Page 39 - Tom Pickering News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Stronger. after the benghazi attacks, i asked ambassador thomas pickering, one of our most distinguished and longest-serving diplomats, along with admiral mike mullen, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff appointed by president george w. bush, to lead an accountability review board. this is an institution that the congress set up after the terrible attacks in beirut. there have been 18 previous accountability review boards. only two have ever made any of their findings public. one following the attacks on our embassies in east africa and the one following the attack on benghazi. th...

Because a sound bite lasts forever and a moment of frustration can boil over at a very bad time for her politically, she is running for president after all, i guess everyone on both sides has drilled and drilled and drilled questions and answers for today. >> absolutely. this is a morning important preparation and more fraught with difficulties than the democratic debate was. her team knows this is the real test. she has to show she could be a credibility president of the united states, that she did not miss key signals. it probably will not be good enough to say as the independent investigati...

have been saying they know she has to be above the fray. leave it to others is the advice to point out the political motivations pro or con of this committee. as you know, the republicans have damaged themselves in recent days and weeks and let democrats on the committee pick up the kuj ul on that. she's supposed to be the secretary of state, but a cabinet secretary aggrieved by the loss but also arguing today that we cannot pull back our diplomats from the front lines, that chris stevens, the slain ambassador, would be the last person to want that, it was he pushing to go to benghaz...

Do. in talking to others, some who say the tough talk about sanctions don't work with putin and maybe what we should do is quiet it down and send an experienced diplomat, perhaps you or tom pickering or someone who lavrov knows and respects, what do we need to do to resolve this? long term you don't want the economic effects that are going to come on your door step if this proceeds. >> well, andrea, i think what secretary kerry is doing and president obama makes a lot of sense. they are trying to get the russians to deal with ukrainian government. the russians have been boycotting, talking to ...

>> i don't know what that means. i know that this report comes on the heels of three or four previous reports. and the hardest hitting report was on the state department, the state department. and it was led my ambassador tom pickering and mike mullen. they came up with 29 recommendations of things that should be differently. secretary clinton at the time accepted all 289 immediately -- 29 immediately. i know that's a process of a state department is still doing. and the most important thing is -- the reason to look back not just to understand what happened, it's not to affix blame. it's to ma...