A two-year congressional investigation into the deadly 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, found that while the State Department ignored warnings of terrorist threats, Obama administration appointees weren’t directly to blame.
The report, conducted by the Republican-run House Intelligence Committee and declassified Friday, debunks several conspiracies regarding the administration’s involvement in the attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The bipartisan team of investigators also praised the CIA and military personnel who responded to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2012, saying their actions saved American lives.
“With remarkable bravery and limited resources, these CIA officers left their base, scaled walls, repeatedly crawled into smoke-filled rooms, rescued their State Department colleagues … and battled trained terrorists with greater fire power to defend U.S. interests in Benghazi,” the report says.
Their action “contrasts with the failure of senior U.S. officials to provide for the defense of U.S. interests against a known and growing terrorist threat in the region,” it says.
The investigators also said senior U.S. officials “perpetuated an inaccurate story that matched the administration’s misguided view that the United States was nearing a victory over al Qaeda.”
The administration originally said the assault was spontaneous and linked to protests earlier that day in Cairo against an American-made video denigrating the prophet Muhammad. That explanation, repeated several times in the days after the attacks by Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was later disproved.
Many Republicans suggested the administration knew all along that the Benghazi attack was planned by an organized anti-American terrorist group but was reluctant to admit it for fear the truth would tarnish its anti-terrorism efforts in the region.
But the report said intelligence analysts, not political appointees, made the wrong call. And the report didn’t conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled Americans.
The investigators also said they found no evidence of illegal intelligence activities on the ground in Benghazi in the days before the attack. They added that the CIA didn’t intimidate or threaten Benghazi witnesses, as some Republicans have suggested.
“There is responsibility for the tragedy nonetheless,” the report concludes. “Blame rests with those who refused to recognize risk and think strategically. The blames rest with those officials who failed to ensure America’s front-line professionals had the tools, resources, authorities and assets to success in the fight we are in.”
Republicans have hammered the Obama administration since the attack, sparking a furor that led the House to create a special committee dedicated to investigating it.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said the exhaustive report shows that the special panel, headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., is now largely redundant.
“Based on these unanimous, bipartisan findings, there is no reason for the Benghazi Select Committee to reinvestigate these facts, repeat the work already done by our Republican and Democratic colleagues, and squander millions of additional taxpayer dollars in the process,” Cummings said.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who serves on the intelligence panel and the Benghazi select committee, said, “It’s my hope that this report will put to rest many of the questions that have been asked and answered yet again, and that the Benghazi Select Committee will accept these findings and instead focus its attention on the State Department’s progress in securing our facilities around the world and standing up our fast response capabilities.”
• The Associated Press contributed to this report.
