Watch Live: Hearing on Benghazi response

His voice choked to a hoarse whisper, a former top diplomat in Libya walked lawmakers Wednesday step by step through the harrowing Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the moment he learned the extremists had killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Stevens had gone missing and was thought to be in a hospital held by extremists hostile to the United States, Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday.

At 3 a.m., according to Hicks, Libya?s prime minister called. ?I think it's the saddest phone call I've ever had in my life,? Hicks said softly but clearly. ?He told me that Ambassador Stevens had passed away. I immediately telephoned Washington that news afterwards.?

Hick?s recollections were not the only emotional moment in the early part of the hearing. Eric Nordstrom, a former regional security officer in Libya, teared up and his voice broke as he told the packed committee room that he wants the full story to come out. "It matters," he said. "It matters."

Lawmakers holding the contentious session listened quietly. But in the opening moments of the hearing, they had wasted no time before trading partisan barbs?accusing each other of dark political motives, bad faith and just plain making stuff up.

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the committee chairman, started the session?the first to get testimony from an eyewitness on the ground in Libya?by describing the administration?s version of the events as ?their facts.? Issa accused the State Department and the White House of refusing to provide witnesses and documents to his committee.

Issa said he had invited the authors of the State Department-commissioned independent probe into the tragedy, retired diplomat Tom Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, to testify and that they refused.

Issa vowed to ?make certain that our government learns the proper lessons? from the deaths of Stevens and three other Americans, and ensure that ?the right people are held accountable.?

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the panel?s top Democrat, used his opening statement to offer a rebuttal of what he denounced as ?irresponsible allegations? that the administration withheld military assets that might have made a difference. He accused Issa of suggesting a high-level ?conspiracy? grouping top military officers who have testified that the Pentagon did everything it could.

?I am not questioning the motives of the witnesses,? Cummings said. ?I am questioning the motives of those who want to use their statements for political purposes.?

The hotly anticipated hearing, which drew an army of reporters to the hearing room, was unlikely to shift the partisan battle lines on Benghazi. But it was expected to tackle some thorny questions. All sides agree that heavily armed assailants stormed the U.S. facility in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, and, in two separate attacks hours apart, killed Stevens and the three other Americans.

But did President Barack Obama?s administration do everything it could to save Americans? Did senior aides try to cover up findings that the strike was the work of terrorists? Should former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, widely expected to be a presidential contender in 2016, pay a price? Or is this a Republican fishing expedition unfairly using the tragic death of four Americans for political gain?

In addition to Hicks and Nordstrom, the committee has heard from Mark Thompson, the State Department?s acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism.

Republicans have waged an aggressive media campaign over the past week?releasing snippets of testimony and interview transcripts coupled with predictions that the hearing will offer blockbuster revelations.

But there?s cause for skepticism, and not just because GOP lawmakers seem to make these kinds of predictions regularly.

First, the independent investigation commissioned by the State Department has already delivered a blistering indictment of how top officials mishandled repeated warnings about extremist threats in Benghazi. That particular "system failure" has amply been documented.

Second, charges that the Obama administration could have deployed military assets that might have made a difference have been explored in previous hearings?and dismissed by the Pentagon.

Hicks will reportedly testify that the military opted against sending a second special forces rescue team while the fighting raged. It's not clear that the team would have arrived in time to make a difference?and administration officials say there were "Black Hawk Down"-style concerns about dropping more Americans into an uncertain conflict.

Still, Republicans argue, the people who made the decision about the deployment couldn't have known the gesture would be futile.

The "after" part, though, has gotten progressively more interesting.

Republicans have charged that the Obama administration misled Americans by suggesting the Benghazi assault was tied to anger in the Muslim world over an Internet video denigrating Islam that was getting significant media attention at the time. The administration, Republicans insist, wrongly portrayed the attack as a demonstration that had gotten out of hand rather than an act of terrorism. Why? To protect Obama's re-election campaign claim that al-Qaida was on the run.

The flap took U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice?who took the claim of an unruly demonstration turned deadly to Sunday news shows?out of the running to succeed Clinton as secretary of state. The White House has repeatedly dismissed GOP attention to Rice's TV appearances as an "obsession" over "talking points" on Sunday shows. (Does that mean that if Obama misspoke in his State of the Union, the White House would shrug it off as "canned comments to Beltway insiders"?)

As it happens, the administration knew the Benghazi assault was terrorism from the start, even though its public message changed several times.

But the real problem with the Republican claim that the administration tried to cover up the terrorist nature of the Benghazi assault is that Obama himself called it terrorism in a Rose Garden appearance shortly after the assault. There, the president tied Benghazi in with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and said the country would never bow in the face of "acts of terror."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/benghazi-hearing-promises-partisan-fireworks-144356871.html

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