Top Republican lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton on Tuesday saying they had information that U.S. diplomats requested
increased security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, ahead of the Sept.
11 attack, and that the requests were turned down by officials in
Washington.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman
Darrell Issa and Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who heads the panel's subcommittee
on national security, homeland defense and foreign operations, asked Clinton to
detail whether such requests were made and how they were handled. The committee
plans to hold a hearing into the attack Oct. 10.
American officials have branded the attack a terrorist
strike.
"Based on information provided to the Committee by
individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed
[U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens'] life was the latest in a long line of
attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to
September 11, 2012," they wrote. "It was clearly never, as
Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest.
"In addition, multiple U.S. federal government
officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11
attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security
in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by
officials in Washington."
Issa and Chaffetz listed 13 incidents in Libya in the months
leading up to the attack—which also killed three other Americans—that they
argued should have triggered enhanced security.
One of them directly affected Ambassador Stevens: A Facebook
page run by supporters of slain Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi highlighted
that the diplomat "was in the habit of taking early morning runs around
Tripoli" along with members of his security detail. The site highlighted
those runs and included a picture of Stevens.
Asked about the letter, White House press secretary Jay
Carney sidestepped the issue.
"I'm not going to get into a situation that's under
review by the State Department or by the FBI in its investigation of what
happened," he told reporters as President Barack Obama prepared for his
Wednesday night debate with Mitt Romney.
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