WASHINGTON - An interim report by House Republicans faults the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for security deficiencies at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, prior to September’s terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Senior State Department officials, including Clinton, approved reductions in security at the facilities in Benghazi, according to the report by GOP members of five House committees. The report cites an April 19, 2012, cable bearing Clinton’s signature that acknowledged a March 28, 2012, request from then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz for more security but allowed further reductions.
“Senior State Department officials knew that the threat environment in Benghazi was high and that the Benghazi compound was vulnerable and unable to withstand an attack, yet the department continued to systematically withdraw security personnel,” the report said.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the GOP report “appears to raise questions that have already been asked and answered in great detail” by Obama administration officials. Hayden said the administration has taken “extraordinary steps” to work with Congress in investigating the Benghazi attacks, having provided more than 10,000 pages of documents and extensive briefings for members of Congress and their staffs.
The top Democrats on the five committees were quick to criticize the GOP report, telling House Speaker John Boehner in a letter Tuesday that they strongly objected to the report, the politicizing of national security and their exclusion from the investigation. They called the GOP’s findings a “partisan Republican staff report on Benghazi” that dispensed with regular House procedures “for vetting official committee reports to correct inaccuracies and mischaracterizations.”
Release of the report comes as dozens of House Republicans have pushed for Boehner, R-Ohio, to create a select committee to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Tuesday. The report also is critical of President Barack Obama and the White House staff. In the days after the attack, White House and senior State Department officials altered what the report said were accurate “talking points,” drafted by the U.S. intelligence community, to protect the State Department.
And contrary to what the administration claimed, the alterations were not made to protect classified information, the report said. “Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior administration officials,” according to the 43-page report.
In December, senior State Department officials acknowledged major weaknesses in security and errors in judgment that had been revealed in an independent report on the deadly assault. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides admitted that serious management and leadership failures left the mission in Benghazi unprepared for the terrorist attack.
Clinton, testifying before Congress in the final weeks of her tenure, took responsibility for the department’s missteps and failures leading up to the assault. But she insisted that requests for more security at the diplomatic mission in Benghazi didn’t reach her desk, and she reminded lawmakers that they have a responsibility to fund security-related budget requests.
The report from the House committees is the latest broadside in what has been a long-running and acrimonious dispute between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans who have challenged the White House’s actions before and after the Benghazi attack.
House and Senate Republicans for weeks fought for access to information about the attack and used the nominations of two key Obama administration national security officials - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and CIA Director John Brennan - as leverage to obtain internal documents about the raid. The Benghazi raid also resonated during the presidential campaign as the Obama administration struggled in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 6 election to tamp down speculation of a cover-up involving the Benghazi attack.
Obama, in his role as commander in chief, failed to anticipate the significance that Sept. 11 held as a date and did not provide the Defense Department with the authority for missions beyond self-defense, according to the report. Military assets were properly positioned across the North Africa region but had no authority to be in an alert posture that would have permitted offensive operations and were given no notice to defend U.S. diplomatic facilities, the report said.
U.S. Africa Command, which has responsibility for military operations in the region, has serious deficiencies that hindered the Defense Department’s response to the attack, according to the report. The command, which was established in 2008, has no Army or Marine Corps units assigned to it.
The independent report by retired Adm. Mike Mullen and Thomas Pickering, a retired ambassador, as well as testimony from Clinton and other senior Obama administration officials have failed to assuage Republicans.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 04/24/2013