Hillary Clinton still won’t say whether she takes any responsibility for the chaos that’s consumed Libya since she pushed for the U.S. to invade it in 2011 and topple Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
“Secretary Clinton, Libya is falling apart,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz noted Saturday during the third Democratic debate.
“You advocated for that 2011 intervention and called it smart power at its best. Even President Obama said the U.S. should done more to fill the leadership vacuum left behind. How much responsibility do you bear for the chaos that followed elections?” Raddatz asked the leading Democratic presidential hopeful.
“Well first, let’s remember why we became part of a coalition to stop Gaddafi from committing massacres against his people … the U.S. was asked to support the European and the Arab partners that we had and we did a lot of due diligence about whether we should or not. Eventually, I recommended, and the president decided, that we would support the action to protect civilians on the ground, and that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi,” Clinton responded.
Without addressing the chaos in Libya, specifically, Clinton then argued that “the whole region has been rendered unstable, in part because of the aftermath of the Arab spring,” and because of the “propagandizing that ISIS and other terrorists groups do.”
“This is not easy work. We did a lot to help,” Clinton added, winding down her answer.
An unsatisfied Raddatz then repeated her original question.
“That government lacked institutions and experience — it had been a family business for 40 years. On the security side, we offered only modest training effort and a very limited arms buy-back program. Let me ask you the question again — how much responsibility do you bear for the chaos that followed those elections?”
“I think a lot of the Libyans who had been forced out of their country by Gadhafi, who came back to try to be part of a new government, believed they knew what to do, and it turned out they were no match for some of the militaristic forces inside that country,” Clinton responded, again refusing to address her role.
“But I’m not giving up on Libya and I don’t think anybody should,” she added.
“But were mistakes made?” Raddatz pressed the former secretary of state.
“Well there’s also a retrospective to say mistakes were made. But I know we offered the Libyans a lot of help and I know it was difficult for the Libyans to accept help,” Clinton said.
She added, “What we could have done if they had said yes would’ve been a lot more than what we were able to have done.”
Clinton was also asked about her involvement in Libya during the first Democratic presidential debate in mid-October, during which she defended the U.S. war in Libya and refused to admit to making any mistakes.
