Rice said publicly five days after the Sept. 11 attacks on two U.S. outposts in Benghazi, Libya, that the strikes were “spontaneous” and sparked by outrage over an anti-Islamic film.

Evidence including Capitol Hill testimony last week by former CIA Director David Petraeus showed that U.S. officials knew almost immediately that terrorist-related groups were involved.

“We’re focusing on the wrong questions,” Lieberman, I-Conn., said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Of course it was a terrorist attack. The question is why did we leave the State Department without security.”