Clinton takes responsibility in Benghazi attack, clashes with Republicans

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee she took responsibility for not adequately protecting U.S. personnel in the Sept. 11 attack on a diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

 Defending the administration’s immediate handling of the attack, Clinton clashed at times with Republicans over the account the administration gave in the initial days after Sept. 11.  She told Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, “we did not have a clear picture” of all that was going on in Benghazi although she did acknowledge that senators had “legitimate questions” about the administration’s account.Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., -- after telling Clinton “we are proud of you” and that all over the world “you are viewed with admiration and respect” -- delivered a blistering criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the events in Libya.

“There are many questions that are unanswered and the answers you’ve given this morning are frankly not satisfactory to me,” McCain told Clinton. He added “the American people and the families of these four brave Americans still haven’t gotten the answers they deserve.”

He asked Clinton whether she was aware of numerous warnings from Stevens and other Americans in Libya that the facility in Benghazi was not capable of resisting a sustained assault. He also said there had been other warning signs such as an attack on the British ambassador to Libya.

He angrily asked Clinton why Defense Department forces were not nearby to defend the Benghazi facility.

Last month a report issued by the Accountability Review Board (ARB) appointed by Clinton, blamed State Department officials for “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” that led to protection for the Benghazi facility that was “grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”

In her response to McCain, Clinton said, as she did to other senators on the panel, that some additional information on the causes and circumstances of the attack is in the classified portions of the report issued by the ARB. Senators and Senate staff can read the classified portions of the ARB report, but the public cannot.And she blamed members of Congress for holding up additional aid to Libya that might make the country more secure and less chaotic. 

In his questioning of Clinton, Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., told her, “I’m glad that you’re accepting responsibility. I think that ultimately with your leaving, you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11, and I really mean that. Had I been president at the time and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post.”

He added, “It’s a failure of leadership” which cost the Americans in Benghazi their lives. “I think it’s good that you’re accepting responsibility-- because no one else is.”Paul also argued that U.S. personnel ought to never have been sent to Benghazi “in a war zone” without a military guard. “You shouldn’t send them in with the same kind of embassy staff that you have in Paris,” he added. 

Clinton replied that all four State Department officials criticized in the ARB report for their roles on the Benghazi events had been removed from their jobs and placed on administrative leave. “The ARB (report) made very clear that the level of responsibility for the failures that they outlined was set at the assistant secretary level and below.”

The furor over the Benghazi attack helped derail one possible nominee to replace Clinton at the State Department, UN ambassador Susan Rice, whom Republicans assailed for using administration talking points that portrayed the incident as a spontaneous response to an inflammatory anti-Islamic video.

But Clinton told the committee that in the hours and days after the attack, “I was not focused on talking points” and “I wasn’t involved in the talking points process.”

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But she said Rice and the Obama administration did not try to mislead the American people about the cause of the attacks. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said as she sparred with Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wisc.

She angrily told Johnson that at this stage it did not really matter what the precise origins or motives of the attack were: “What difference at this point does it make?”

In her opening statement, Clinton told the committee, “As I have said many times since September 11, I take responsibility.  Nobody is more committed to getting this right.  I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger, and more secure.”

Clinton's voice choked with emotion as she recalled the return of “those flag-draped caskets” from the Americans killed in Benghazi and put her arms “around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters” of those killed. 

Clinton also used her testimony to deliver a vigorous call for continued U.S. involvement in the North African nation of Mali where the Obama administration is aiding French efforts to defeat Islamic jihadist forces.Clinton said she had accepted the ARBs recommendations for improvements in security procedures and had asked her subordinates “to ensure that all 29 of them are implemented quickly and completely.” She said these changes are designed to “reduce the chances of another Benghazi happening again.”

Clinton will also testify about the Benghazi episode Wednesday afternoon before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

On Thursday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold its confirmation hearing for Clinton’s successor, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who is the committee’s chairman and is likely to be confirmed without any opposition.

Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinesky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinesky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."