
The Obama administration is trying to move beyond Benghazi, saying Monday that it has tightened security at diplomatic posts and created an official position to ensure "high-threat" missions are properly protected — but House Republicans are pressing on with investigations into the Sept. 11 attack.

Democrats rallied behind President Barack Obama in the long-running, bitter dispute over the administration's handling of the Benghazi attack, arguing that the White House's latest email disclosure undermines Republican claims of a cover-up.

House Republicans on Monday asked to interview retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the veteran diplomat who headed the State Department's probe into last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya, and Mr. Pickering said he would be happy to cooperate.

Sen. John McCain on Sunday said a special congressional committee is needed to investigate last year's deadly attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and called on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify again on Capitol Hill regarding her role in the matter.

The State Department's deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attack said Wednesday that the Obama administration didn't talk to him before dubbing it a spontaneous attack spurred by an anti-Islam video, a move he said embarrassed the Libyan president and hampered the FBI investigation.

The State Department-chartered investigation into the deadly terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, last year erred in not interviewing more senior officials at the department, a packed hearing of the House oversight committee heard Wednesday.

Americans may finally learn the facts about the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. These facts arrive eight months late because the Obama administration devoted its full attention to re-weaving the narrative of the killing of an American ambassador and three other diplomats on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 catastrophe at the World Trade Center.

The White House on Monday attempted to deflect new criticism on the administration's handling of the Benghazi attacks from a firsthand witness and an additional whistle-blower, arguing that an internal State Department review charged with investigating the September attacks was led by an "unimpeachable" team.

Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies issued a report in December on the U.S. war in Afghanistan, sparing no military kiss-up or diplomatic busybody.