WHERE IS HILLARY?The Benghazi Inquiries Move on Without the Secretary of State.
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Three months after the worst terrorist attack on an American diplomatic outpost since the 1998 embassy bombings—and the most brazen terror strike on U.S. interests since 9/11/2001—the State Department this week will try to clarify what happened in Benghazi this past September 11.Congress will be briefed Wednesday by an independent advisory board created by State to report on security in Libya. Two deputy secretaries of state will testify Thursday in open hearings in the House and Senate—a few steps up the pay grade after career civil servants were sent to take the heat in October. Fuller disclosure on Benghazi can set the record straight and help draw security and policy lessons.But the critical piece of this puzzle will once again be missing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to testify in Thursday’s open hearings. She came down with a stomach virus last week, cancelling a foreign trip.
On Saturday, as the media were consumed by the Newtown massacre, a Clinton spokesman released a statement saying that earlier in the week Mrs. Clinton had fainted and sustained a concussion. On the advice of her doctors, she won’t be able to appear on the Hill. The statement didn’t explain why her injury wasn’t made public earlier.
Health comes first, and we wish Mrs. Clinton a speedy recovery. In a letter to House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mrs. Clinton sent her regrets and said she looks forward “to engaging your committee in January so that we can address the tragic events that occurred in Libya and the measures that the State Department is taking in response.” Mrs. Clinton copied Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry.By January, however, Mrs. Clinton’s likely successor (Senator Kerry) will be nominated and probably on his way to confirmation. Hill sources say it’ll be hard to schedule another hearing and call her back. Congress should insist on it.
Mrs. Clinton’s testimony is months overdue. Ambassador Chris Stevens and the Benghazi consulate staff reported to her. Their safety was her responsibility. Congress needs to flesh out why security was so lacking, why requests for additional protection for the mission were denied, and who made those decisions.
Despite background briefings by the Pentagon, State and CIA, the Obama Administration hasn’t offered a consistent timeline of the Benghazi events. Mrs. Clinton hasn’t said what she did that day and precisely how her department liaised with the military and intelligence services. It shouldn’t take this long to fill such gaps.
The backdrop to Benghazi matters too. Mrs. Clinton was presumably—as the President’s chief foreign policy adviser—instrumental in drawing up the “light footprint” policy in Libya. After the fall of Moammar Gadhafi, the U.S. disengaged. As an elected but weak government struggled to establish itself in Libya, Islamist militias with al Qaeda ties filled the gap. One such group, Ansar al-Shariah, laid siege to the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, killing four Americans. Both the CIA and State immediately pulled out of the city—an abject retreat. What was the rationale for the U.S. approach to Libya, and will it change?
Mrs. Clinton will soon leave the Obama cabinet with sky-high approval ratings and an eye on the 2016 presidential nomination. It’s logical for her not to want to dwell on the worst debacle of her tenure at State. But two months ago, she said “I take responsibility” for Libya without ever doing so. It’s well past time she did.
A version of this article appeared December 19, 2012, on page A18 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Where’s Hillary?.
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