United States National Security Advisor Susan Rice doesn’t regret any of the involvement she had in the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attack, she told David Gregory on Sunday morning.
Rice appeared on Meet the Press for the first time since her post-Benghazi visit. In light of that, the host wrapped up the interview by asking if she regretted any of her part in the administration’s handling of the attack. Rice initially said the siege on the U.S compound in Libya was a protest prompted by an anti-Islam video, but it soon came to light that it was an orchestrated terror attack.
“As you look back at your involvement in all of that, do you have any regrets?” Gregory asked on Sunday.
“David, no,” Rice responded. “Because what I said to you that morning and what I did every day since, was to share the best information we that had at the time.”
The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations pointed out that she supplied what limited details were available when she appeared on TV the Sunday after the attack. Rice added that she received her information from the intelligence community.
“That information turned out in some respects not to be 100 percent correct,” she added. “But the notion that somehow I, or anybody else in the administration, misled the American people is patently false. And I think that that’s been amply demonstrated.”
Gregory asked Rice if the politics surrounding Benghazi had cost her the role of Secretary of State. Rice withdrew her name from consideration in December, three months after the attack in Libya, and John Kerry was confirmed instead. In response to Gregory, Rice said she didn’t know if Benghazi had cost her the influential role.
Rice again promised that the U.S. would eventually find the people who attacked the U.S. compound in Libya, something that President Barack Obama pledged while on the campaign trail in 2012.
“The investigation is ongoing and it has indeed made progress,” she said. “The point is, we will get the perpetrators. We will stay on it until this gets done.”
