Clinton Takes Blame for Benghazi Attack

(Newsroom America) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a bid to dampen the political firestorm that has erupted over the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, said Monday that ultimately she is responsible for embassy security.

"I take responsibility," she told CNN in an interview during a trip to Peru. "I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision."

However, she added that an investigation currently underway will ultimately determine what happened at the American consulate, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other operatives were killed.

"I take this very personally," said Clinton. "So we're going to get to the bottom of it, and then we're going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again, and then we're going to work to bring whoever did this to us to justice."

The attack took place on the Sept. 11 anniversary.

Republican critics of the administration have uncovered evidence that security personnel in Libya requested extra assistance months in advance of the attacks, but the State Department turned down the requests.

Initially, administration officials said the attack was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted online in the U.S.

Critics have discounted that, saying the video was posted months earlier. In addition, Libya's president, Mohammed Magarief, has also said the video "had nothing to do" with the attacks.

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