Space Launch Liability Indemnification Extension Act

Floor Speech

Ms. AYOTTE. I wish to thank my colleagues, the Senator from South Carolina and the Senator from Arizona, who have been relentless in finding the truth about what happened in Benghazi where our ambassador and three brave Americans were murdered.

There are so many questions, but I would start with the accountability question the Senator from South Carolina raised. No one has been held accountable. Who has been held accountable for the failures?

If we look at this intel report, it is very clear the intelligence community, according to this report, provided ample strategic warning that our people in Benghazi were at risk. There were failures, and no one has been held accountable. Why?

As I look at these talking points, the question was raised: Why was the reference to Al Qaeda removed from the talking points? Who did that in the context of a Presidential campaign? But also, take a look at these talking points. There is no reference in these talking points to a video. Look at the actual language of the talking points.

Why is it that the spokesman for the President, on September 13, is out there saying that this is a reaction to this movie? Why is it that Susan Rice, the Ambassador, is on television on multiple shows blaming the video? Not only was it absolutely wrong when she said Al Qaeda was decimated--and it was misleading, particularly the fact that Al Qaeda had been removed from the talking points, but there is no reference in the talking points to a video. So who in the administration made up the video story?

That is important for the American people to know because it wasn't just Ambassador Susan Rice who relied on the video story. It was our President of the United States who talked about the video and talked about it, frankly, after the Ambassador went on all of the Sunday shows on September 16. In fact, the President said as late as September 18 when asked--basically, he talked about the video and said: You had a video that was released by somebody who lives here, sort of a shadowy character--here is what happened--who had made an extremely offensive comment. So we have the President of the United States, as late as September 18, and then again on September 20--we have the President saying on Univision Network, responding to the possible involvement of Al Qaeda: Is Al Qaeda involved? Here is what we do know: That the natural protest that arose because of the outrage from the video were used by the extremists to see if they could harm U.S. interests.

Where did the video come from? Even what the intelligence community came up with, which was deficient and which was clearly subject to political influence because it removed the reference to Al Qaeda, has no reference to a video. So I think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.

Here is the most important question: Why has no one been brought to justice? The President, I believe it was on September 12, said: We will find out who did this, and we will bring them to justice. For those families, those victims, no one has been brought to justice. In fact, we have people such as Abu Khattala, who was a former commander of Ansar al-Shariah, who is believed to have been there that night sitting in cafes in Libya giving press interviews, and yet there is much evidence to suggest that he is likely to be involved in this, and many other terrorists, but no one has been brought to justice. So why is that? Why doesn't anyone have the curiosity not only to answer the questions of what happened that night but also to ensure that justice is done?

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Ms. AYOTTE. May I also add to that the President--we heard testimony that obviously the Secretary of Defense and others knew right away this was a terrorist attack. Let's not forget the 16-minute interview where he is asked about that on September 12, and he said it is too early to tell exactly how this came about. When he is asked directly if this is a terrorist attack, he would not identify it as a terrorist attack.

I will also add this. What is so sad about this is no one has been held accountable. The warnings were there. Not only were the warnings there from the August 16 cable that came from the embassy, from Ambassador Stevens, saying that the consulate could not withstand a coordinated attack, but what has been lost in all of this? When we talk about the New York Times trying to erase Al Qaeda from this, the day before, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al Qaeda, released a video just before September 11, 2012, just before this terrorist attack--which, by the way, occurred on September 11, of course, which should have given us a pretty direct clue that this was a terrorist attack. But al-Zawahiri issued this video acknowledging and eulogizing the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi in a drone strike and calling for terrorist attacks. Al-Libi was a Libyan who served as the second in command in Al Qaeda under Zawahiri and was a top leader in the Libyan Islamic fighting group.

Think about the evidence that was there before, not only what we didn't do to protect that consulate but the warnings that a terrorist attack was coming.

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Ms. AYOTTE. Let me ask the Senator from South Carolina this. Does anyone care that the Secretary of State claimed she knew nothing about this August 16 cable? She didn't know about these cables leading up to what had happened in Benghazi, about the warning the Red Cross left and the French left, the hole blown through the consulate, and the August 16 cable. Yet Secretary Panetta was aware of it. Chairman Dempsey was aware of it when he came before the Armed Services Committee, but the Secretary of State wasn't aware of it.

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