Washington: Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.
The 800-page report delivered a broad rebuke of the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in Benghazi, and especially for maintaining outposts there that they could not protect.
The committee, led by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S. C., also harshly criticised an internal State Department investigation that it said had allowed officials such as Clinton, then the secretary of state, to effectively choose who would examine their actions. In addition, it included some new details and context about the night of the attacks on the US diplomatic compound and reiterated Republicans’ complaints that the Obama administration had sought to thwart the investigation by withholding witnesses and evidence.
The report, which included perhaps the most exhaustive chronology of the attacks to date, did not dispute that US military forces stationed in Europe could not have reached Benghazi in time to rescue the personnel who died — a central finding of previous inquiries.
Still, it issued stinging criticism of the overall delay in response and the lack of preparedness on the part of the government.
“The assets ultimately deployed by the Defense Department in response to the Benghazi attacks were not positioned to arrive before the final, lethal attack,” the committee wrote. “The fact that this is true does not mitigate the question of why the world’s most powerful military was not positioned to respond.”
But the lack of any clear finding of professional misconduct or dereliction of duty was certain to fuel further criticism of the length of the investigation — more than two years — and the expense, estimated at more than $7 million (Dh25 million). It also bolstered Democrats’ allegations that the inquiry was specifically intended to damage Clinton’s presidential prospects.
After a campaign stop in Denver, Clinton said that the investigation had uncovered nothing to contradict past findings and that the House committee’s work had assumed a “partisan tinge.”
“I’ll leave it to others to characterise this report,” she said, “but I think it’s pretty clear it’s time to move on.”
Yet even as Clinton seemed eager to press forward, she must still contend with the fallout from the committee’s most significant, if inadvertent, discovery: that she exclusively used a private email server during her four years as secretary of state. That revelation has spurred separate investigations into whether classified material was mishandled including a continuing inquiry by the FBI.
The committee made scant mention of procedures put in place since the Benghazi attacks, which fundamentally changed the way US embassies and consulates operate.
The State Department has taken a maximalist approach to security that some diplomats now say makes it difficult for them to carry out their responsibilities. The Defense Department has increased the number of Marine guards at diplomatic posts and created new crisis-response teams.
Democrats on the committee complained that they had been excluded from decisions on the report and noted that the Benghazi investigation dragged on longer than the inquiries into the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the response to Hurricane Katrina.
In the most dramatic confrontation over the two years of the investigation, Clinton testified before the committee for more than eight hours in October. The hearing was widely perceived to have backfired on Republicans as she answered their questions and coolly deflected their attacks.
By the time of her testimony, Clinton had already taken responsibility for the State Department’s handling of the attacks.
Previous investigations concluded that State Department officials had erred in not better securing the diplomatic compound amid reports of a deteriorating security situation. But they also determined that the attacks had come with little warning and that it would have been difficult to intervene once they had begun.
The investigations generally concluded that after the attack, the Obama administration’s talking points were flawed but not deliberately misleading.
Caught unawares
The Pentagon had no forces that could be readily sent to Benghazi when the crisis began. The closest AC-130 gunship was in Afghanistan. There were no armed drones within range of Libya. There was no Marine expeditionary unit, a large seaborne force with its own helicopters, in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Africa Command also did not have on hand a force able to respond rapidly to emergencies. Every other regional command had one at the time. The Pentagon was caught unprepared for this type of crisis.
On the night of the attacks, the Pentagon was able to divert an unarmed Predator drone operating 144.8km away to Benghazi, and the CIA later used it to help plan an escape route for the surviving Americans. But other military forces were too far away or could not be mobilised in time, military commanders have said.
The unclassified version of an independent 2012 report, headed by Thomas R. Pickering, a former diplomat, concluded that “there simply was not enough time, given the speed of the attacks, for armed US military assets to have made a difference.”
But that report did not address whether it would have been prudent to station quick-reaction forces in the region, a step the Pentagon has since taken.
Chief findings of the committee
— Despite authorisation from US President Barack Obama, no US military forces were deployed to Benghazi on the night of the attacks, and Marines stationed in Spain repeatedly received conflicting orders.
— The Libyan forces that helped evacuate Americans from a CIA annex to the Benghazi airport were not part of militias allied with the US, but were fighters previously loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
— Susan E. Rice, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, made numerous false statements about the Benghazi attack on television that one State Department press officer described in an email as “off the reservation on five networks!”
— Senior State Department officials — including Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl D. Mills — exerted too much influence over the Accountability Review Board that conducted the department’s own inquiry, casting doubt on its independence and findings.
— The Obama administration repeatedly sought to obstruct the select committee’s investigation by delaying or refusing to respond to requests for documents and testimony.
