Ambassador Susan Rice's hopes of replacing
Hillary Rodham Clinton as US secretary of state appeared to have
dimmed Wednesday, amid fresh criticism from Republican lawmakers over
her initial explanation of the deadly Benghazi attack in September.
Rice, who serves as the US ambassador to the United Nations, met
with three Republican senators on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to address
concerns about the public comments she made after the September 11
attack on a US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed
ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other members at the
consulate.
Five days after the attack, Rice said that "the best assessment we
have today was that in fact this was not a pre-planned, premeditated
attack." It later emerged that US intelligence services had indeed
received information that the attack had been planned.
The furor in Washington over the incident had fizzled down in
recent weeks, but with Clinton's departure as head of the State
Department looming, US President Barack Obama must name a successor,
requiring congressional approval. Rice was widely speculated to be at
the top of a short list of names.
Instead of reducing the criticism toward her response, Tuesday's
meeting only renewed it.
Rice said in a statement that she admitted during the meeting that
her initial assessments of the attack "were incorrect in a key
respect: there was no protest or demonstration in Benghazi" that
caused the attack.
She said her response was due to an imperfect intelligence
assessment that has since "evolved." Some Republicans had suggested
that the administration was seeking to conceal embarrassing
information about inadequate security measures at the consulate.
"I nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the
American people at any stage in this process, and the administration
updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved,"
said Rice.
That explanation failed to satisfy the three Republican senators
she privately met with - John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of
South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Acting CIA director
Michael Morell was also present.
McCain told reporters after the session that he was "significantly
troubled by many of the answers we got and some that we didn't
concerning evidence that was overwhelming leading up to the attack on
our consulate."
Graham said after leaving the meeting that he was "more disturbed
now" than before entering it.
Rice was set for another chilly talk on the subject in Washington
later Wednesday with Bob Corker, who is expected to be the next
Republican leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Clinton has said she plans to leave the State Department sometime
around January's presidential inauguration. Democrat Senator John
Kerry of Massachusetts has also been mentioned as a leading candidate
for the post.
