation-building had precluded it from providing the kind of training and assistance that would have helped the fledgling Libyan government in Tripoli confront growing security threats from militants.
“We did not give them the kind of assistance that would have been necessary to help dismantle these militias that still, to this day, remain a challenge to democracy in Libya,” he said.
Mrs. Clinton responded that Congress had delayed aid to Libya and said she would provide a list of steps that had been taken to train and equip Libyan forces.
A persistent line of questioning by Republican lawmakers concerned the initial comments from Ms. Rice that the attack might have resulted from a protest, over an anti-Islamic video, that spun out of control.
Mrs. Clinton defended Ms. Rice even as she appeared to distance herself from Ms. Rice’s comments. “I told the American people that heavily armed militants assaulted our compound, and I vowed to bring them to justice,” Mrs. Clinton said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, has been nominated to succeed Mrs. Clinton and is scheduled to appear before his committee on Thursday for a confirmation hearing. To avoid the perception of a conflict of interest, the hearing on Wednesday was led by Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, the incoming chairman, and Mr. Kerry did not attend.
In a rare criticism of the committee by one of its members, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican, complained that the panel Mr. Kerry led had failed to conduct proper oversight of security and other State Department issues.
“This is an opportunity for this committee to finally do the work that it should have been doing for years,” Mr. Corker said.
Mrs. Clinton sought to put the events in Benghazi in a regional context, noting the presence of a group in northern Mali affiliated with Al Qaeda.
“Benghazi didn’t happen in a vacuum,” she said. “The Arab revolutions have scrambled power dynamics and shattered security forces across the region. And instability in Mali has created an expanding safe haven for terrorists who look to extend their influence and plot further attacks of the kind we saw just last week in Algeria.”“Benghazi didn’t happen in a vacuum,” she said. “The Arab revolutions have scrambled power dynamics and shattered security forces across the region. And instability in Mali has created an expanding safe haven for terrorists who look to extend their influence and plot further attacks of the kind we saw just last week in Algeria.”
Mrs. Clinton said the seizure of northern Mali posed a growing danger to American interests in the region, as well as ultimately to the United States homeland. “We are in for a struggle, but it is a necessary struggle,” she said. “We cannot permit northern Mali to become a safe haven.”
“This is going to be a very serious, ongoing threat,” she said. “We are in for a struggle, but it is a necessary struggle. We cannot permit northern Mali to become a safe haven.”
Mrs. Clinton dismissed critics who have played down the threat from Qaeda fighters and other Islamist militants in Mali and across the Sahara because the insurgents have not yet targeted the American homeland. “You can’t say that because they haven’t done something they will never do it,” she said.
“We have got to have a better strategy,” Mrs. Clinton said, explaining that that means making it possible for governments in the region to defend themselves better and taking steps to bolster democracy. The Pentagon, for instance, has provided trucks to Mauritania to help its troops patrol its lengthy border with Mali. The Pentagon is also providing Niger, Mali’s neighbor, with Cessna planes for reconnaissance.
Mrs. Clinton said she could not confirm reports from Algerian security officials that militants who attacked an Algerian natural-gas complex last week participated in the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. But she said the attackers in Algeria and the Islamists in Mali were armed with weapons looted from the former arsenals of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.