joins us from the state department. i wanted to clear up, first of all, whether or not you are willing to testify, contrary to what chairman issa has claimed. yes, i m willing to testify. i made that clear yesterday. the white house i understand made that clear to mr. issa. he decline. i don t know the reasons for that, made some statement about perhaps sometime later we could come, but i was very interested in being there, because i thought the testimony this morning might be important with respect to the accountability review board and its work. you interrued gregory hicks who testified emotionally today, the deputy chief of mission, the last person who we know of to speak to ambassador stevens, and stevens said to him on the phone we are under attack. he still believes, according to the defense attache that they could have gotten help sooner, within two or three hours, not five or six hours as as
as i said, i think the bigger issue is the broader issue is why are we getting revelations so late, what is animating gregory hicks to come forward now, and propelling himself in the middle of this he had largely been interviewed by the arb, the review board, and others, but nonetheless there are dimensions that make it feel and look like the white house and state department haven t been completely forth coming, and the bottom like is they should, because i don t think a change or a difference in tactics is anything that should be hidden from. and might as well get it all out there, put it all out there, so we may by chasing the fact that concern with secrecy or consistency is keeping this from coming occupy. do i think there s a high crime there? no, i don t, but i do find it to be the story that won t go away, not because there was anything duplicitous or terrible done,
take on what we re still learning from these hearings. whatever is motivating these revelations, on one level an emotional level and frankly, as you and i have both been through all of this material for so long, what s remarkable is we didn t know some of this before. that s surprising to me. i think when it comes down to the substance of what might have been different or changed on the ground i myself don t see there might have been much change given what we know of the facts, but i do find that gregory hicks and others have come forward with tapes that i haven t heard before, and i m asking the question of how can that be? why is that? is that because of something he held back? or is that something the state department and the white house for various reasons didn t want to disclose. i think that is a very, very important question to get at. you ve been taking a close look at this. what about the charge that the military did not respond, overruled the request from greg hicks. we h