, ambassador tom pickering, and admiral mike mullen, and we'll see what the report says, but clearlydministration does need to deal with these issues before we get to 2013 and the president's inauguration. >> and one of the questions that is being examined is all of the warnings and the incident -- there were five separate incidents that preceded the fatal attack -- whether or not we have to have a whole different attitude towards either securing these outposts, which are not official embassies -- this wasn't even an official consulate -- or better securing them or not being in these places, and that's always the push-pull for diplomats because they're on the frontlines, but they are not in military service. here pet in danger zoosh one of the questions that's been lost in the three months since the horrible terrorist attack in benghazi, is that congress has not fully funded embassy security worldwide in the last two fiscal years. so one would hope that one of the issues that congress would now debate is whether or not we need to put more money into embassy security. i certainly thin

[applause] >> good afternoon, my name is tom pickering. chris stevens was a friend and a colleague. more than that he was among the very best our foreign service has to offer in support of our people and our country. a man destined for even greater challenges and successes. it is a special honor for me to be asked to be here and say a few words in his memory. i must begin by offer approximating my sincere condolences and passion to his family and friends gathered here this afternoon to honor his memory. in truth, what we say here our words, can only be a pale shadow for his service and sacrifice for his nation and people. indeed that of his colleagues, glen dougherty, sean smith, tyrone woods. i know you all join me in honoring and appreciating their service and devotion as well. chris and i worked together for a time almost a dozen years ago. he was even then fully committed to his work. an authority already in the middle east. a fine student of arabic. much more. he gave me careful and cogent advice and council as we wrestled together with the many growing problems that even back

tom pickering has served as ambassador in seven different locations. he has served as the undersecretary of political affairs. ambassador admiral mullen was chairman of the chief of staff's. these are men who did not mince any words. they did not hedge. there were is candid and direct, and i think this report is a quality report. i think the state department can take pride in it. i think the country is well served by the process that was put in place. secretary clinton said she would do this, and it would be a completely on varnished appraisal, and that is exactly what it is. i think she and the administration deserves credit for doing what was required, and for really going to great lengths to make sure this was a very good presentation. >> what administrative action is being taken inside the state department as a result? >> everything the report has suggested has been embraced by the state department, and more. secretary clinton has set out additional measures that she thinks can contribute to the advancing the interests that are set out in the repor

tom pickering has served as ambassadors several different locations. united nations, india, russia, israel, jordan, other places. and he served as undersecretary of political affairs. ambassador -- admiral mullen was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and had been extraordinarily distinguished career in the united states navy. these are two men who didn't mince any words. they didn't hedge. there was candid and direct and i think this report is a quality report. the state department can take pride in it. the country is well served for the process put in place. secretary clinton said she would do this in david e. completely unfurnished appraisal and that's exactly what it is and i think she and the administration deserve credit for doing what was required here and really going to great lengths to make this sure is a very professional presentation. so tomorrow we will hear from the department on how they are proceeding forward. but i think the most important step is the report itself in the presentation later today. >> what administrative actions are

tom pickering has served as ambassador in seven different locations.the united nations, india, russia, israel, jordan, other places and he has served as undersecretary of political affairs. ambassador admiral mullen was determined joint chiefs of staff and has been extraordinarily distinguished career in the united states navy. these are two men who didn't mince any words. they didn't hedge. there is candid and direct and i think this report is a quality report. i think the state department can take pride in it. i think the country is well served by the process that was put in place. secretary clinton said she would do this and it would be a completely unfurnished appraisal and that's exactly what it is and they think she had the administration deserve credit for doing what was required here and for really going to great lengths to make sure this is a very professional presentation. but tomorrow we'll hear from the department on how they are proceeding forward, but i think the most important step was really the report itself in the presentation we hear

i know the panel was headed by tom pickering and mike mulen former chairman of the chiefs of staff.d a very, very report and one would not want to critize the objectivity of the commission. >> some are raising questions why was not questioned for the independent study. >> yeah, i don't know the reasons for that. you would have to ask the people who conducted the side. secretary of state clinton said she took responsibility back at the beginning and she did the right thing by sharing to the congress she takes the report seriously . >> lindsay graham raising concerns about president obama's role in the critical seven hours and want to know what he knew as of hours past to see if it misled the country saying it happened because of an anti-muslim video. >> i think the criticism of the president is unfair and not right. as you remember. there were demonstration in many of the embassies in the middle east and muslim countries that week after the publicication . file video from california . other demonstrations outside of libya were promoted by the video . so the administration had a theor

here's what the chairs of the investigation tom picker and and mike mullen had to say today. let's listen. >> frankly the state department had not given benghazi the security both physical and personnel resources it needed. >> the board found that the security at the compound was inadequate for the threat environment in benghazi and in fact grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place. the support the post needed was left to the working level to resolve. >> we've gotten more of that on the report and what it means for hillary clinton, perhaps, the secretary of state who heads that. andrea mitchell and david ignatius handles all these matters. he's also associate editor of "the washington post." i called you on this today because it baffled me. two apparently contradictory reports in the report. one said there were repeated requests to get security forces brought to that benghazi facility. then later on it said the people did not demonstrate strong and sustained advocacy for support. what is it? >> it's both. they repeatedly requested more security. when they saw

day before open hearing we will be hearing from the two gentlemen that were in charge of review, tom pickeringr mullen. they will provide this in a classified setting because the report will not be made public due to security concerns. that has been the problem with the administration. they wanted to have all of the hearings and all of the briefings in a secured setting but the american people want to know what the state department and all of our agencies are doing to keep our diplomats safe. we all deserve an open answer in a transparent setting. >> arthel: is it possible for you and your colleagues to hear and collect all the information at these hearings, and then properly inform the american people so that in the event that raw testimony, if you will, some secrets are not divulged. is that possible so the american people won't feel cheated in the end? >> that is an excellent question. this is american taxpayer dollars at work. they are funding the operations, not just the consulate and the embassies but also the security in our island of democracy. we want to make sure american taxpayer do

to fill in the blanks, the accountability review board, within the department of the state and tom pickerringnd admiral mike mullen are conducting the investigation and the expectation is that on december 20, secretary of state hillary clinton will be testifying on capitol hill before the house foreign relations committee and the senate foreign relations committee and talking about that reports. so presumably, it will be completed before then. but late today, we have been hearing noise that the entire report won't be released. go figure. they may claim dloif classified toze us, but i don't know why the house and the senate wouldn't get the full and complete report. >> it's exactly right. one of the concerns with those who were injured is how they were extracted. the fire fight starts at 9:40 and the department of defense doesn't leave germany until 2:00 p.m. and doesn't get back until the 10:00 p.m. hour. meanwhile -- nobody's said this on television, nobody's mentioned this -- they thought they were going to be attacked in tripoli, the embassy was evacuated in tripoli. yet whether they have

as tom pickering who headed this review board indicated, where the rubber hits the road is at the assistantevel. there's two bureaus, in the judgment of the committee, failed to do what needed to be done and those four individuals have been held responsible. >> p.j. i got to say your column bummed me out today and confused me a little. a few months ago it was asked of a state department official that resigned if the problems of ben zba ga zi were an issue of funding and she said, absolutely not. to that, also, on the day of the attack, following the attack, hillary clinton dispatched dozens of other additional security personnel to high threat outposts around the world. essentially, and seemingly, with the switch of a -- the flick of a switch. and further, if it's just a funding issue, how could with all of the attacks and threats that the smc had been dealing with throughout all of 2012, including an ied attack in june, how could all of those threats not add up to a response of, we need additional security? we're not asking for paper clips here. we are asking for security. >> well, these k

number of classified briefings for our members, and yesterday the committee heard from ambassador tom pickering and admiral mike mullen. we heard them deliver a very frank and comprehensive set of findings of the accountability review board. ambassador pickering and admiral mullen are tw of america's most distinguished -- are two of america's most distinguished and capable public servants. ambassador pickering has served as ambassador to seven countries, among them india, russia, israel and other important nations. admiral mullen, as we know, was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. i think that their backgrounds, their service to our country showed up starkly in the quality of the board's report, and i want to thank them for their extraordinary service to our country, and i want to thank secretary clinton who appointed them, who collected them. the report pulls no punches. it tackles head on many of the questions that we've beens asking. the report makes 29 recommendations in total, five of which are classified. secretary clinton has embraced every single one of them. in fact, she's gone

relations committee, she is ultimately responsible for what happened in benghazi, although as tom pickering the other members of the accountability review board made clear, that in terms of those who have made decisions or had miscalculations that contributed to the lack of security of benghazi, that happened at the assistant secretary of state level and, obviously, you've had those four resignations as a result. >> p.j., there's been some pushback as far as the systematic failures, and one of the questions is around budgeting, right? we all know we are bearing witness how difficult it is to get the money question off the table in congress, and we do know that funds for embassy security have been cut back in recent years. is there some amount of cover -- cover is probably the wrong word, but is there some amount of explanation in terms of how and why this happened that is due in part to budgeting? >> yes. the short answer is that depending how you calculate, the state department budget is one-tenth, one-11, one-12th of the pentagon budget. i think people are realizing, there are two convers

we got a state department investigation headed up by tom pickering and former general mullen. the intelligence community in which i served we're now in a series of hearings looking at that. how do we make sure? i'm sure kelli and i would agree that we have appropriate protection for our state department personnel. how do we make sure if we come under assault that we have assets to come in and protect them. what i find remarkable is the president hasn't even nominated anyone yet. why are we spending all this time if you nominate secretary rice or ambassador rice, we ought to have these discussions. what we ought to be looking at is what happened in benghazi, how do we make sure it never happens again? >> do you find it interesting? that happened september 11th. it's now december 2nd, and we still don't know what happened, why there was no security. isn't it part of that overall discussion? >> i agree with what mark said many terms of the big picture question here. why don't we know yet? why was the consulate so unsecure given the prior attacks, given that the british left, the

number one, i think that tom pickering and mike mullen who headed up the review board did a very thorough job in identifying what were some severe problems in diplomatic security. and they provided us with a series of recommendations. many of them were already starting to be implemented. secretary clinton has indicated that she is going to implement all of them. what i've, my message to the state department has been very simple. and that is, we're going to solve this. we're not going to be defensive about it we're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. this was a huge problem. and we're going to implement every single recommendation that's been put forward. some individuals have been held accountable, inside of the state department. and what i've said is, is that we are going to fix this to make sure that this does not happen again. because these are folks that i send into the field. we understand that there are dangers involved, but you know, when you read the report and it confirms what we had already seen based on some of our internal reviews, there was just some sloppiness,

number one, i think that tom pickering and mike mullen who headed up the review board did a very thorough job in identifying what were some severe problems in diplomatic security. and they provided us with a series of recommendations. many of them were already starting to be implemented. secretary clinton has indicated that she is going to implement all of them. what i've, my message to the state department has been very simple. and that is, we're going to solve this. we're not going to be defensive about it we're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. this was a huge problem. and we're going to implement every single recommendation that's been put forward. some individuals have been held accountable, inside of the state department. and what i've said is, is that we are going to fix this to make sure that this does not happen again. because these are folks that i send into the field. we understand that there are dangers involved, but you know, when you read the report and it confirms what we had already seen based on some of our internal reviews, there was just some sloppiness,

tom pickering, who is leading the board, he wants -- was the boss to chris stevens who was killed inhazi. this is very personal, and it should be kept ate level where people understand that these diplomats, the review board experts, they're providing the best advice to make sure our diplomats in the field are safe. >> joel ruben, joel, thank you, sir. i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >>> governor nikki haley will announce her pick to replace senator jim demint. congressman tim scott is going to be her choice. he is going to be the first african-american republican to represent the south in the senate since reconstruction. >> it is important to remind you that throughout the sandy hook ordeal there have been acts of kindness, big and small, that remind us that we are in this together, in our grieving, our healing as a country. there is the chicago-based lutheran church charities that send a team of comfort dogs, golden retrooefrz, to newtown to offer relief to those affected by the tragedy, and the anonymous donor from north carolina who donated 26 christmas trees to the comm

number one, i think that tom pickering and mike mullen, who headed up the review board, did a very thorough job in identifying what were some severe problems in diplomatic security. and they provided us with a series of recommendations. many of them were already starting to be implemented. secretary clinton has indicated that she is going to implement all of them. what i've -- my message to the state department's been very simple. and that is, we're going to solve this. we're not going to be defensive about it. we're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. this was a huge problem. and we're going to implement every single recommendation that's been put forward. some individuals have been held accountable inside of the state department. and what i've said is that we are going to fix this to make sure that this does not happen again because these are folks that i send into the field. we understand that there are dangers involved. but, you know, when you read the report, and it confirms what we had already seen based on some of our internal reviews, there was just some sloppiness, no

number of classified briefings for our members, and yesterday, the committee heard from ambassador tom pickerring and admiral mike mulling, -- mullen. they were frank, and they are two of america's most distinguished and capable public servants. ambassador pickering served as under secretary to the state department and ambassador to india, russia, israel, and other important nations. admiral mullen, as we know, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. i think that their backgrounds, their service to the country showed up starkly in the quality of the boards report, and i want to thank them for their extraordinary service to our country and i want to thank secretary clinton who appointed them, who selected them. the report pulls no punches. it tackles head on many of the questions we've been asking. the report makes 29 recommendations in total, five of which are classified. secretary clinton has embraced every single one of them, in fact, she's gone above and beyond board's recommendations by taking immediate steps to strengthen security at high threat posts and request from congress the authority t

classified briefings by ambassador tom pickering and admiral mike mullen who led the report. they will have a briefing with members of congress about the classified findings, and then tomorrow, secretary of state clinton's deputies, dent secretary bill burns will testify in her stead, she is out for a few weeks because of illness, but i think they will get very tough questions about the poor leadership that some of these bureaus at the state department were exercising. >> looks ridiculous. awful, and terrible, terrible fallout from that. elise labott, appreciate that. >>> let's turn back to the tragedy in newtown, connecticut. four more funerals scheduled today. vicky societo will be laid to r, and three children. daniel barden, caroline previdi. students will not return until after winter break at sandy hook. they are talking about bringing them back, and it's not possible to do. and many parents supported that as well. they will be moving when they open the school to a completely different area, different school. sandra endohas that, good morning. >> good morning, soledad.

is a panel that secretary clinton actually appointed, former joint chiefs of staff mike mullen, tom pickeringhis were on this panel. they looked intensively at the department. and of course you find things wrong when you look at that, and -- but the state department has been under tremendous budgetary pressure for years. and now the challenge -- and one challenge that secretary kerry is going to have is how do you measure the effectiveness of diplomacy versus the risk to your personal knell? you can't run diplomacy like drone attacks. you have to be there. you have to take the temperature. you have to see people. we went through a whole rebuilding program in american embassies in the 1990s after the embassies in tanzania and kenya were struck by osama bin laden in 1998. >> that's right. >> these embassies are really incredibly -- they're virtually impregnable now, but diplomats have to be out with the people and not just the ambassador but his staff. so this is going to be a continuing challenge. we've got to appreciate the fact that our diplomats under risk when they sign up, they've got to

security for the state department and there were a lot of questions at this briefing we just had by tom pickering who led the arb, the advisory review board. they said secretary clinton really is not to blame here because the staff, if there were problems in security, they should have brought it up the chain of command to her attention. >> so they're sefkally saying she didn't know about it and she didn't know they didn't have adequate security there? >> exactly. >> what about this issue of money? obviously, security comes at a cost. is there some responsibility congress bears in not having that kind of adequate security there. >> reporter: very much so, suzanne. there were several recommendations, 29, in fact, that the panel asked the state department to implement such as tighter security, looking better at the intelligence threats because they really didn't -- they missed the security deteriorating situation on the ground. they also said that congress bears a lot of responsibility here. the climate of no when officials would ask for additional security really came from shrinking budgets, and th

wolf, let's take a listen to ambassador tom pickering who talked specifically about why they placed the >> at the assistance secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look. where the decision making takes place. where if you like the rubber hits the road. >> we just found, someone who has run large organizations and secretary of state has been very clear here, it was, from my point, not reasonable in terms of her having a specific level of knowledge, that was resident in her staff and certainly over time did not bring that to her attention. >> wolf, and still some members of congress, particularly the head of the house international affairs committee said she would like to hear from the secretary and indeed the secretary said she hopes to testify before the committee when she's feeling better after the break. >> she's not feeling well right now. she had the flu, she was dehydrated, she fainted, she had a concussion. what's the latest on her health? how's she doing? >> well, doctors say that she needs to have some rest. clearly she was going to take some time off f

convey our appreciation to the accountability review board's chairman and vice chairman, ambassador tom pickering, and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, admiral mike moneyer. and also cat run bertini. the board's look takes a look at problems which are unacceptable, problems for which as secretary clinton has said we take responsibility, and problems which we have already begun to fix. before tom walks you through what we're doing to implement fully all of the board's recommendations, i'd like to add a few words based on my own experiences as a career diplomat in the field. i had been a very proud member of the foreign service for more than 30 years, and i've had the honor of serving as a chief of mission overseas. i know that diplomacy, by its very nature, must sometimes be practiced in dangerous places. as secretary clinton has said, our diplomats cannot work in bunkers and do their jobs. when america is absent, there are consequences. our interests suffer, and our security at home is threatened. chris stevens understood that as well as anyone. crystals knew that every chief of miss