Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring, Washington Times

House Republicans on Thursday plan on using an unexpected approach to questioning former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the much-anticipated hearing of the special congressional committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks.

Instead of focusing on Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server and the security concerns surrounding it, GOP panelists on the House Select Committee on Benghazi will zero in on what they regard as her leadership and policy failures, according to a panel member.

The committee, headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, will zero in on Mrs. Clinton’s larger failures handling the Libyan civil war that emerged from the pro-democracy Arab Spring in 2011. Those failures, Republicans will argue, culminated in the terror attack of Sept. 11, 2012, that resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans who were attacked by Islamist terrorists at the Benghazi diplomatic compound and a nearby CIA facility. …

The Obama administration has called its Libya policy an example of “leading from behind” for limited indirect U.S. involvement and support. Critics say the policy produced a failed state currently wracked by civil war among rival Islamist militias that has increased the risk of international terrorism. … For the three months prior to Gadhafi being captured, killed and dragged through the streets of Sirte, Libya, in October 2011, committee investigators were unable to find any signs the State Department was preparing for the longtime dictator’s fall from power.

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