A Senate report has found that the White House did not make major changes in the script that Obama administration officials used after the attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.
Some opposition Republicans had questioned whether President Barack Obama’s staff rewrote the statements for political reasons.
Instead, the report cited changes made by intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, in its probe of the confusing explanations that came from the Obama administration.
The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11 attack in Libya. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said she used the talking points to say in interviews on Sept. 16 that the attack may have been a protest that got out of hand.
The report Monday by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the White House was only responsible for a minor change in those talking points.
The committee, led by independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, also said the director of national intelligence had been stonewalling the panel in holding back a promised timeline of the script changes.
Rice’s incorrect explanation may have cost her a chance to be nominated as the next secretary of state, as Senate Republicans publicly said they would not vote to confirm her. Obama instead nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is expected to win easy confirmation.
The State Department last month acknowledged major weaknesses in security and errors in judgment that were exposed in a scathing independent report on the assault.
Testifying before two congressional committees, senior State Department officials acknowledged that serious management and leadership failures left the diplomatic mission in Benghazi woefully unprepared for the terrorist attack. The State Department review board’s report prompted four of its officials to resign.
