the consulate was under attack and is the government prepared for the next time a consulate or embassy is under attack and how does that communication work. >> let's take a break and sneak one more in before the secretary resumes her testimony, this is al jazeera america. ♪

♪ we are back live now with the special hearing but by the benghazi committee former

secretary of state hillary clinton sitting there listening to congresswoman robi who had several rounds today challenging secretary clinton and i'm in with david and karen director of national security so what could they possibly find out in the next round of questioning that they don't already know? >> can they get to the substance? can they get to more of the substance? can they move away from e-mails? can they not make this about hillary clinton's character or is that what they want the hearing to be about? there is going to be a label at the end and is it about character or what the role of the secretary of state is was and should be. >> could security improvements be made in advance of future scenarios like this and talking before the break with secretary of clinton and what would they

know about real time responses when you have a consulate that is being over run. >> let's go to the hearing and listen to the questions and answers. >> questioning you, in fact, had closed, made the decision to close some embassys based on the premise that the 1998 recommended the secretary of state should review the security situation and you made a distinction between whether the wall should be ten foot high versus whether or not it was a highly vulnerable situation and so i wanted to ask you when i was listening to that knowing that i was going to address these august 17th memos, i wanted to ask you when you were looking at these two memos on august 17th, and when the security was one in disarray and the other set they paint a picture of a country in chaos and i wanted to just ask you in your opinion as secretary of

state that had closed embassys whether those references to the security situation in libya would amount to one as highly vulnerable per your own words? >> congresswoman i want to answer your question but i think we need the right tabs. >> 8 and 32 i apologize. >> thank you very much. let me take a look at those 8 and 32. on august 17th there was a memo from beth jones the acting secretary of state describing a spike in violence and characterizing it as perhaps a new normal. it is very clearly something that we were following as i have said throughout the hearing today. it said that the international committee of the red cross had

withdrawn personnel from benghazi and mizrati and continued to work in the rest of libya and also pointed out that there is lack of effective security and that the transition, the kind of transition we wanted to see for the people of libya and particularly in benghazi was not as forthcoming from the libyans themselves. i think that the description here is certainly something that we were aware of and a list of recent violence in libya is something we were aware of. and the ongoing monitoring of the situation in libya is something we took very seriously. i can tell you that these kinds of assessments were not uncomfortabuncommon for dangerous and unstable

places and even war zones where we were also operating. >> would you characterize those descriptions as highly vulnerable? >> well, i think that again there was no recommendation based on any of the assessments, not from our state department experts, not from the intelligence community, that we should abandon either benghazi or tripoli. >> right and i understand that. and secretary clinton i guess one of the questions we need answered is you were a huge advocate for our president there to begin with, what prevented you from making the decision based on the knowledge that you had from these memos about the deteriorating security situation, what prevented you as secretary of state from making that decision on your own? >> congresswoman i took into consideration a wide variety of factors. there were a number of places where violence would spike and

we would have to make a decision. at this point what we were trying to do was work with the libyan authorities, that is what the august 17th memo from deputy secretary nides refers to. we were trying to provide additional security assistance so that the libyans could do more to assist themselves. and you know it is the case that in the world we are in today there are a lot of places that are dangerous, violence goes up and goes down, part of what acting assistant secretary beth jones was referencing in this memo is this is a new -- is this a new normal. and the secretary does personally oversee the decision to order departure or shut down posts and it is important to take that ultimate responsibility very much to heart which i did. but i think that there was no

recommendation to do that. and again i was following it. i was watching it. i was trying to make a very well reasoned analysis but i was also listening to the people who were both on the ground and with a lot of experience who had served in iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, yemen, other places like that and there was no recommendation. >> secretary clinton what i'm trying to make a distinction is what you made with benghazi and your staff and i'm running out of time and want to get back to the $20 million we talked about. on numerous occasions the finger has been pointed at congress for not properly funding the security or the funding not being available for the security requests yet i find it curious that you are able to find $20

million to support increased security forces in libya yet we weren't able to find money to support your own people on the ground. and, you know, particularly in light of the fact that mrs. lamb said that funding wasn't an issue. so i think that it's been a little bit misleading to say it's congress' fault and also it's worth pointing out there was $20 million found for libyan security and no dollars found to support increased security for our own people. >> well, as i know you're aware, congresswoman, congress sets spending levels in categories of spending and as i said earlier the request for diplomatic security to do exactly what you are referencing we are under functioned and under functioned

continuously and we began to get more support from congress after benghazi but one of the funds that is very important when you are actually talking about an american presence in the country goes back to questions that i was being asked by congresswoman duckworth, if we can help build up the libyan security forces they are the host country, it is their responsibility to protect diplomatic posts. so i don't see these as unconnected. but it is true that we spend money for diplomatic security out of what the congress appropriated. >> charlene lamb said herself it wasn't a budget i, do you take issue with that statement? >> i can only tell you our analysis of the under funding of security for our diplomatic posts was very much in line with what i have just said, that we asked for money and this administration in the earlier

years and we were under funded and so i can tell you that it would have been very helpful to have more money for diplomatic security and i want to thank the congress for upping the amount of money that went to diplomatic security, working with the defense department to get more marines deployed to more posts and the other actions that have been taken post benghazi. >> we appreciate that although again i really think there is a conflict between charlene lamb's statement and some you have made about that. but real quickly mr. chairman i want to run through one quick timeline and make an observation, on august 17th you received a memo on the deteriorating security in libya, the same day you were asked to give $20 million to the libya government to beef up security, your department issued a warning, telling american citizens to get out of libya and not to travel there and then libya itself issued a, quote,

maximum alert for benghazi. you several times made a statement and we believe you that the ambassador stevens was your friend and i'm wondering why with all of this in front of you, the secretary of state why did it not occur to you to pick up the phone and call your friend? i know you have mentioned experts, i know you said ambassador stevens and other diplomates go into these high risk situations with their eyes wide open but i just want to hear from you why with all of this information in front of you particularly on the date of august 17th did it not occur to you to pick up the phone and call your friend ambassador stevens and ask him what he needed? >> we knew what he was asking for. those requests went to the security professionals. and i would only add with respect to the travel warning we

issue travel warnings for many, many places in the world. they are really aimed at informing american travelers, business travelers, tourists about conditions that they might face if they go to countries. they are not a criterion for determining whether we keep or end a diplomatic presence. and i just want to go back to the point you were making and read from the accountability review board, for many years the state department has been engaged in a struggle to obtain the resources necessary to carry out its work with varying degrees of success, this has brought about a deep sense of the importance of husbanding resources to meet the highest priorities, laudable in the extreme but it has also had the effect of conditioning a few state department managers to favor restricting the use of resources as a general orientation, it is imperative that the state department to be mission driven rather than

resource constrained and one overall conclusion in this report is that congress must do its part to meet this challenge and provide necessary resources to the state department to address security risks and meet mission imperatives. >> my time is out and afraid my chairman will tell me to be quiet. >> well, i'm not going to tell you to be quiet, i'm going to ask you if you might hold it, i'm going to try to be quicker on the gavel than i have been in the interest of time. >> okay, i'll circle back then, thank you, i yield back. >> recognize the gentleman from maryland. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. let me say that the madam secretary and committee, the august 17th, 2012 information memo just referenced is not something new. >> that's right. >> it's not something that this committee uncovered. >> that is right. >> in fact, congress has had the

information memo for years. it was attached to as an exhibit to the benghazi arb report that second forry clinton sent to congress before her testimony to congress in january of 2013. the arb had it and considered it important enough to append it to the report and congress already questioned the secretary about her awareness of security conditions in libya and the run up to the attacks. >> will the gentleman yield? >> we just gave you an extra three minutes, i got to use my time i'm sorry, if i have extra time i'll give it to you. within months of the attacks the republican investigations of benghazi have begun and the chief investigator madam secretary who was chairman of the house oversight committee,

daryl made it clear his efforts were directed at you as he spoke at a political event in new hampshire. chairman isa had said he came to that political event in new hampshire to, quote, shape the debate for 2016, end of quote. how right he was. in that event -- can we role the tape please. >> we need to have an answer of when the secretary of defense had access that he could have begun spinning up why there was not one order given to turn on one department of defense asset and i have my suspicions which is secretary clinton totally told him to stand down and we heard about the stand down order for two military personnel, that order is undeniable, they were told not to get off the airpl e

airplane. >> the idea that you would intentionally take steps to prevent assistance to americans under attack in benghazi is simply beyond the pale. the claim has also been disproven multiple times over. first it was disproved by the arb which issued this report at the end of 2012. admiral mullen former chairman of joint chiefs of staff had led the arb military review and concluded that the military had and i quote, done everything possible that we could, end of quote. then the republican led, the republican led house arm services committee issued its report in february of 2014, madam secretary, which detailed all of the steps taken by the military to mobilize upon

hearing of the attacks including immediately redistricting a surveillance drone to benghazi, ordering two marine platoons to spain to deploy, one bound for benghazi, the other for tripoli, ordering the commanders and instruments force, training in croatia to move to a u.s. naval air safety in italy and dispatching a special operations unit to the region from the united states. about his review the chairman howard buck mckin a republican stated i think i have been pretty well satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened

and how quickly it dissipated we probably couldn't have done more than we did, end of quote. chairman, isa oversight committee which i'm the ranking member of even spent years actively pursuing evidence for this claim and found nothing. and as it says in the democratic report we put out on monday none of the 54 individuals interviewed by our select committee has identified any evidence to support this republican claim against you. in fact, not one of the nine congressional and independent investigations has identified any evidence to support this assertion in the last three years. my question, i sincerely hope this puts this defensive claim to rest once and for all and i'm asking you madam secretary did you order the defense secretary

leon pinetta to stand down the night of the attacks? >> of course not congressman and i appreciate you going through the highlights of the very comprehensive report that the house armed services committee did on this. i think it's fair to say everybody, everybody certainly defense secretary pinetta, joint chief of staff chairman dempsey everybody in the military scrambled to see what they could do and i was very grateful for that and as you rightly point out logistics and distance made it unlikely that they could be anywhere near benghazi within any kind of reasonable time. >> madam secretary the attacks took place in upheaval and intense velocitity in the middle

east and africa and unrest throughout the region. i would light to play a clip that shows what was happening at dozens of posts throughout the world and than i would like to get your reaction if you can. please play the tape. >> spread over amateur video made in the united states which mocks islam, in african capitol kabul they held violent protests and burning cars and tires and shooting at police. in the indonesia capitol hundreds of protesters from hard line islamic groups threw bombs and rocks outside of the american embassy. in pakistan at least one protester was killed. in beirut head of the shia muslim movement hezbollah called

for week of demonstrations against the video and tens of thousands have turned out in a tightly organized peaceful protest. let's go live to the streets of beirut. >> secretary clinton what was your sense of how things were unfolding? >> congressman they were very dangerous and volatile, starting on monday with attack in cairo going all the way through the week and into the next week there were numerous protests, some of which you have shown us clips of and they were dangerous. you know, the one that i was particularly concerned about happened in tunis and it was the friday after the attack in again benghazi and we knew from reports through the region this was a very hot issue and it was not going away and it was being kept alive and we were

particularly worried about what might happen on friday because friday is the day of prayers for muslims so we were on very high alert going into friday. i got a call through our operations department from our ambassador in tunis who was in the safe room in the embassy in tunisia, there were thousands of demonstrators on the outside. they were battering down the barriers and the walls around our embassy. they had already set on fire the american school which is very close to the embassy. and the ambassador and his team were desperate for help, their calls to the good evening of tunisia, the host government had gone unanswered and i got on the phone calling the foreign minister and calling the prime minister who were the heads of government. i could not find either one of

them. i called the president, president marzuki and got him on the phone and told him he had to rescue our people, he had to disburse the crowds that were there because of the video. he said i don't control the army. i have nothing i can do. i said mr. president you must be able to do something. i've got all of my people inside the embassy, they are being attacked, if the protesters get through, into the embassy i don't know what will happen. he said well you know i do have a presidential guard. i said mr. president please deploy your presidential guard, at least show that tunisia will stand with the united states against these protesters over this inflammatory video. to his great credit and to my great relief that is exactly what he did. he sent the presidential guard, those of you who have traveled know that sometimes men in fancy uniforms and sometimes they are on horses but he sent them and sent whatever he could muster to

our rescue and the crowd was dispersed. the damage was extensive. but we thankfully did not have anything other than property damage to the embassy and to the american school. and the government of tunisia later helped us to repair that. but it was the kind of incredibly tense moment we had protesters going over the walls of our embassy in cartoom and protests as you rightly point out all the way to indonesia, thankfully no americans were killed partly because i had been consistent in speaking out about that video from the very first day when we knew it had sparked the attack on our embassy in cairo i spoke about it because i wanted it to be clear to every government around the world that we were going to look to them to protect our facilities and it was a very tense week

congressman, one that i think demonstrated how volatile the world is and how important it is for the united states to be on top of what people themselves are reacting to and that is what i tried to do during that time. >> thank you very much. >> thank the gentleman from maryland and the chair will recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. wes more land. >> i want to thank you for giving us a play by play of what happened in tunisia. could you do the same thing of what happened in benghazi? could you tell us the same kind of play by play that who came to the rescue there? because i don't know of anybody that did. so i don't know who you called and their lack of ability to get anybody there. it's just hard for me to comprehend why you would give us that blow by blow of something we are not even investigating

here but we appreciate it but i do want to ask you. >> congressman if i could. >> yeah. >> several of you have raised the video and have dismissed the importance of the video and i think that is unfortunate because there is no doubt and as i said earlier even the person we have now arrested as being one of the ring leaders of the attack on our compound in benghazi is reputed to have used the video as a way to gather up the attackers that attacked our compound. so i think it's important, these are complex issues, mr. congressman. and i think it's important that we look at the totality of what was going on. it's like the term inthat happened in paris, cartoons sparked two al-qaeda trained attackers who killed you know nearly a dozen people. >> taking my time. >> you as members of congress looking into these issues you

look at the to tall to ty so we can learn the best lessons. >> my time and let me ask you about a little thing, you said that you spent a lot of sleepless nights and i can't imagine and you said you often wondered what you could have done different. what did you come up with? >> a long list, a long list congressman. >> the top two. >> well to go back to the point that congresswoman duckworth was raising about contractors if we had a more reliable security force in large numb -- numbers and well armed and well focused protecting our compound. >> what could you have done different than what you did do? >> i'm trying to tell you. i think if the malitia that had been engaged by both the cia and the state department had been more reliable. >> but you didn't have anything to do with that you said. >> but i made a long list,

congressman, about anything that anybody could have done and that's how i looked at it. i looked at it from the perspective of what are the many pieces, contracting is a part of that. there are many other issues that we need to address. that's really the main reason i'm here, to continue to try to do what i can to honor those who are lost and to make sure that you know we are well prepared to try to prevent. now we know we can't prevent everything, that is the way the world is but to do the very best we can and there are many elms that go into is that. >> contractors are number one, what would be number two? >> i don't think that is an unimportant point. we had a malitia, we had an unarmed static force that probably couldn't have done much more. it should i think inspire us to look for ways to get host countries to permit there to be

more dedicated security forces, well enough armed and trained to be really a force to protect our compounds and our other facilities and that would have perhaps made a difference. it certainly you know it might have made a difference if we had more help from the cia there on the compound, if maybe we had a rotating presence but i have to say in reviewing a lot of the analysis that have been made by security experts, very well trained, experienced security people, they are not sure that anything would have stopped the attackers and i know that admiral mullen when we went to work for the arb were concerned that the diplomatic officers fired a shot, they had their weaponed and had not fired a shot. >> not trying to cut you off and tried to be nice and you are doing well, we both talk slow so let's give each other a little

breather room here. you talked about mrs. victoria neulan and you know her, right? >> yes i do. >> this was her briefing on september the 13th. some reporter named elise asked her a question about the security and her response was i'm going to reject that elise, let me tell you what i can about the security and mission in benghazi, it did include a local libyan guard force around the outer perimeter. that guard force never showed up that night and it did not normally patrol the outer perimeter. the only people that patrol the outer perimeter was the unarmed blue mountain but she said this is the was way we work in all of our missions, all around the world, the outer perimeter is the responsibility of the host government which there wasn't really a host government at the

time. it was obviously a physical perimeter barrier, a wall and then there was a robust american security presence inside the compound. i don't five 5 ds agents not fully equipped or armed for what they were facing you could call a robust american security presence? would you have used the word robust? >> i would certainly have said that the security on that night was reliant on a malitia that did not perform as --. >> i'm not talking about the malitia on the outside, i'm talking about the robust american presence on the inside. >> it was considered robust in

the sense that the request had been for five diplomatic security officers to accompany the ambassador, there were five there. and they did as i have testified to the very best they could. they were armed. and in the course of the thorough investigation conducted by the accountability review board as i said admiral had more than 40 years experience in the military and wanted to know why the ds agents had not fired their weapons. and they explained, as many since have heard who have interviewed them, their assessment was that it would have resulted in the loss of even greater life and they chose not to and admiral mullen reached the conclusion that they acted appropriately so even though we had the five ds agents that had been requested, they were over run and unable to do more than they did.

>> they were over run because they didn't have any defensive positions to fight from because they refused to give them additional sand bags because they did not want it to look like a military compound, i've heard the testimony and want to ask you about the fest, are you familiar with an fest? >> yes. >> what is an fest? >> stand up embassys or consulates or other facilities that have been impacted by either natural disasters or some kind of. >> attack. >> attacks, exactly. >> kidnapping. and where are they located? >> located in the united states. >> languagely airforce base? >> i'm not sure where they are located now. >> they are there and it's an inner agency. >> right. >> task force. >> right. >> includes the f.b.i. i guess the dod and the state department and if you look at the state department website s comes up under that so i'm assuming you

are the lead in those agencies. >> it's an inner agency effort. >> okay, but it was deployed in 1998 in kenya, correct, after the embassy bomb in there of the towers? >> right. >> and to tanzanie, correct? >> that is correct. >> they were there, ready to go on short notice and said they could have been ready in four hours to leave. this is the group of people that would go into a situation as you describe when it had been over run, attacked, kayed -- kidnapping to give guidance to other forces or help that was coming in, correct? and i know you have staff and a number of e-mails from your staff that originally recommended that you send the fest team and i think they may

have talked to mr. sullivan or it was somebody that got an e-mail and they said they would pass it up the chain and somebody made the decision not to end the fest which would have been as secretary of state i would think since it's a state department led mission that would have been the first thing you would have wanted to get out but instead, if i understand correctly from the e-mail chain, your first request was to see how soon the f.b.i. could get over there, is that a true statement? >> well, congressman, the fest went to east africa to help rebuild our embassy capacity. they have expertise in once our two embassys were bombed how do we regain communications, we were not rebuilding in again in

benghazi and no reason to get f.b.i. investigators in benghazi as soon as it was safe for them to go so they could start to try to build a case so we could bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice, that was absolutely the primary goal that we had in working with the f.b.i. and i think -- you know, when we make a decision on a deployment of the fest, it is not just the secretary of state, in this case there was the nfc involved, there was the cia involved, there was the cicis about it and the conclusion was we are not going to rebuild in benghazi. >> that was a quick decision to make that night you were not going to rebuild in benghazi. >> the fest would not have -- >> i understand but you just mentioned all the agencies that would have been important to get on the ground as quick as

possible and summarize what the situation was to give you that direction but i know i'm out of time, mr. chairman, but i do want to say what mrs. robi was trying to get you to say is what decisions did you make in regard to benghazi and what were you responsible to make? i think that is what all of us want to know. what did you do? and what decisions did you make? and you said everybody else is responsible for everything else, what were you responsible for? >> i was responsible for sending chris stevens to benghazi for an envoy and responsible for supporting a temporary mission that we were constantly evaluating to determine whether it should become permanent in benghazi, i was responsible for recommending for stevens to be the ambassador and responsible for working on the policy both

before and after the end of the gadhafi regime and responsible for quite a bit congressman and not responsible for specific security requests and decisions, that is not something i was responsible for. >> your time expired and we recognize the gentleman from california. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> we are taking a break now from the hearing on benghazi where we have just heard another round of questioning from repetitive wes more land trying to get former secretary of state hillary clinton to acknowledge her responsibility and let's go to david schuster, has she admitted anything? >> she is saying two days after the attack the security was robust and no problem with security when all of the evidence was at the time they

knew the security was not robust and there were problems and so he asked would secretary clinton acknowledge there was a mistake there and you saw again a dynamic that drives republicans crazy about hillary clinton and that is most people might just say do you know what of course our spokesperson made a mistake, of course the security wasn't robust and regret she said that and we heard ten minutes of secretary clinton of what her spokesperson may have been technically accurate and that is the kind of think that doesn't do the committee or necessarily do hillary clinton any great service when there is that -- such intense parsing of words so you avoid admitting any mistakes. >> which would in the republicans' mind be the obvious mistake, not enough people to protect. >> small potatos if security was robust and people will say it was and the idea our government after an attack like this in our

name the state department spokesperson are hitting back at reporters questioning if security was adequate, i think there is a desire by the public whether it's republican or democrat administration that a spokesperson for the state department or the pentagon or the white house and if there was a mistake you say something went wrong and looking to find out opposed to digging in your meals and trying to defend every word of something so it fits in the political narrative. >> why would the former secretary of state not make a blanket admission we messed up? >> i think this part of the testimony to me is the most interesting part of it, she is taking a different path which is who other than me was responsible? she went after congress and said congress under funded this, under funded security and blamed them directly. she said contractors were not the way we should have gone. contractors were not what we should have done. it was on them. she mentioned the tunesia example to show that when she

asked for help she got it and when she asked for help in libya there was nobody on the other end of the phone and she said look i tried and i couldn't get what i needed. she also said, she also said that the specific security precautions were not her responsibility which i thought was very interesting in that last part of it. >> take david's point that perhaps hillary would have done a favor saying we messed up. >> she could of but didn't which is what i'm saying she carved out this hour for some reason to say this is how i'm not responsible and would have contradicted her narrative and wouldn't be surprised if later she comes back to it and says obviously this was not the most robust measures we could have taken but look at all these other factors i mentioned. >> one thing that stands out and for everything we heard in the last couple hours and for people tuning in and coming home from work and trying to understand what happened today i would say the headline so far has been the revelation that came out that

may be the most intriguing and have the most legs is we learned today that hillary clinton sent an e-mail hours after thettack in benghazi september 11, 2012 and sent an e-mail to chelsea chin ton and other members of the clinton family and said we know an al-qaeda group has attacked benghazi, the problem with that for hillary clinton is a few days later she told family members of the victims who were killed in benghazi we are going to go after those responsible for the film that inspired this. so on the one hand she is saying with certainty to her own family this was al-qaeda but publically her state department and she herself are saying a different story that in a sense did protect the obama administration which was up for reelection and had used as a theme there have been no al-qaeda attacks under our watch and we kept the american people safe. >> one last point before we go to the break. >> i'm not sure you can make that distinction between the video and al-qaeda protests or al-qaeda attacks because as she

said the individual in custody in the united states now who was one of the master minds of this attack supposedly or allegedly does blame the video in part for what inspired his action. >> that is true except administration was making a distinction between the film and what they knew to be al-qaeda and there was no mention or willingness to say in a few days after september 11, 2012 we know al-qaeda was involved and one attack since president obama has been in office from alaska al-qaeda but look at the larger record there was no acknowledgment of that. >> stick with us and the audience if you stay with us as well and at the conclusion of the hearing we will have an update on the hearing as well as all of the rest of today's news here on al jazeera america, we will be right back.

madam secretary not a single member of the committee signed up to investigate you or your e-mail. we are back live on capitol hill and questioning by representative adam shift, the former secretary of state hillary clinton. >> not a member here has shown anything you said or the ambassador said that was at all inconsistent with what our intelligence agencies told us exactly at the time. it may come of interest to some of my colleagues not on intelligence to say there are a great many people in the intelligence community that believe the video was part of the motivation of some who attacked us on that night. i wish frankly we spend more time giving you an accurate representation of the documents and the reports and the facts

instead of making an effort to demagog on this, i find it fascinating frankly my colleagues put so much reliance on a 17-year-old accountability of review board report and place no weight in the one actually about benghazi. thomas pickering has 40 years of experience. there is probably no one in the diplomatic core more respected and admiral mullen the other chair and chair of joint chiefs of staff and who democrats and republicans both respected tremendously, are we now to believe they are a bunch of rubes and had the wool pulled over their eyes and corrupt and incompetent, why is their report of so little value? it's hard for me to escape the conclusion that the one centric fact of them all is that you are running for president and with high poll numbers and that is why we are here. and i say all this because i

never want to see this happen again. i don't want four years or eight years or 12 years from now another presidential election for us to be in here or one side or the other not the republicans to say let's do benghazi again that really worked or the democrats to say they did it to us, let's do it to them. and i think frankly by pointing these things out that is the only way we are going to avoid having this happen again. well, let me just ask you on that 17-year-old arb and in light of mr. moral who came in and talked to us not about the security at the diplomatic facility but at the cia-annex the improvements at the benghazi base to have an assessment and the implementation of recommendations were all done without the knowledge and direction of the director and i,

it happened exactly where it should have happened which is in that security office. it's the same view on the cia's part and of course they are not here but would you like to comment on what the full recommendation of the tanzania-arb was and the very similar process used in our intelligence agencies? >> thank you very much congressman shift and i think you make an excellent point, i'm aware of deputy director morale's testimony, it's very similar to what i have said here. it's very similar to what i believe general petreaus come before you about the issues of security whether we are talking state department or cia or any other agency are not made at the level of secretary, director. it is made at the appropriate level of the security professionals and i think what

mike morale told you in the intelligence committee investigation you would hear from anyone in the government at a high-level who has to deploy americans around the world. we see that with the defense department. you know, we see breaches of security on our military bases and we know that everybody is struggling to get it right. and as i have said the vast majority of cases are security professionals do. and then unfortunately there are instances where they do not and that is why we have after action reports or why we have the accountability review board, to look at what happened and try to learn from it and going always the way back to tehran and beirut and east africa and 100 attacks on facilities around the world since 2001 we have tried to learn and apply those lessons

and i hope we will continue doing so. >> thank you madam secretary, yield back. >> the chair will now recognize the gentleman from ohio, mr. jordan. >> thank you, secretary clinton you said some of you have raised the video, raised the video? you raised the video. at 10:08 on september 11, 2012 you raised the video. at 10:08 with americans still fighting for their lives an hour and a half before the attack ends you raise the video so i'm going back to the 10:08 statement, in the first round you said that the statement was not meant to explain the type of attack or the cause of the attack. so let's lock at your statement. this statement from the department of state statement on the attack in benghazi press statement hillary clinton secretary of state washington d.c. september 11, 2012. 12 sentences in this statement,

i'm going to focus on the one, some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet. there is a cause. there is a motive presented there. there is only one motive. you say this, you say inflammatory material cause, vicious behavior, vicious behavior, vicious behavior that led and resulted in the deaths of four americans. this sure seems to be cause ther there. >> may i read what i said? what i said is that icon demeanor in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in benghazi today as we work to secure our personnel and facilities we have confirmed that one of our state department officers was killed, we are heart broken by this terrible loss. our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.

this evening i call libyan president to coordinate additional support to protect americans in libya, the president expressed his condemnation and condolence and prejudiced his government's full cooperation, some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet and deploys an effort to den great the religious beliefs of others and commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the beginning of the nation but let me be clear there is never any justification of violent acts of these kind in light of events today the united states government is working with partner countries around the world to protect personnel and missions and american citizens worldwide. >> right and i'm asking you said the first round there was no motive, no cause, you weren't trying to explain the cause of the attack it sure seems to me like you did. >> congressman. >> you presented and you said you presented inflammatory material was the reason for the vicious behavior, is that not a

cause and effect? >> that is not what it says. what i said was some have sought. >> you read the whole thing. >> i did. >> i'm asking bt that one sentence because earlier you said there was no cause, no motive presented, i think there was and that is why i think most of the american people thought. >> well i know there was a great deal of news coverage that looked at the events in cairo, looked at what happened in benghazi and drew some comparisons and maybe even connections. i know as we have just heard from congressman shift there was a lot of fast-moving analysis by the intelligence community to try to make sense of all of this and i can only tell you from the perspective. >> hang on one second, if the intelligence may have changed some but your story didn't, that is the point. and privately your story was

much different than it was publically. again, you said to the egyptian prime minister we know the attack in libya had nothing to do with the film, it was a planned attack, not a protest. you said to your family terrorists killed two of our good people. so your story privately is much different than what you are telling the american people, intelligence may have changed and video may have impact in other places but in benghazi it didn't and you tried to put it together and that bothers us. let me show you a slide here. this is from september 14th. the first statement is by jay carney, let's be clear the protest were reaction to a video that spread to the region and no information to suggest benghazi was a preplanned attack and the statement below is from your press person in libya. sents this to greg hicks and to the experts in the affairs braugherro the same people that

said susan rice was off the reservation on five networks, here is what she says to them. benghazi more terrorist attack than a protest. we want to distinguish, distinguish not to inflate t theevthe events and this was a well planned attack and the experts on libya know this was a well planned attack but publically jay carney is saying what you are saying publically we have no information this was preplanned, this was caused by a video. >> congressman, the next morning at 9:59 i gave another statement and i listened carefully to what you said and you kept talking about cause. well the word cause is not in my statement of the night before. >> i'm referring to what you said to me in our first exchange a few hours ago. >> no, well i'm sorry congressman if i have not been clear i will try to be clearer.

i was talking about people throughout the region trying to justify attacks on our facilities as we saw later in the week and justifying their behavior and repeating it and using the fact of the video not only to arose crowds as we saw in the video clips that the ranking member played but also that would deter governments from coming to our rescue because they would be perhaps ambivalent about doing so so you are right i menned the video because i feared what would happen and, in fact, it did happen. and in the next morning the night before was a brief statement that we put out because we knew we had lost shaun smith and i felt an obligation to tell that to the american people. >> madam secretary.

>> the next morning i gave a much longer statement and it was very clear, heavily armed militants assaulted the compound and set fire to our building exactly what it says. >> you said you were trying to communicate to the folks that you have around the middle east. >> yes, i was trying to send a message. >> got it but that is not what the expert said. they said don't conflate the events, tell the truth about benghazi and talk about what happened there, other places where the video may have had an impact fiancee that. why did you put them altogether when you didn't do that privately, when you told your family about benghazi it was terrorists killed two of our people, when you talked to the libyan president he did it, al-qaeda did it. when you talked to the egyptian prime minister, it's not a film, it's not a protest, it's not a video, it's a terrorist attack. >> well congressman i was working off the information that we had which was that sharee

claimed responsibility and at that point i did say that it was an al-qaeda related group. >> look at the difference in these two statements one says it wasn't a preplanned attack that is jay carney talking publically and experts in libya said it was a well planned attack and they could not be further apart. they could not be. that's what i'm having a hard time figuring out and do you know what is interesting the date of this 9-14-12, do you know what else happened on september 14th there is another document that is kind of important? that is the same day that ben rhoades drafted the memo to under score these protests are rooted in an internet video from a broader failure of policy because we couldn't have libya your baby as he pointed out earlier we couldn't have that