[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Happening now: a new deadline for cracking down on gun violence. President Obama gets specific about his promise to try to prevent another shooting massacre. An independent review of the Benghazi attack is scathing, scathing criticism of the State Department. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers tells us why he still isn't satisfied. He's here this hour. And CNN gets early details of a shocking new report on sex crimes at U.S. military academies. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. President Obama says it won't be easy to pass meaningful new gun control legislation, but he also says, after the Newtown massacre, there's no excuse not to try. This was a man who held the grandchild of Sandy Hook Elementary School's fallen principal, who tried to comfort victims' families during the most horrific times in their lives. But can he harness the raw emotion to get real action? Let's go to our White House correspondent, Brianna Keilar. She's got the latest Brianna.
[Brianna Keilar, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Hi there, Wolf. For the first time, President Obama today laid out a timeline for his administration to act, appointing Vice President Joe Biden to lead a group of Cabinet secretaries, outside organizations as well as lawmakers to come up with solutions, and he said he wants the recommendations no later than January.
[Keilar:] The president said this time Washington won't just talk about tackling gun violence.
[Obama:] This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issues for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task, to pull together real reforms right now.
[Keilar:] He urged Congress to vote early next year on an assault weapons ban, a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips and close the gun show loopholes, so all gun purchasers are subject to background checks. The president's task force will recommend policies beyond gun control.
[Obama:] We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun. We're going to need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence. And any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our hearts.
[Keilar:] The president is hoping to seize this moment of heightened public awareness to push Washington to change.
[Obama:] But, goodness, if this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective. If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important.
[Keilar:] The announcement is quieting criticism from within the president's own ranks. Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who lost her husband in a mass shooting, now feels the president is showing leadership.
[Rep. Carolyn Mccarthy , New York:] We will follow the president's commission on education, mental health, and all of the other things that need to be done to keep us safe.
[Keilar:] But far-reaching gun regulations will no doubt be met with resistance from the National Rifle Association, which has yet to weigh in on the debate, but will hold a press conference Friday. Senior administration officials say they are ready.
[Obama:] The NRA is an organization that has members who are mothers and fathers. And I would expect that they have been impacted by this as well. And hopefully they will do some self-reflection.
[Keilar:] Polls show there is an uptick in support for stricter gun legislation following the shooting in Connecticut. But, Wolf, the question is, will it last? Will it be enough for Americans to sway lawmakers? President Obama said he plans to use the bully pulpit, take it directly to the American people, and he's confident that he can rally support from them, Wolf.
[Blitzer:] Brianna Keilar at the White House, thank you. Let's see how the president does. Let's see what Joe Biden does as well. The people of Newtown, Connecticut, buried four more shooting victims today, three children and a teacher who died trying to protect them. Kate Bolduan is here. Kate, you and I spent four days in Newtown, very emotional, obviously, for everyone, including for us.
[Kate Bolduan, Cnn Anchor:] It very and so tough to watch the suffering of this community and the suffering of these families, who have lost such little children, especially now when we're seeing these funerals taking place. You know, we get to come home to our families. These families in Newtown, the nightmare continues.
[Blitzer:] It's almost never-ending. I can only imagine what these people are going through right now. And as we watch what's going on, new details are coming in, and I don't know how these people are reacting.
[Bolduan:] It's you know, I think the last thing on their mind is the new details of the investigation, but that's part of this unfortunate horror that we have to continue covering, of course. Let's bring in CNN's national correspondent, Deborah Feyerick. She's been following the investigation into the gunman and getting more information about Nancy Lanza, the gunman's mother, who was also a victim in this tragedy, more information about Nancy Lanza's whereabouts in the days before the shooting. Update our viewers, Deborah.
[Deborah Feyerick, Cnn Correspondent:] Yes, well, Kate and Wolf, what we're learning right now is that Nancy Lanza was away in the days leading up to this murder. My colleague, Rita Cosby, has confirmed that Nancy Lanza left Tuesday morning and spent three almost three full days at a resort in New Hampshire. Now, it's unclear whether she left her son home alone. She did that occasionally. She would cook him some meals and then leave him by himself. It's not clear whether he was alone during this time. But we do know that Nancy Lanza was not there in the days before the shooting. She returned Thursday evening. Friday, Friday, her son shot her four times in the head. Now, we want to kind of show you what is going on behind me here at this house. This has been an active scene all day long. The major crime scene squad has been on site. They have had more than eight investigators throughout the course of the day. They brought the mobile crime lab, which is also up there, just to the left of the house. But you can see the lights on in the second floor and also on the main floor there of the primary residence. We do know that they're looking through all sorts of things. They're looking through papers, they're looking through documents, they're looking through file cabinets. They're trying to get any evidence that they can. And the reason that the crime scene lab is there is because they're able to process information on scene, information that they can take and then bring to a lab a little later on. But they have been in that home all day, combing through those papers. They have been dropping people off, and people have been coming back and forth. So, we did see about noon today they did carry out a huge box of what appeared to be evidence. So, it is still very much ongoing, as they try to search for information. They're also going through the medicine cabinets to see whether, in fact, there was any medication that the gunman may have been taking. That is a big piece of this investigation, as to whether there may have been some underlying psychiatric disorder that triggered him to go on this rampage. It has been reported that he had Asperger's, but now they're looking into whether there was something more that was going on. This trip that Nancy Lanza may have taken could also have been a pretty big trigger, because she was away. And so he was home. Not clear whether somebody was checking in on him. But he had cut off all communication with his father about two years ago, at the time the divorce was official and his father remarried. So whether he felt that his mother was sort of leaving him, that's something also that investigators are looking very, very closely at, as to what was going on before he did this terrible crime Kate, Wolf.
[Bolduan:] Yes, clearly many questions still unanswered and the investigation continues. Deborah Feyerick, thanks so much, Deborah.
[Blitzer:] Other news we're following right now, including the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. We're now told she is planning to testify before Congress in mid-January about the attack on the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. She canceled an appearance tomorrow because she's been ill. She fainted and suffered a concussion. She's recuperating right now. Three State Department officials have resigned after a scathing new review of the Benghazi attack. Senior officials tell CNN, two of those who stepped down oversaw security decisions at the diplomatic mission. Our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence, is joining us now with more on this new report a very tough report, the secrets it reveals. What's in this report, Chris?
[Chris Lawrence, Cnn Pentagon Correspondent:] Well, Wolf, we now know that the State Department officials knew that radical Islamic groups were operating around Benghazi and that there'd been a spike in attacks on Western targets. They were getting almost no help from the Libyan government in helping to secure that mission. So they were relying on some militia members to help guard the perimeter of the compound. By this report, we now know that those militia members simply ran away when the crowd approached. And although investigators can't be entirely sure, the speed at which those attackers came through that front gate at least raises the possibility that the guards simply left it open. Protests erupted across the Middle East on September 11. But despite the Obama administration claiming Benghazi began as a protest...
[Susan Rice, United States Ambassador To The United Nations:] What happened in Benghazi was, in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo. This was not a pre- planned, premeditated attack.
[Lawrence:] ... a new report definitively says that's not true quote "The board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks." Investigators laid the blame for Benghazi on bureaucracy, missed warning signs with, and grossly inadequate security. They interviewed more than 100 people and read through thousands of documents detailing the desperate attempts to save the U.S. ambassador. As smoke engulfed their safe area, Ambassador Chris Stevens and two others crawled to a bathroom. One of them was a security officer, and he opened a window, trying desperately to get some air. Instead, more smoke poured in. They couldn't see, couldn't breathe. So the officer crawled out, blindly, yelling for the others to follow. He slipped through another window and collapsed outside, only then realizing he was alone. Within a week of the attack, CNN's Arwa Damon walked through that compound.
[Arwa Damon, Cnn International Correspondent:] The bathroom when we saw it was covered in black soot and there were what appeared to be bloodstains.
[Lawrence:] The shocking deaths prompted a rush to the microphones, members of Congress claiming officials ignored red flags.
[Sen. John Mccain , Arizona:] Why was the security at the consulate so inadequate, despite two previous attacks on that facility in April and June of this year, an assassination attempt on the British ambassador in Benghazi?
[Lawrence:] But the report says consulate workers became desensitized to the threat. "The longer a post is exposed to continuing high levels of violence, the more it comes to consider security incidents which might otherwise provoke a reaction as normal." Some suggested a quicker reaction could have helped save the ambassador.
[Sen. Kelly Ayotte , New Hampshire:] Why couldn't the greatest military in the world respond?
[Lawrence:] Well, the simple answer to that is, they just weren't close enough. The report acknowledges that the Pentagon dispatched a quick-reaction force from Europe and rerouted a surveillance drone over Benghazi, but bottom line, it just was not close enough and there wasn't enough time to make a difference.
[Blitzer:] This is a scathing, scathing, very tough report. I read it and I must say, it's pretty shocking that there was so much dereliction of responsibility in protecting American diplomats in Benghazi. We're going to have much more on this. Chris, thank you very, very much. And I know you have read it as well, Kate.
[Bolduan:] Yes, absolutely, Wolf. As Wolf just said, tough criticism of the State Department in that Benghazi report. So how much responsibility should lie with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? We will talk about that and much more with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, coming up. Also, what could an expert on genetics reveal about Newtown gunman Adam Lanza? Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us to talk about the investigation.