Hillary Clinton aides testify on Benghazi

State Department officials acknowledged on Thursday that “serious, systemic problems” that led to inadequate security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi before the fatal assault in September and pledged: “We have to do better.”

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the first of two on examining the Sept. 11 attack in Libya, top State officials listed measures that are already underway to fix the breakdowns at Foggy Bottom outlined in a critical report this week.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been slated to appear, but she is recovering after a concussion sustained last week. Two deputy secretaries of state – Thomas Nides and William Burns – testified on her behalf.

“We learned some very hard and painful lessons in Benghazi,” Burns told lawmakers Thursday. “We are already acting on them. We have to do better. We owe it to our colleagues who lost their lives in Benghazi.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry praised the State Department for “swift action” in its response to the review board’s findings. He also put some pressure on Congress, urging lawmakers to ensure that the government’s international budget was sufficient.

“Clearly, mistakes were made, and we learned of those in very stark terms,” Kerry told Burns and Nides, referring to the report released earlier this week. “The report makes that very clear, and one of the most candid and important observations was the failure by certain leaders to see the forest for the trees.”

In his opening statement, Lugar echoed Kerry’s sentiment that adequate funding for the State Department was critical.

“We should not forget lessons learned in the 1990s when sharp budget cuts at the State Department hit at the same time we were establishing many new embassies in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans,” Lugar said. “This funding squeeze resulted in clear deficiencies in our overall diplomatic capabilities that took years to correct.”

The Sept. 11 attacks killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans: Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

The hearing followed a highly critical report released by the Accountability Review Board, led by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, released Tuesday.

The review concluded that “systemic failures” and “leadership and management deficiencies” at top levels of the State Department led to inadequate security at the Benghazi consulate. Officials on the ground had repeatedly asked for extra staffing for security purposes, the report said.

“Board members found a pervasive realization among personnel who served in Benghazi that the special mission was not a high priority for Washington when it came to security-related requests, especially those relating to staffing,” the unclassified version of the report read.

Clinton has told lawmakers that she accepts all recommendations from the board. And four State Department officials have resigned as a result of the board’s critical findings; the Associated Press listed them as Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security; Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security; and Raymond Maxwell, the deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the Maghreb nations of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Though her illness prevented her from testifying Thursday, Clinton will likely still appear before Congress. Kerry said Thursday that Clinton looks “forward” to testifying in January before his panel; and the secretary of state’s aides have told House officials that she plans to come to the Hill in mid-January.

Kerry, who is likely the next person to lead the State Department, refrained from questioning Nides and Burns, as did Lugar, the outgoing senator and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.