Phew! Hillary Clinton survives Benghazi deaths report

Washington: Republican lawmakers on Tuesday released a long-awaited report on the deadly assault on the US mission in Benghazi, accusing then secretary of state Hillary Clinton of underestimating then misrepresenting the extremist threat. It blamed politically motivated bureaucratic delays for failing to prevent or stop the deadly attacks that claimed four American lives. Besides this fact, there are no other major bombshells in the report which could threaten Clinton’s race to the White House.

But the report, without placing direct blame, says the Obama administration was slow to react to the situation. The report said Clinton, the then secretary of state when Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others were killed on September 11, 2012, was planning to visit Libya later that year, which pressured diplomats to stay at the poorly guarded, temporary outpost despite deteriorating security in the region, USA Today reported.

The Republicans said “despite President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was sent to Benghazi, and nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began.”

Clinton’s Democratic supporters on the Congressional panel probing the attack and its political aftermath denounced their colleagues’ response, and the State Department said it provides few new facts about the September 2012 tragedy. But there is some material in the report that will feed the narrative of those who believe the US administration was too slow to react to mounting danger in Libya and quick to blame unconnected protests about a US-made video.