The US congressional committee seeking to find out why four Americans were killed, including the US ambassador, in Libya on September 11, 2012, had suggested that there would be new evidence of how poorly the State Department responded to security requests for the Benghazi mission. But at the end of 11 hours of grueling testimony on Thursday by Hillary Clinton, the star witness on the hot seat, the hearing yielded little new information. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attack, and is now running for president, came under intense questioning from several committee members as they accused her of ignoring requests for more security from the mission, and of trying to mislead the public on the true nature of the attack on the US facility. But at the end of the marathon, Clinton went away relatively unscathed with her presidential ambitions looking even more intact. The probe, which is in its 17th month and has cost $4.7 million so far, has turned up precious little evidence on the attack. Republicans were under pressure to reveal a new smoking gun while the Democrats, of which Clinton is a member, sought to portray the Republican-run committee as being created for a political purpose, specifically a witch-hunt trying to harm her presidential bid. None of the critiques throughout the course of the long day seemed to stick. That would be because the panel did not come up with any new compelling evidence that had not been brought out in seven previous inquiries, save perhaps for Clinton's controversial private e-mail server. Moreover, the bigger debate was not about Benghazi but between Republicans and Democrats on the panel bickering over whether this was a nakedly partisan exercise designed to derail Clinton's campaign for the 2016 election, or whether it was being conducted, not to get at Clinton but to get at the truth. The investigation was trying to focus on what exactly the US was doing in Libya at the time of the attacks and why military assets were not available to deploy to save the Americans under threat as well as to examine the Obama administration's handling of the crisis. But partisan politics got in the way every time, throughout the day. If anything, the only serious political damage seemed to have been done to Washington politicians. As the panel argued among themselves as to its true intentions, Clinton looked detached, as if an outsider, naturally much to her satisfaction and even bemusement. Even the allegation that Clinton and other Obama administration staff tried to blame the attack on the consulate on an anti-Muslim YouTube video to avoid undercutting President Obama's claims that he had crushed Al-Qaeda was not dealt with at any length. Clinton's apparent solid performance at the inquiry will probably solidify her position as the Democrats' frontrunner for presidential candidate after her potential rival, Vice President Joe Biden, recently ruled himself out of the race, and after she came out on top of the Democrats' first debate. Clinton's appearance before the Benghazi inquiry, which was highly publicized and anticipated, could have revealed new information that would have found her culpable of the Benghazi attack which would have in turn raised doubts about her suitability as a presidential nominee. It did neither. The Republicans on the committee were under pressure to prove they had good reasons to bring Clinton before them and were not just using it as an excuse to undermine her presidential candidacy. But they could not refute the charge that this was an inquest laden with politically motivated maneuvers.
