Before Hearings on Libya Attack, Charges of Playing Politics

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: October 9, 2012

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WASHINGTON — On the eve of the first Congressional hearing on the attack last month at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, members of the House committee investigating the assaults spent Tuesday accusing one another of exploiting the violence to score partisan political points.

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The Attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya

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The hearing, four weeks after the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, is expected to focus on any potential intelligence failures in assessing a growing militant threat in Benghazi and eastern Libya; possible security lapses at the mission; and whether the Obama administration underestimated the dangers posed by Al Qaeda’s franchise in northern Africa and other extremist groups in Libya.

Summoned to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are two senior State Department officials responsible for embassy security worldwide, a former head of security at the United States Embassy in Tripoli and the former head of an American military team assigned to provide security at the embassy.

Underscoring the attack’s increasing political and policy significance, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, visited Libya on Tuesday to discuss the F.B.I.’s investigation of the killings with American and Libyan officials, Reuters reported from Tripoli.

And in a sign of the administration’s concerns over the House hearing, the State Department held a hastily arranged conference call with reporters on Tuesday night to offer its first extended account of what happened in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11, after having repeatedly cited a continuing F.B.I. investigation as a reason for not releasing information on the attack.

Democrats and Republicans on the oversight committee traded similar accusations — that the other party had shown scant interest in dealing with the broader issues of intelligence warnings and security matters, and had focused instead on trying to show that their party was better equipped to address volatile and shifting national security challenges.

“Never in all of my years in Congress have I seen such a startling and damaging series of partisan abuses,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s ranking Democrat. “The Republicans are in full campaign mode, and it is a shame that they are resorting to such pettiness in what should be a serious and responsible investigation. We should be above that.”

Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on national security issues, said the Democrats’ strategy was to “blame it on politics rather than addressing the nature of the issue.”

“They can blame it on politics,” Mr. Chaffetz said, “but we are concerned about the more than a hundred embassies and thousands of Americans abroad.”

Democrats accused the Republicans of preventing them from interviewing witnesses they plan to call at the hearing, including Lt. Col. Andrew Wood of the Utah National Guard, who led the military security team in Tripoli. Colonel Wood has appeared on several national television programs in recent days and has said that he and other embassy officials unsuccessfully sought to extend his team’s tour at the embassy because of mounting security concerns.

A memorandum circulated by Democratic staff members of the panel said that Republicans concealed until last Thursday their plans to depart on the next day for an investigative trip to Libya and that “due to this inadequate notice, no Democratic members or staff were able to join.” A Congressional staff member provided a copy of the memo to The New York Times.

A spokesman for the committee’s chairman, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, did not respond to several messages seeking comment.

Mr. Chaffetz, who said he went on the trip to Libya, said he was told about the trip only the day before it. He said that the committee had handed over a list of witnesses to the Democrats on the panel and that it was their responsibility to interview them.

Soon after the attack, Congressional Republicans began accusing the administration of trying to play down the possibility that Al Qaeda’s franchise in North Africa, or extremist groups with ties to it, were more involved in the assault than administration officials first acknowledged. They said the administration did not want to acknowledge the Qaeda links because it would detract from the message that Mr. Obama’s policies had significantly weakened the terrorist network, especially since the Navy SEALs raid in Pakistan last year that killed Osama bin Laden.

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York and chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said that at an intelligence briefing on Sept. 13, he was told that there had been terrorist involvement. The next day, Mr. King said, he received another briefing that was “not as conclusive.”

“It was clear that there was likely terrorist involvement,” he said of his impression after those two briefings.

Republicans have singled out Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, for criticism because she first attributed the attack to a spontaneous mob protest that spun out of control. Ms. Rice has fired back, saying that she relied solely on information from intelligence agencies and that the government’s understanding of what happened had evolved as more information became available.

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting.