“It is now exactly one year since the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that took the lives of four brave Americans. It has been a year since those attacks killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods -- and not a single terrorist who planned or executed that attack has been held accountable.

“Nor have important questions been answered during the past year.  We do not yet know why the world's superpower failed to rescue its personnel. We do not know why the Obama administration deliberately misled the American people for days afterward about the cause of the attack. The Senate has not been given access to the surviving Americans who were in Benghazi that night nor heard testimony from key State Department personnel responsible for decisions before, during and after the attack.

“The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, of which I am a member, has a duty to learn what went wrong in Benghazi and to ensure it does not happen again.  The people we send abroad to represent us and the loved ones of the Americans who died in Benghazi deserve to know the truth.

“This is why I am sending a letter today with my colleagues on the committee to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, requesting that he schedule hearings to get to the bottom of the Benghazi attack. I particularly urge that he allow the committee to finally hear from survivors of the attack as well as from key State Department personnel who were placed on leaves of absence. Their testimony is crucial to ensuring our diplomatic personnel's safety.

“The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 taught this nation what can happen when the government is not diligent in analyzing threats and acting against them. What is hard to believe is that so many questions about what happened in Benghazi remain unanswered a year after the attack.  The committee must act now.”

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