[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 11, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        IN COMMEMORATION OF 9/11

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 11, 2013

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, a dozen years after the tragic 
events of September 11, 2001, the scars from the heinous attack on our 
country remain. We continue to mourn the loss of the lives of nearly 
3,000 innocent men, women and children, including more than 50 men and 
women from my own district, the 4th District of New Jersey.
  The scars remain, obviously, in the painful void in the lives of the 
families who have sought in vain to make sense of their tragic loss. 
And the scars remain embedded in the fabric of our society, which has 
had to learn to cope with the reality of a world where indiscriminate, 
vicious attacks on human life are a constant threat.
  While recognizing the extraordinary efforts and courage of America's 
first responders--the firefighters, police officers, and other 
emergency response personnel, the heroes--it was also apparent from the 
terrorist attacks that our Nation had much to learn. We had to craft 
policies to better protect our people.
  While progress has been made--we are safer, but still not safe--some 
lessons have still not been effectively learned by some in our 
government. One year ago today, unfortunately--on the very anniversary 
of the original 9/11 tragedy--we lost four Americans in a sustained 
attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, including the U.S. 
ambassador to that country.
  I was one of those, among so many others, who advocated early and 
consistently for a commission to chronicle the facts, missteps, and 
opportunities lost leading up to the original 9/11 tragedy and to 
develop a well-informed, thoughtful strategy to reduce the risk of an 
attack. The 9/11 Commission--that was chaired so ably by Governor Tom 
Kean, the former Governor of New Jersey, and former chairman of the 
Foreign Affairs Committee, Lee Hamilton--issued an historic, incisive 
report, a comprehensive report which, together with subsequent 
legislation, was thoroughly examined by House and Senate committees.
  Virtually all of the recommendations were enacted into law. The whole 
thrust, post 9/11, has been to mitigate and, God willing, prevent such 
a tragedy from ever occurring again on our homeland. We have largely 
succeeded as several terrorist bomb plots have been prevented, except 
for the dreadful bombing at this year's Boston Marathon on April 15. 
Still, the perpetrators of that attack have been captured--one is now 
deceased fatally wounded in a shoot out with police and the other 
arrested and facing trial for his part in the bombing.
  I wish I could say the Benghazi murderers of the four Americans have 
met swift justice, but one year later, no one has been arrested, there 
are no credible leads on the perpetrators, and those deemed by the 
subsequent Accountability Review Board (ARB) report to be at fault 
received months of paid leave and are now back at work at the State 
Department. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed to be 
responsible, but even though she was directly involved in decisions 
made during the hours of attacks on the Americans in Benghazi, the ARB 
didn't even question her and never explained why. A year later, we 
still don't know who gave the order to our military to stand down from 
rescue operations while there presumably was still time to save the 
four Americans who died. Despite House and Senate hearings on the 
matter, a shroud of silence has descended to withhold the answers to 
the mysteries still surrounding the events of one year ago today.
  Our enemies are constantly searching for our vulnerabilities, and our 
ability to remain ahead of them is critical to our very survival. 
However, when Americans lose their lives and no one is culpable for 
their deaths, our safety in the homeland or abroad cannot be assured. 
Our enemies must know that justice will surely find them, and our 
officials must be certain that unjustifiable errors in judgment are not 
without cost.
  This is a very solemn day for America. There are now two tragedies 
associated with this day, and the most recent one remains painfully 
unresolved.

                          ____________________