WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Maine, Friday announced they would conduct a bipartisan inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, that killed four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
“The lives of four patriots serving their country until the end were lost September 11, 2012, during a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Those four men, their loved ones, and the American people deserve a full and fair accounting of why and how that tragedy occurred.
“We intend to examine the circumstances before, during, and after the attack, including threat awareness, U.S. security needs for diplomatic personnel in Benghazi and Libya, and communications among the intelligence community, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the White House.
“In our capacity as leaders of the Senate’s chief oversight committee, we believe it is our responsibility to find out what happened and why, particularly with regard to the performance of the government agencies with relevant responsibility. We intend to examine how well the interagency processes worked, including whether all the relevant agencies had timely access to necessary intelligence information. And we want to fully understand why the Administration’s initial public assessments of this attack were subsequently proven inaccurate.”
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