With the presidential candidates preparing for Monday’s final debate on foreign policy, it is time for American journalism to hit pause on the political spin cycle and — without taking sides — make three corrections to the record about the campaign’s most controversial foreign policy topic: the murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.
The first correction is to the charge that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice lied to the American people in the days after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
Rice told television interviewers the violence grew out of a spontaneous demonstration, prompted by an American anti-Muslim video.
Here is the simple fact: The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper has confirmed that Rice told the truth in describing the assessment of the intelligence community at the time of her remarks.
She was not the only one relying on those initial intelligence reports.
Two days after the attack, CIA Director David Petraeus briefed the House Intelligence Committee. Petraeus told lawmakers the best intelligence showed it was a demonstration sparked by the video that got out of hand, according to Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the panel’s ranking Democrat.
Patrick Kennedy, the Undersecretary of State for Management, also said — in testimony before Congress earlier this month — that anyone would have said exactly what Rice said based on the intelligence available at the time.
Some U.S. officials have said they never believed the attack was mounted by a disorganized mob, but that was not the official assessment.
The spin-free truth is that Rice accurately stated what U.S. intelligence showed at the time, and stressed that there was an ongoing investigation where conclusions were subject to change.
the dust up by the right wing is their last bit of reality they can twist into a propagandized hit on the Pres.'s foreign policy knowing i repeat knowing they had no game of their own. referenced by Romney's total love affair with all of the Pres.'s policy the only personal touch was "HE'LL JUST DO MORE OF WHAT IS ALREADY BEING DONE", and with great strides. be backed off the saber rattling but he's republican and a liar.
republicans once again leaping before looking
The suggestion is that the attack would have been stopped, and the ambassador still alive, if the requests had been granted.
But at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this month, Charlene Lamb, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and head of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, testified that the request was for added security in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, and not Benghazi.
The added manpower would have been based 400 miles away from the violence.
