Hillary Clinton’s regrets

Earlier this week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked if she would like any do overs relative to being Secretary of State, responded that the September 2012 Benghazi attacks were her “biggest regret.”

“You make these choices based on imperfect information and you make them, as we say, to the best of your ability, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not going to be unforeseen consequences, unpredictable twists and turns. … [Benghazi] was a terrible tragedy.”

Fourteen months after the attack we are still trying to find out what happened.

Back in May, Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, testified before the House Oversight Committee that at 2 am Tripoli time (8 pm eastern time) on the evening of 9/11/12, he spoke with Clinton and her senior staff. Hicks told the committee that he briefed Clinton on what was happening on the ground in Benghazi and that, in the course of his call, no one mentioned the Mohammed Internet video and the ongoing attack was discussed as an act of terror.

General Ham testified that 15 minutes after the attack began, he alerted General Dempsey and Leon Panetta who were on their way to a previously scheduled meeting with the President.

Ham’s account of that fateful day was included in 450 pages of testimony given by senior Pentagon officials in classified, closed-door hearings conducted last year by the Armed Services subcommittee. The testimony, given under “Top Secret” clearance and only declassified in December, presents a rare glimpse into how information during a crisis travels at the top echelons of America’s national security apparatus, all the way up to the President.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, a first-term lawmaker with experience as an Iraq war veteran and Army reserve officer, pressed Ham on “the nature of the conversation” he had with Panetta and Dempsey was that “this was a terrorist attack.”

WENSTRUP: “As a military person, I am concerned that someone in the military would be advising that this was a demonstration. I would hope that our military leadership would be advising that this was a terrorist attack.”