Choking up, Hillary Clinton says Benghazi is ‘personal’

 Outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testifying before Congress on the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, choked up Wednesday as she assured lawmakers that the security of American diplomats was a “personal” issue for her.

“For me, this is not just a matter of policy—it’s personal,” she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in one of her final acts as America’s top diplomat.

Clinton’s voice broke as she recalled welcoming home the “flag-draped caskets” of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed in the terrorist strike at the consulate, and putting her arms around bereaved family members.

Clinton, whose department has drawn heavy fire over the insufficient security arrangements at the American compound in Benghazi, praised diplomatic security officials. “I literally trust them with my life,” she said. And she denied being aware of numerous requests for more security in Benghazi. “I didn’t see those requests,” Clinton added.

The secretary of state also said that American diplomats overseas cannot hide behind higher walls and more armed guards. “Our men and women who serve overseas understand that we accept a level of risk to protect the country we love,” she said. “They represent the best traditions of a bold and generous nation. They cannot work in bunkers and do their jobs.”

She rebuked those who may advocate that the U.S. take a more limited role on the world stage at a time when the “Arab Spring” has sown chaos across North Africa and the Muslim world. “We cannot afford to retreat now,” she said.

“When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences,” Clinton said. “Extremism takes root, our interests suffer, our security at home is threatened.”

Clinton also appeared to confirm that those behind the attacks have not yet been captured.

“We continue to hunt the terrorists responsible for the attacks in Benghazi and are determined to bring them to justice,” she said.

No one expected any bombshell revelations about the attack in Benghazi. But Republicans planned to link that terrorist strike to bloody conflicts across North Africa and in Syria to hammer President Barack Obama’s handling of the war on terrorism.

“They were spiking the ball on al-Qaida throughout the course of this entire campaign,” Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, his party’s senior member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News on Tuesday.

Recent events—including a deadly hostage crisis in Algeria and France’s military intervention in Mali to battle al-Qaida-linked Islamist fighters there—raise the “big question of how this administration is dealing with extremists and militants,” Corker said.

(Obama’s inaugural address on Monday went long on priorities like advancing gay rights, battling climate change and overhauling the nation’s immigration laws. He made no mention of terrorism and did not name al-Qaida. But he frequently contended on the campaign trail that Osama bin Laden’s organization had been “decimated” and was “on the run.” Aides say “core” al-Qaida has suffered heavy losses and that Obama’s aggressive expansion of America’s drone war in places like Yemen shows he’s mindful of the rise of dangerous offshoots.)

Clinton will go before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 9 a.m. and the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 2 p.m.

She had been expected to testify in December, but suffered a concussion in a fall at her home while recovering from a stomach bug, then needed treatment for a blood clot near her brain. She had taken questions from lawmakers on the issue once before, but Republicans complained that she had not shared much information.

Clinton appeared one day before Democratic Sen. John Kerry goes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he used to chair for a confirmation hearing to succeed her as secretary of state. Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, Kerry’s successor, will lead both hearings.

Republican Sen. John McCain, who has frequently assailed the administration over the attack on the consulate in Benghazi and who recently joined the committee, will join in the questioning of Clinton and Kerry. Earlier this month, McCain released a list of questions that he planned to ask regarding Benghazi.

The Sept. 11 attack raised new questions about Obama’s handling of the “Arab Spring” uprisings that toppled authoritarian regimes in places like Egypt and Libya. It also triggered a months-long battle over how the administration handled repeated requests from Stevens for more security and then explained the tragedy to the American public.

Most notably, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration to be Clinton’s successor in the face of Republican opposition. Rice went on major Sunday news shows one week after the attack in Benghazi and, relying on administration-approved talking points, described it as emerging from a protest against an Internet video that ridicules Islam. There was no such demonstration.

Some of the anger has fizzled, sapped by contentious congressional hearings and a scathing report commissioned by Clinton that faulted the State Department for its handling of repeated requests from Stevens for more security. That report also refuted media reports that the administration chose not to send in troops who might have been able to save Stevens and his colleagues. (Hillary Clinton herself took at least symbolic responsibility in October.)

But Clinton is sure to face tough questions about the security failures in Benghazi, notably in the face of warnings from Stevens and others that Islamists were increasingly active in Libya. She will also likely be asked about the administration’s changing public explanation of what happened.

“It is important to learn all we can about what happened in Benghazi because at the end of the day, it could happen again. After all, al-Qaida and associated groups plan to attack over and over again, as we saw most recently in Algeria,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said last week.

“My intention is for this hearing to focus on why this attack was not better anticipated, what leadership failures at the State Department existed, and what management deficiencies need to be corrected in order to better secure our diplomatic facilities abroad and protect our diplomats serving in them,” Royce said.

Obama initially connected the attack with the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes rhetorically as “acts of terror,” but the administration went on to link it to popular Muslim anger over an Internet video ridiculing Islam. Republicans accused the administration of misleading the public by playing down intelligence that it was a terrorist attack. The White House flatly denies deliberately misleading the public.