adminRepublican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has seized on the attack and said the death of Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans killed at the consulate revealed weakness in Obama’s foreign policy.
“I’m in charge of the State Department’s 60 000-plus people all over the world,” Clinton said.
“The president and the vice president wouldn’t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They’re the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision.”
Republicans in particular have focused on the Obama administration’s shifting explanations for the attack, which Clinton said in two separate television interviews on Monday were the result of “the fog of war”.
“Remember, this was an attack that went on for hours,” Clinton told Fox News. “There had to be a lot of sorting out . . . Everyone said, here’s what we know, subject to change.”
Congress has increased pressure on the State Department to release information about the attack. Obama and Clinton have both vowed a full investigation.
The administration initially attributed the violence to protests over an anti-Islam film and said it was not premeditated. Obama and other officials have since said the incident was a terrorist attack.
The Benghazi assault, and the Obama administration’s response, has become a contentious election issue and Clinton’s comments came a day before the second presidential debate.
“What I want to avoid is some kind of political ‘gotcha’ or blame game going on,” Clinton told CNN.
“I know that we’re very close to an election. I want to just take a step back here and say from my own experience, we are at our best as Americans when we pull together. I’ve done that with Democratic presidents and Republican presidents.”
Romney has accused the administration of not providing adequate security to American diplomats and misrepresenting the nature of the attack, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Romney’s criticisms have sought to undercut the foreign policy record of Obama, who has been praised for the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the withdrawal of troops from unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those attacks sharpened after last week’s vice presidential debate, when Vice-President Joe Biden said “we did not know” of requests by US diplomats on the ground in Libya for more security — a statement that contradicted testimony given two days earlier by State Department officials at a congressional hearing.
Clinton told the networks that Obama and Biden had not been involved in security decisions related to the consulate. — Xinhua.
Online Reporter