[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8487-8488]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         BENGHAZI INVESTIGATION

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to discuss the state of play in 
Benghazi. Senator Boxer came on the floor this morning and talked about 
the investigations and all the things that have been done to find out 
about what happened in Benghazi.
  No. 1, to those serving in Libya today, you are definitely in our 
thoughts and prayers. My advice to the administration is get those 
folks out as quickly as you can, because this thing is going downhill 
very quickly in Libya. So let's not have another Benghazi on our hands. 
I feel as though the security environment in Libya is deteriorating as 
I speak.
  Let me, if I can, set the stage for my concern. One, I think most 
people on this side of the aisle, rightly or wrongly, believe that if 
the names were changed, this whole attitude toward finding out what 
happened in Benghazi would be different; if it had been the Bush 
administration, Condoleezza Rice, not Susan Rice, that we would be on 
fire as a nation to find out how the President could have 2 weeks after 
the attack--mentioned a video as the cause of the attack--that all the 
information coming from the intelligence community to the White House 
and others, there was never a protest. If Secretary Rice had gotten on 
the national news or Mr. Hadley or John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to 
the United Nations had gotten on television 5 days after the attack and 
told the story about the level of security: We believe it was a protest 
caused by video, not accordingly a terrorist attack--if that had all 
been said by the Bush people, there would have been definitely a 
different approach about this issue. That to me is very sad. You may 
not agree with that observation, but almost everybody over here I think 
believes that.
  Mr. Zucker today--I know him from CNN; fine man--said he would not be 
bullied into covering the select committee. Nobody is asking any outlet 
to be bullied. But I have some questions I want CNN to answer, or 
somebody who would answer questions that I think are very relevant.
  What is the state of what? As far as the Senate goes, we have had the 
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issue a report on January 15, 
2014. I think they did a very good job covering their lane. They did 
not have jurisdiction over the State Department so their report was 
limited. There was a minority report inside the report by Republicans 
taking some issues with some of the findings. But the bottom line was, 
the Senate intel committee, in a bipartisan fashion, looked at Benghazi 
and said it could have been prevented. So that is something to be 
positive about.
  The Armed Services Committee has done nothing. They have not issued 
any reports. This is the report of the Armed Services Committee in the 
Senate looking at DOD's responsibility that night.
  The Foreign Relations Committee--this is their report. Nothing 
looking at the State Department's behavior that night.
  We have had hearings, but the relevant committees have not issued 
reports.
  The Homeland Security Committee on December 30, 2012--Senators 
Lieberman and Collins did a good job talking about Homeland Security's 
role in Benghazi, a very good report. But a lot has happened since 
then.
  I want people in the country and the Senate to know the reason I want 
a select committee in the Senate. We are not the House. Two of the 
committees very relevant to oversight of Benghazi have not issued any 
reports.
  The Armed Services Committee has done nothing, nor has the Foreign 
Relations Committee, and I think this is worthy of our time.
  This is a bipartisan report issued in 2008 by the Armed Services 
Committee about detainee abuse. I participated in this report in the 
Bush administration. We had some serious system breakdowns when it came 
to detainees in U.S. custody.
  Senator McCain and I worked with Democrats to issue this report. I 
thought it was important to get to the bottom of system failure in the 
Bush administration. But I would argue that four dead Americans are 
worthy of a report, and we have not had one. There are a lot of things 
that could be done, should be done in the Senate, and have not been 
done.
  What would I like to find out about Benghazi that we did not know? 
This is the Accountability Review Board, an internal investigation by 
the State Department. Two fine men led this investigation--appointed by 
Secretary Clinton. This thing has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. 
They missed a lot. They didn't talk to Secretary Clinton or Ambassador 
Rice.
  In this report they talk about the reason that Ambassador Stevens was 
in Benghazi was that they were looking at closing the consulate in 
Benghazi in December. I finally got to talk to one survivor after 18 
months of trying.
  I found out from that survivor, the person in charge of security in 
Benghazi on the night of the attack, that they had renewed the lease on 
the consulate in July for 1 year. So that makes no sense. The report 
says he went there to look at closing the consulate, and they just 
renewed the lease in July before he went there in September. So it is 
not by any means an exhaustive review of Benghazi.
  This is a readout on September 10, 2012, the day before the attack. 
This is a readout of: ``President's Meeting with Senior Administration 
Officials on Our Preparedness and Security Posture on the Eleventh 
Anniversary of September 11th.''
  Apparently the President had a meeting--in the White House, I 
assume--with all of our national security folks talking about what we 
can expect on September 11 because it was the 11th anniversary of 9/11. 
It states:

       During the briefing today, the President and the Principals 
     discussed specific measures we are taking in the Homeland to 
     prevent 9/11 related attacks as well as the steps taken to 
     protect U.S. persons and facilities abroad, as well as force 
     protection.

  I have one simple question: Did they bring up Libya? Did they talk 
about the security situation in Benghazi and Libya? If not, why not? 
Based on this statement--it is a reassuring statement to the American 
people that the President and his team are on top of the situation.
  They were not on top of it when it came to Libya. So I want to find 
out if that meeting had any discussions about the deathtrap called 
Benghazi.
  This is the security situation in Benghazi pre-9/11. On March 28 
there was a request for additional security which was denied.
  Our security footprint was very light. We had an agreement with a 
militia in Benghazi that was supposed to be our primary reaction team--
a Libyan militia that proved to be less than reliable.
  On April 6 an IED was thrown over the fence of the U.S. post in 
Benghazi. Did the President know about this? Did Secretary Clinton know 
about it? I assume they did, but nobody in any of these investigations 
ever told us that the President was aware of this.
  On June 6 a large IED destroyed part of the security perimeter of the 
U.S. post in Benghazi, leaving a whole ``big enough for 40 men to go 
through.'' They commissioned a study or some kind of review. Where is 
it? It has been attacked in April and June. Did the President know 
about these attacks. They blew a hole in the wall large enough for 40 
people to go through.
  On June 11, 5 days later, the British Ambassador's motorcade is 
attacked--

[[Page 8488]]

very close to the Benghazi facility, our facility--and U.S. personnel 
go help the British ambassador. After this attack, the British closed 
their consulate in Benghazi. Why did we leave ours open?
  On July 9, there was a request from Ambassador Stevens for additional 
security. No response.
  On July 1, Lieutenant General Neller sends an email to Under 
Secretary Kennedy offering additional security. Kennedy responds saying 
no additional DOD support is needed.
  There is a 16-person Special Forces National Guard team that was 
ready to volunteer for an extra year to help our folks in Benghazi, and 
the State Department folks said: No, thanks.
  On August 6, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been 
attacked four times. They finally close up shop and leave town on 
August 6. The British leave and the Red Cross leaves.
  Lieutenant Colonel Wood was a National Guard soldier trying to help 
security doing a site security team investigation. Instead of being 
extended--and he volunteered to stay for 1 additional year--he was sent 
home in August.
  On August 16--this is the most damning of all--there was a cable that 
was sent from Benghazi by our Ambassador telling the people in 
Washington that the consulate could not withstand a coordinated 
terrorist attack and the Al Qaeda flag is flying all over town, 
basically begging for additional security, letting people in Washington 
know: We cannot withstand a coordinated terrorist attack. Al Qaeda 
flags are flying all over the place.
  That is the state of play. That is the background in terms of 
security regarding the consulate in Benghazi.
  Fast forward. These are statements by the Regional Security Officer 
who was asking for additional security. He was so frustrated by the 
response he had received in Washington he said the following: ``For me 
the Taliban is inside the building.''
  What Eric Nordstrom was talking about is that the people in 
Washington seemed to be completely deaf as to his needs for additional 
security. He thought the people in Washington were working against him, 
and he was very worried about what would happen if there was an attack, 
and he believed that one was coming.
  Lieutenant Colonel Wood, a Utah National Guard Special Forces soldier 
who left in August, said:

       It was instantly recognizable to me as a terrorist attack. 
     . . . Mainly because of my prior knowledge there, I almost 
     expected the attack to come. We were the last flag flying; it 
     was a matter of time.

  This had gone up DOD channels as well as the Department of State. So 
that is the history of the security situation in Benghazi.
  Now, to the people at CNN, to my Democratic colleagues, to anybody 
and everybody, please explain to me how on September 16, 5 days after 
the attack, Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations was 
chosen to appear on five Sunday talk shows to talk about the attack in 
Benghazi on our facilities. But I can assure you, she was very worried 
about what was going to happen--the questions regarding Benghazi--
because we had four people killed.
  This is what she said about the level of security on September 16:

       Well, first of all, we had a substantial security presence 
     with our personnel . . . with our personnel and the consulate 
     in Benghazi.

  I have a question. Who told her that. Nothing could have been further 
from the truth. When you look at the history of the security footprint 
in Benghazi, it was begging and pleading by the people in Libya to have 
more help and everything was denied. It was to the point that the 
person in charge of security felt like the Taliban were all inside the 
building in Washington. Lieutenant Colonel Wood said:

       We were the last flag flying. It was a matter of time.

  On August 16, before the September 11 attack, there was a cable from 
Ambassador Chris Stevens saying: We cannot defend this compound against 
a coordinated terrorist attack.
  Those are the facts. This is what Susan Rice told the world:

       Well, first of all, we had a substantial security presence 
     with our personnel . . . with our personnel and the consulate 
     in Benghazi.

  I have a simple question. Who told her that, who briefed her about 
security in Benghazi, because the person who told her that needs to be 
fired because they are completely incompetent or they lied to her.
  If she made this up, she needs to resign because nothing could have 
been further from the truth. If she just made this up to make the 
administration look good in light of all of the other evidence about 
security, then she is not an honest person when it comes to conveying 
national security incidents.
  So, please, after all of these investigations, after all of these 
hearings, can somebody tell me from where Susan Rice got this 
information? How could she conclude, based on what we know now, that we 
had a substantial security presence with our personnel in the consulate 
in Benghazi. She went on to say: ``Well, we obviously did have a strong 
security presence.''
  She said this on ABC and this on Fox. If you listened to her on 
September 16, you would believe we were well prepared for this attack 
and we had secured the consulate in a reasonable fashion.
  If anybody had looked at the actual record--the information available 
to our own government in our own files--you could not have said that 
honestly. I am sure this was a good thing to say 6 weeks before an 
election. The problem is it is not remotely connected to the truth.
  To this day, nobody can answer my question. Where did she receive 
information about the security level in Benghazi? She has never been 
interviewed by anybody 20 months later.
  Why was she chosen? If John Bolton had taken Condoleezza Rice's place 
to talk about a consulate--not under his control but under her 
control--people would want to know where the Secretary of State was. 
Ambassador Rice was the U.N. Ambassador--U.S. Ambassador to the United 
Nations. She had no responsibility for consulate security.
  The person responsible for consulate security and our footprint in 
Libya was Secretary Clinton. I have always wondered why they chose her. 
To this day, no one has answered that, but Susan Rice said on 12/13/
2012:

       Secretary Clinton had originally been asked by most of the 
     networks to go on. . . . She had had an incredibly grueling 
     week dealing with the protests around the Middle East and 
     North Africa. I was asked. I was willing to do so. It wasn't 
     what I had planned for that weekend originally, but I don't 
     regret doing that.

  And she further said she had no regrets about what she told the 
American people.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fifteen minutes have expired.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I ask for 5 minutes more if I could.
  Mr. SANDERS. Reserving the right to object, how much longer----
  Mr. GRAHAM. Am I into the Senator's time? If the Senator is next, may 
I have 1 minute?
  To be continued--I can't do this justice in 15 minutes, but this is 
what I am suggesting. If it is true that the Secretary of State could 
not go on television and talk about the consulate under her control and 
tell us about how four Americans died at that consulate--the first 
ambassador in 33 years--because she had a grueling week--if that is 
true--and I don't believe it is, but if it is--then we need to know 
because that will matter to the country as we go forth. If it is not 
true, why would Susan Rice say it?
  To be continued--there is so much about this incident called 
``Benghazi'' that we don't know and that makes no sense to me that I am 
not going to give up until I can tell the families what I believe to be 
the truth. And what I have been told is nowhere near the truth.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

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