Establishing Select Committee on Benghazi

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman for bringing this important resolution forward and also Congressman Frank Wolf, who has been tenacious in insisting that there be a select committee.

There are serious gaps. We all know it. The people who lost their lives who died unnecessarily their loved ones and the American people deserve to know the truth about Benghazi.

When Secretary Clinton came before the Foreign Affairs Committee, I asked her point blank:

You have said, Madam Secretary, that you take full responsibility. How do you define ``full responsibility''?

She defined it from the day of, and all that preceded Benghazi is precluded from that definition.

Despite the fact that there was one cable after another, suggesting that there were serious gaps in security, all of that seemed to have not made its way to either her or her senior staff. That is very much of a lack of attention to detail, and a light needs to be brought to that.

I asked two of the people who headed up the ARB, the Accountability Review Board, why they did not interview Secretary Clinton. They had no good answer. I asked them twice--no good answer.

Back in 1998, when we got hit in Dar es Salaam and in Nairobi, I chaired the hearings of the Accountability Review Board. We looked painstakingly at all of the gaps that existed and I wrote the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999.

There were lessons learned. Those lessons were not applied the way they should have been to Benghazi. Requests were made for help. We still don't know the truth. The new select committee will leave no stone unturned. It will get answers.

Again, those who died, their loved ones, and the American people deserve to know the truth.

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