Obama on Benghazi attack: If four Americans get killed, it's not optimal

Washington: US President Barack Obama has affirmed to fix any flaws that contributed to the deaths of four Americans during an attack on its Consulate in Benghazi last month, saying, “If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.” “If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal. We’re going to fix it,” Obama told Jon Stewart on Comedy Central in an interview. “All of it. And what happens, during the course of a presidency, is that the government is a big operation and any given time something screws up. And you make sure that you find out what’s broken and you fix it,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_496194” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Obama also said al-Qaeda is still active.[/caption] “Whatever else I have done throughout the course of my presidency the one thing that I’ve been absolutely clear about is that America’s security comes first, and the American people need to know exactly how I make decisions when it comes to war, peace, security, and protecting Americans. And they will continue to get that over the next four years of my presidency,” Obama asserted. “Every piece of information that we get, as we got it we laid it out to the American people. The picture eventually gets fully filled in,” Obama said. When asked about the tradeoff between national security and civil liberties, Obama reiterated his vow to close Guantanamo. And when asked about political gridlock in Washington, he said he hoped that more Democrats are elected to win more seats. “I still want to close Guantanamo. We haven’t been able to get that through Congress… One of the things we have to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need Congressional help to do that so that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in in terms of some of the decisions we’re making,” Obama said, pointing to his track record in prosecuting terrorism. “We’ve gone after al-Qaeda and its leadership. It’s true that al-Qaeda is still active, at least sort of remnants of it are staging in other parts of North Africa and the Middle East. Sometimes you’ve got to make some tough calls but you can do so in a way that’s consistent with international law and with American law,” he said. PTI