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In the hours after a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by terrorists in 2012, the federal government struggled with inertia, focused on politics rather than response and worried more about the diplomatic relations than they did the safety of Americans abroad, a Republican-led House panel concluded.
>>>Listen: Local congressman Jim Jordan talks about Benghazi live on WHIO Radio.
The 800-page report by the House Select Committee on Benghazi — which Democrats lambasted as a political tool aimed at weakening former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chances at winning the presidency — is the culmination of an exhaustive two-year investigation of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 2012, which took the lives of four Americans: Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
The report found that Stevens, a U.S. ambassador who arrived in Benghazi just one day earlier, nearly immediately found himself in a deadly situation, faced with dangerously deteriorating conditions and a nearby security forces that had been depleted.
Yet the Obama administration considered its work in Libya a particular point of pride: They had recently deposed dictator Muamar Gaddafi. Clinton herself was scheduled to visit the nation in October.
>>>The latest: GOP implores public to read Benghazi report
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, a member of the panel, said the attacks were a dark mark on what the administration had hoped to be a bright light for their foreign policy. “They were so invested in Libya — this was supposed to be the crown jewel of their foreign policy success — that they didn’t pay attention to 200 security incidents prior to the attack,” he said.
Because of this, he said, Clinton began misleading the public about the attacks even as those in the embassy fought for their survival. “The spin started right away,” he said.
When the embassy was attacked on the night of Sept. 11, Stevens and Sean P. Smith, an information specialist who was one of seven on the grounds that night, quickly died from smoke inhalation after a building they were in was set afire. Security forces from Tripoli deployed themselves to Benghazi. There, they fought for their lives, with two more dying eight hours after the outpost was attacked.
Even as they did, the report found, personnel in Washington dallied. President Barack Obama ordered the Secretary of Defense to “use all of the resources available” to save U.S. lives.
But nothing happened in the hours that followed and U.S. forces weren’t ultimately sent out until hours after the attack was over.
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“This was a failure at our most senior levels of government,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas.
While Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the committee urged readers to draw their own conclusions based on the facts of the report, Pompeo and Jordan released their own 51-page addendum of “additional views” that focused primarily on the conduct of Clinton.
Their report questions why Clinton felt it necessary to have an outpost in Benghazi despite mounting evidence that the mission was dangerous. “No matter how important a presence in Benghazi was — to Secretary Clinton, to the State Department, to the United States — it should have become very clear that the risks of staying without more security outweighed any possible benefit,” it reads.
Hours after the report was released, Clinton said she would let others characterize this report, but said, “I think it is pretty clear it is time to move on.”
“I have said from the very beginning nothing is more important than the security of our diplomats and our development officials to go into dangerous places around the world pursuing American values, interests and our security,” Clinton said, saying she immediately put together an independent committee after the attacks to come up with recommendations to help prevent such future attacks.
“I want us to stay focused on what I’ve always wanted us to stay focused on and that is the important work of diplomacy and development,” she said, adding that “we cannot withdraw or retreat from the world.”
Democrats, meanwhile, sent out a 339-page report Monday saying that the Republican investigation was a “political crusade” that cost taxpayers $7 million.
“Decades in the future, historians will look back on this investigation as a case study in how not to conduct a credible investigation,” the Democrats wrote, calling the investigation “a chief example of what happens when politicians are allowed to use unlimited taxpayer dollars — and the formidable power of Congress — to attack their political foes.” They pointed to the fact that the report was released less than a month before the Democratic National Convention.
Democrats argue that while State Department security measures in Benghazi were “woefully inadequate,” Clinton never personally denied any requests for additional security in Benghazi. It ascribes the changing stories about the attack to the evolving nature of learning about the attacks, and argues the Defense Department could not have done anything differently.
Jordan dismissed the notion that the report was done for political gain.
“They can’t change the fact that she’s their nominee and they can’t change the fact that she was Secretary of State when this happened,” he said. “We’ve got to point out the truth and the fact that she’s their nominee for president is beside the point.”
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