Rice: No time to think about Benghazi ‘false controversy’

National Security Advisor Susan Rice expressed no regrets over her interviews following the assault on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, saying she does not have time to think about an issue blown out of proportion. [WATCH VIDEO]

“I don’t have time to think about a false controversy,” Rice said in an interview that aired Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “In the midst of all of the swirl about things like talking points, the administration’s been working very, very hard across the globe to review our security of our embassies and our facilities. That’s what we ought to be focused on.”

{mosads}Rice became mired in a controversy that stood in the way of her becoming secretary of State after she called the attack in Benghazi spontaneous on the Sunday morning talk shows, while it later came out that it was a planned attack. The administration says she was expressing the intelligence at the time.

Correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Sunday why then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not appear on the shows instead; Rice defended her.

“She had just gone through an incredibly painful and stressful week,” Rice said. “Secretary Clinton, as our chief diplomat, had to reach out to the families, had to greet the bodies upon their arrival at Andrews Air Force Base. If I were her, the last thing I would have wanted to do is five Sunday morning talk shows. So I think it’s perfectly understandable.”

On one of the controversies plaguing the administration today, the National Security Agency’s spying, Rice defended the actions of intelligence agencies, but left the door open for some changes, as President Obama seemed to do in his press conference Friday as well.

“It’s been worth what we’ve done to protect the United States,” Rice said. “And the fact that we have not had a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11 should not be diminished. But that does not mean that everything we’re doing as of the present ought to be done the same way in the future.”

In her last question on Benghazi, Stahl raised the point that if Rice had not done the interviews she might be called Madam Secretary at the moment.

“Well you can call me Susan,” Rice replied.