Thomas Pickering: Benghazi Call Did Not Come From Hillary Clinton

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The seasoned diplomat who penned a highly critical report on security at a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, defended his scathing assessment but absolved then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "We knew where the responsibility rested," Thomas Pickering, whose career spans four decades, said Sunday.

"They've tried to point a finger at people more senior than where we found the decisions were made," Pickering said of Clinton's critics.

The Accountability and Review Board, which Pickering headed with retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not question Clinton at length about the attacks but concluded the decisions about the consulate were made well below the secretary's level. Pickering's defense of his panel's conclusions, however, was unlikely to quiet Republicans' calls for accountability for the attacks that left four Americans dead, including an ambassador.

Pickering and Mullen's scathing report released in December found that "systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels" of the State Department meant that security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."

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