the night of the attacks in benghazi and i want to just continue that a little bit more. now, you said previously that had you spoken with the white house that evening, with the cia, the defense department and the state department. you also spoke directly with people on the ground at the embassy in tripoli that night at around 7:00 p.m. can i can tell from the documents that we have seen that you asked to speak with deputy chief of mission in tripoli. can you explain the purpose of that call and why you felt that was important? well a number of reasons. they were the source on the ground reaching out to trying to gather additional insight into what happened, what provoked it, who was behind it but much more importantly, even than that, they were in a great state of dismay and grief i
going battle that was ready to go, sitting there but you know what? it never got that plane never got out of the hanger. those people never got aassembld and we ve got a chain of e-mails the first recommendation came back from your own people and then the fbi told your employees that the best way to handle the situation was to send the fest team, and that was the way it had always been done so did you make the decision not to send the fest team? congressman, first, let me say that it s important to recognize that our deputy chief of mission greg hicks was fully engaged in helping to putting to the team that flew from tripoli to benghazi and we were very grateful the cia station chief
full-time state department staff in benghazi. special envoy stevens sent this e-mail to the ambassador to libya, his deputy chief of mission and the director of the office of affairs. at the time, these career diplomats had a combined 83 years of foreign service experience. with the recommendation of this team be given a fair amount of weight within the department? yes, it would. is that the way it should work that the experience should count in decision making? they certainly did to me and i think that should be the practi practice. in the same e e-mail, my personal recommendation would be option a, which was the option for a slimmed down compound. he then notes a few of his key rationals for wanting to stay in an earlier september 6th, 2011, e-mail advocating for continued presence special envoy stevens provided more reasons including the opportunity to, quote,
benghazi and i want to just continue that a little bit more. now, you said previously that had you spoken with the white house that evening, with the cia, the defense department and the state department. you also spoke directly with people on the ground at the embassy in tripoli that night at around 7:00 p.m. can i can tell from the documents that we have seen that you asked to speak with deputy chief of mission in tripoli. can you explain the purpose of that call and why you felt that was important? well a number of reasons. they were the source on the ground reaching out to trying to gather additional insight into what happened, what provoked it, who was behind it but much more importantly, even than that, they were in a great state of dismay and grief i
setting there. but you know what? that plane never got out of the hangar. those people never got assembled. and we ve got a chain of e-mails that the first recommendation came back from your own people. and then the fbi told your employees that the best way to handle the situation was to send the fess team, and that was the way it had always been done. so did you make the decision not to send the fess team? well, congressman, first let me say that it s important to recognize that our deputy chief of mission greg hicks was fully engaged in helping put together the team that flew from tripoli to benghazi and we were very grateful that the cia station chief and his colleagues were