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Africa North

Clinton: 'I take responsibility' for Benghazi

2012-10-16

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the bucks stops with her when it comes to who is blame for a deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

"I take responsibility" for what happened on September 11, Clinton said in an interview with CNN's Elise Labott soon after arriving in Lima, Peru for a visit. The interview, one of a series given to U.S. television networks Monday night, were the first she has given about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Clinton insisted President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions, Clinton said.

"I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she added, noting that it is close to the election.

The attack killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans at the consulate.

The Obama administration has been heavily criticized after Vice President Joe Biden said during last week's vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. Following the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department.

Clinton also sought to downplay the criticism that administration officials continued to say the attack was a spontaneous product of a protest over an anti-Muslim film, a theory that has since been discarded.

In the wake of an attack, there is always "confusion," Clinton said. But the information has since changed, Clinton said in the interview.

The secretary of state also described the desperate scene in the State Department during the hours of the attack on the night of September 10. It was an "intense, long ordeal" as staff tried to find out what had happened.

Clinton said her mission now is to make sure such an attack will never happen again -- but also that diplomacy, even in dangerous areas like Benghazi, is not stopped.

Posted by:tipper

#6 "I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she added, noting that it is close to the election.

Yup. That is the reason... she's taking responsibility.

The key thing to remember with this is that it is highly important that she not only goes under the bus, but that it appears that she jumped under the bus herself, and not pushed or thrown under by Teh 0ne

Posted by: Ptah 2012-10-16 08:14

#5 Very accurate assessment TW. Benghazi Regional Security Officer (RSO), the very brave Mr. Erik Nordstrom was one of the fellas that put their collective arses directly in the street during Congressional testimony.

The Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) has always been looked down upon by the limp wristed, foreign service elite at State. They follow rules, have badges, and carry icky guns.

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-10-16 08:02

#4 The Diplomad parses what the dear lady actually said:

The day before the critical Romney-Obama debate, Hillary Clinton, our heretofore invisible Secretary of State, makes a carefully calibrated statement that allows the mainstream media to proclaim that Clinton accepts "responsibility" for the Benghazi security fiasco without her actually saying that.

Forget the headlines, and note what she actually says,

I take responsibility . . .. I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision.

I take this very personally . . . So we're going to get to the bottom of it, and then we're going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again, and then we're going to work to bring whoever did this to us to justice.

Note she "takes responsibility" but the "specific decisions" on security were made by "security professionals." Translation: If anybody screwed up, hey, it was those professionals, not me. Otherwise, why would we need an investigation to "get to the bottom of it"? The career bureaucrats can hear the war drums, smell the war paint, and will be sharpening their knives. They know that the Secretary has just put a target on them.

It gets worse. The real issue is not whether another inch of concrete, or a few armed guards would have made the difference in Benghazi. Given the size and violence of the attack, I doubt that would have done much. The real issues are what was that facility and what was it doing that was so important given the security environment? Why was the Ambassador there on 9/11? Even more important, note later on her garbled statement about the key matter, the attack, the Obama misadministration's characterization of the attack, and the nature of its response to an attack that went on for some six hours. Nowhere does she say that she contacted the White House, the Libyan government, or that she proposed any particular action. Nowhere does she explain the difference between the statements put out by Rice, Obama, and herself, blaming the attack on a virtually unseen video, and the statements by State and CIA career officers that State never concluded that the attack was the result of an anti-video demonstration gone rogue.

Posted by: trailing wife 2012-10-16 07:47

#3 So according to the Presser from the good Senators, they aren't buying that story, either.

Posted by: USN,Ret. 2012-10-16 01:53

#2 She has more balls than CINC.

Posted by: newc 2012-10-16 01:31

#1 STATEMENT BY SENATORS McCAIN, GRAHAM AND AYOTTE ON SECRETARY CLINTONS COMMENTS THIS EVENING ON BENGHAZI ATTACK

Posted by: tipper 2012-10-16 00:08

00:00