The question isn’t whether the Obama administration will backtrack from Ambassador Rice’s statement. It’s just a question of whether the media will report their backtracking. Here’s the insulting thing Ambassador Rice said:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was not premeditated, directly contradicting top Libyan officials who say the attack was planned in advance.
“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous, not a premeditated response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice told me this morning on “This Week.”
“In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated,” Rice said, referring to protests in Egypt Tuesday over a film that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. Protesters in Cairo breached the walls of the U.S. American Embassy, tearing apart an American flag.
“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to, or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,” Rice said. “And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there.”
The administration will retract Ambassador Rice’s statement, possibly before the Vikings-Colts kickoff, especially after Drudge posted this article:
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) — Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.
He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn’t good for international business.
“The situation is frightening, it scares us,” Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.
Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.
This administration has difficulty admitting that their decisions and policies have been disasters. There’s no excuse for the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi to be operating in business-as-usual mode.
Ed Morrissey is all over this story with this post:
That comes as news to the Libyan government, which has now arrested 50 people in connection to the murders and the attack on the consulate. Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf told CBS’ Face the Nation that the attack was planned for months by people who had infiltrated Libya from other nations specifically for the attack:
About 50 arrests have been made in connection with the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi in which the American Ambassador and three other consulate employees were killed, and some of the suspects involved are from outside the country, Libya’s president told CBS News.
In an interview for “Face the Nation” Sunday, President Mohamed Magariaf also said that evidence “leaves us with no doubt” that the attack was pre-planned.
“It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival,” he told Bob Schieffer.
The networks aren’t providing cover for the Obama administration, leaving them with no option except admitting that Ambassador Rice was lying through her teeth on national TV. In fact, it’s a matter of when, not if.
Tags: President Obama, Susan Rice, Libya, Benghazi, Terrorists, Operations, CNN, CBS, Bob Schieffer, ABC, Jake Tapper, Democrats
Authored By Let Freedom Ring Blog
