Benghazi Hearing In House Oversight Committee Blames Obama Administration For Libya Attack

Top House Republicans insist the Obama administration is hiding embarrassing information in regards to its response to last year's deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. They called executive branch officials unresponsive after the attack and uncooperative in the following investigations, CNN reported.

"The administration...has not been cooperative and unfortunately our [Democratic House] minority has mostly sat silent," said California Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

The attack last September 11 killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

This hearing is the latest in a bitter dispute between the administration and congressional Republicans, who have challenged the White House's response to the assault in Benghazi.

The witnesses included Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism, Gregory Hicks, former deputy of mission in Libya, and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya. Nordstrom testified before the panel in October, The Huffington Post reported.

Nordstrom said in a written testimony that it was "inexplicable" that an internal State Department review ignored "the role senior department leadership played before, during, and after" the attack.

Hicks claimed that since the start of the attack, administration officials knew that al Qaeda was responsible, rather than an act that grew from a demonstration which began over an anti-Islam film made in the U.S, which was what was initially told to the public.

U.N Ambassador Susan Rice confirmed this in her televised comments following the attack. Later, however, the administration called the Benghazi attack an act of terrorism. Rice and other officials maintained that her earlier comments relied on the information that was available to them at the time. Regardless, Rice's initial statements and controversy that followed likely cost her the nomination to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

"I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning," Hicks said before the hearings.

Hicks has also asserted what many Republicans have alleged since the assault: that the administration altered their talking points explaining what happened in Benghazi, and in essence falsified the information. Republicans believe this change was made so that the investigation did not negatively affect President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

In response, Committee Democrats have accused Republicans of playing politics with the tragedy.

"What we have seen ... is a full-scale media campaign that is not designed to investigate what happened in a responsible and bipartisan way but rather a launch of unfounded accusations to smear public officials," said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel.