State Department spokesperson Marie Harf used a "magic wand" analogy Thursday to express the administration's desire that if one facet could have changed and prevented the Benghazi terrorist attack in 2012, the administration wishes that would have happened.
Pressed by Associated Press reporter Matt Lee to explain, Harf gave a terse response.
"Quite frankly, Matt, there's been a lot of accusations out there about individual parts of Benghazi and what happened that night and in the days leading up to it that could have changed things on the ground," she said. "What I was conveying and what I've asked ... we've repeatedly asked people to do is look at the overall situation, look at the unclassified ARB report and not focus in on any one thing because quite frankly, no one thing was determinative here."
Full exchange:
Q: And secondly, you said something in there about a magic wand by this building, I mean a magic wand to find out what's wrong, or what went wrong? I mean I think -- I want to make sure I heard you right -- that you were referring to a magic wand that could go back and change what happened in Benghazi.
HARF: I was referring to the fact that if we could point to one deficiency, if we could point to one thing and say, if only that had been done differently and these four Americans would still be here, we all wish we could do that. But that's not reality.
Q: Right, but it's a new -- right.
HARF: We have to look at the facts as they are. And when we talk about accountability, we focus a lot on the four. But we have to take each fact individually and make determinations going forward based on those facts.
Q: I understand. But I'm not sure that anyone has posited that one -- that there might have been one thing -- only one thing that could have been changed that would have made the situation better.
HARF: Quite frankly, Matt, there's been a lot of accusations out there about individual parts of Benghazi and what happened that night and in the days leading up to it that could have changed things on the ground. What I was conveying and what I've asked -- we've repeatedly asked people to do is look at the overall situation, look at the unclassified ARB report and not focus in on any one thing because quite frankly, no one thing was determinative here, and that any tough, real, independent look at what happened, which is important to determining how to prevent it in the future, takes all of this into account over the totality of what happened.
Q: (Off mic) -- the initial terrorists that breached the compound -- they were not met with fire?
HARF: I don't have additional details about what happened that day. This has been discussed at length. And it's important, so it should be. But I just don't have additional details, Lucas, about that.