Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says he is "more disturbed now than I was before" over U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's explanation of the September 11 attacks in Benghazi, he told reporters today after meeting with the ambassador, and indicated that he would need more answers and information regarding the chain of events before voting to nominate her as Secretary of State.
Graham, who spoke alongside Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., following a closed door meeting with Rice and acting CIA Director Michael Morell on Capitol Hill this morning, continued to target Rice for her September 16 characterization of the attacks in Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans.
"I'm more disturbed now than I was before that the 16 September explanation of how four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya by Ambassador Rice," he told reporters. He argued that her comments, in which she erroneously suggested the violence may have resulted from spontaneous riots over an anti-Muslim video, were not only wrong in hindsight, but were also "disconnected from reality" based on information that was available at the time.
"If anybody had been looking at the threats coming out of Benghazi, Libya, it [would] jump out at you this was [an] Al-Qaeda storm in the making," he said. "I'm very disappointed in our intelligence community, they failed in many ways, but with a little bit of inquiry and curiosity I think it would be pretty clear that to explain this episode as related to a video that created a mob that turned into a riot was far afield."
McCain, too, said he left today's meeting "significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get" regarding both the events that occurred in Libya and the nature in which they were explained to the American people.
"It is clear that the information that [Rice] gave the American people was incorrect when she said that it was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video," McCain said. "It was not. And there was compelling evidence at the time that that was certainly not the case, including statements by Libyans as well as other Americans, who are fully aware that people don't bring mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to spontaneous demonstrations."
In a statement released after the meeting, Rice detailed her meeting with the senators, and says she and Morell "explained that the talking points provided by the intelligence community, and the initial assessment upon which they were based, were incorrect in a key respect: there was no protest or demonstration in Benghazi. "
"While we certainly wish that we had had perfect information just days after the terrorist attack, as is often the case, the intelligence assessment has evolved," she said. "We stressed that neither I nor anyone else in the Administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process, and the Administration updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved."
A U.S. intelligence official told CBS News this afternoon, "The talking points were written, upon request, so members of Congress and senior officials could say something preliminary and unclassified about the attacks, if needed. They were never meant to be definitive and, in fact, noted that the assessment may change. The points clearly reflect the early indications of extremist involvement in a direct assault.
"It wasn't until after they were used in public that analysts reconciled contradictory information about how the assault began. Finding the right balance between keeping the public informed and protecting sensitive information is never easy and that was true here. There was absolutely no intent to misinform."
Rice, who is considered one of President Obama's top contenders to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, has been embroiled in controversy over the manner in which she characterized the Benghazi attacks in a series of talk show appearances on September 16. President Obama has vehemently defended the ambassador's remarks, which were guided by CIA talking points, and called on senators like McCain and Graham to "go after me" if they "want to go after somebody."
Still, the possibility of getting Rice confirmed in the House and Senate hangs in the balance in light of the controversy, and McCain, Graham and Ayotte - who have taken the lead on criticizing Rice and the Obama administration over their explanation of the violence in Libya - could help determine her chances.
Both Graham and Ayotte suggested that, as of now, they would not support Rice if Mr. Obama were to nominate her to the Secretary of State.
"Before anybody could make an intelligent decision about promoting someone involved in Benghazi, we need to do a lot more," said Graham. "To this date we don't have the FBI interviews of the survivors conducted one or two days after the attack."
Citing Democrats' 2006 reluctance to confirm John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. as precedent for his potential opposition, Graham added that at the time, "Democrats dug in their heels, saying, 'we're not gonna vote, we're not gonna consider this nomination until we get basic answers to our concerns. All I can tell you, that the concerns I have are greater today than they were before, and we're not even close to getting the basic answers."
"I have many more questions that need to be answered," Ayotte told reporters at the end of the press conference.
Rice is expected to come back to Capitol Hill this afternoon for another round of meetings.
CBS News State Department Correspondent Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.
EVERY TIME AMERICAN PEOPLE TURN AROUND GOP TRYING TO CREATE ANOTHER SCANDAL, WHERE NONE EXISTS
First, GOP tried to make a scandal out of Solyndra; there was none. China poured BIL into their thin-film solar products, driving down costs 30%. Then they dumped those same lower-cost, thin-film solar products onto the US Market. Solyndra had a better product, trying to get to "economy of scales", when they were so drastically undercut and sabotaged. GOP are willing to give the 4 top oil companies, making BIL/quarter, $34 BIL in tax cut subsidies. Plus dirty fossil fuels gets at least another $10 BIL in corporate welfare, but Renewable Energy isn't allowed to get to "economies of scale", so 7 BILLION humans get a Sustainable Future? Three decades of lies about Global Warming, now has the planet on a trajectory to become uninhabitable. In short, THE DAMAGE REPORT is in: "the GOP, corrupt corporation who own them, uninformed Conservatives who support this corruption are now responsible for the murder of TENS of MIL from sea level rise, severe weather events, & especially food crop failures." 600 MILLION people have been affected, since 2010. Of that 600 MILLION, 200 MILLION children are dying of starvation & malnutrition, thanks to the GOP.
The 2nd scandal the GOP tried to create was a nonexistent cover-up with FAST AND FURIOUS, started under the Bush Administration. 70,000 documents were turned over to Darrel Issa . 1000 e-mails were kept because they were connected to "PENDING CASES". There was no cover-up as the investigation came to show.
NOW the sick, dysfunctional, psychotic, pathological liars, are trying to create yet another SCANDAL out of Benghazi, where none exists. Petraeus has testified there were two sets of "TALKING POINTS", one CLASSIFIED, one NOT CLASSIFIED. Why would RICE go out & expose "Classified Information", when those weren't the talking points the INTEL Community gave her ? They didn't want al-Qaeda to know they were onto them. An investigative reporter talking to, TALK of the Nation 11-13-12 went through a play-by-play. Ambassador Hill also described at length how an Embassey or Consulate works. There was a crowd of 200 people at Benghazi 3 hours after Egypt, just like crowds in Egypt, except in Egypt they weren't armed. There's many armed militias running around Libya because of the ground war. Egypt had a peaceful transition & a military that looked after things for over a year. Libya does NOT have that. Aren't the GOP, the cut and gut mentality, that think that's the solution to everything? If there's no funds available then, there isn't tons of beefed up security.
200 MIL Americans get that the Right Wing are engaged in a Campaign of DECEIT that is now entering its 4th decade. MOTTO: "FIX THE DATA TO PUSH THE HIDDEN AGENDAS--LIE, DECEIVE, FABRICATE". GOP POLICIES = "DEATH SPIRALS". Keystone XL PIPELINE="DEATH SPIRAL". Three decades of lies about deregulation allowed derivatives stuffed with junk to damage the economy for the 3rd time in Sept 2008. $11 TRIL dollars in assets trashed, millions put out of work, millions of foreclosures from those job losses, & 16 million children homeless living on the streets with their families. Cut and Gut Budget = "DEATH SPIRAL". Forced on Roosevelt in 1937 caused a "double-dip" GREAT DEPRESSION, drove unemployment above 15%; exactly what we see going on in Iceland (15%), Portugal & Spain, (21-25%), Greece (25%-50%). Most dangerous "DEATH SPIRAL" = Global Warming. Planet on a trajectory to become uninhabitable; goes over an irreversible cliff 2015 from Keystone XL Pipeline spewing 70% more pollution. BIL in damages in 2012 = TRIL 2015-2020 from sea level rise, severe weather events, & food crop failures. They've murdered TENS of MILLIONS. We get that they're a bunch of sick, dysfunctional, psychotic, pathological liars & now murderers; they don't have to keep proving it to us by trying to concoct "SCANDALS WHERE NONE EXIST". They should worry about their own Campaign of DECEIT. GOP POLICIES= "DEATH SPIRALS". As absolute butchers of verifiable Truths, they're HUGE VIOLATORS of the Universal LAWS running the show, therefore HUGE VIOLATORS of God's World. People as sick, dysfunctional, psychotic, incessant bald-faced liars, that 95% of the GOP are, have no business being in positions of power at any level of government. They destroy everything they touch. The American People need to "CLEAN OUT" the US HOUSE of 234 GOP DECEIT & SENATE of another 40, 2014, so that we have a government that can actually govern, instead of the incessant lies & sabotage.
We could be growing GDP by 158%, with MILLIONS of Green and Infrastructure Jobs, leave THE DEBT in the dust, & get a Sustainable Future. The GOP have done nothing but sabotage that option, because they're owned by BIG OIL. (REINVENTING FIRE by rmi.org)
Since the stupid failed and obsolete and neutered Republicons actually have no plans, no ideas and no hope for the future, this is all they have. Another thing for the failed idiots to express fake outrage over. Like the federal debt that they are suddenly concerned about. They literally have NOTHING.
The White House, meanwhile, insists Rice has shared all she can. "I would simply say that there are no unanswered questions about Ambassador Rice's appearances on Sunday shows," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
CBS News Political Director John Dickerson said on "CBS This Morning" that the administration thinks the Republicans "can never be satisfied" regardless of what Rice says."
===============================================================
The Repubs are wasting time again.Based on their nonsensecal,fake hysterical,fake "truth seeking" stunts should be responded to with the same...
The answer to every question by ANY Repub should be "32"
There is your answer McCain...Graham...it is "32"
You lost the election,stop pitching tantrums,and fake hysteria.
If The Dopey republicans Want to do something constructive,perhaps they should change their mascot from an elephant to a WEASEL!!!Can't you just accept the fact YOU LOST?!?I think I can speak for many Americans when I say STOP playing games like you're a bunch of spoiled,petulant children who didn't get their way!!
I sure wish the GOP would have been as diligent about the deliberate lies told by the Bush administration that they used to lie us into Bush's war in Iraq. That resulted in over 4 THOUSAND American deaths, not 4.
But that doesn't bother the GOP.
While talking points to the media before all of the intelligence had been processed warrants all of this attention.
Should they be held accountable for believing the president? Is that your question, AI1968?
In my book, anybody who ever believed one word from GW Bush was a g d fool. Bush was the most vile, dishonest POS who has shamed the White House in my 50+ year lifetime.
But most people assume that the president of the United States wouldn't stoop to lying about such things in order to get an authorization to go to war.
Such normal trust was obviously misplaced when it came to GW Bush.
Biden, Clinton and Kerry and others in congress, voted to give President Bush the ability to declare war on Iraq should negotiations break down. It was a matter of leverage to force Saddam Hussain to come clean - or so they thought. Congress was also lied to by the administration and therefore, their real sin was trusting that Bush knew the facts and would act rationally.
Questioning or denying the administration role and failing to hold these idiots accountable may be Airborne's feel good purpose, but can only encourage a repeat of such debacles.
I really cannot believe this is still being discussed. What are the questions that Ayotte and Graham have that are unanswered? Seriously. A tragedy happened, four Americans were killed. It is terrible, and we were given filtered information from the beginning as it unfolded. What is the big story they are trying to break here? Why do they oppose Rice as much as the Dems opposed Bolton? Graham uses Bolton as an excuse like some 3rd grader. The Democrats did it before, so I am going to do it now. What a goon. Get on with the business the voters hired you to do, you dolt. We have bigger problems in the world than some fog-of-war vs. hindsight issue. It's ridiculous, it's a waste of our taxpayer dollars, time, and energy. Get to work, bozos. This is just destroying any ounce of credibility you still might have had left!
And yet Graham never cared when he voted to prevent a repeal of taxpayer-funded handouts/entitlements going to corporations that offshored jobs... more people are disturbed over job and the economy.
Sorry for the tangent, but there are others that, when all added up, show Graham as being a prop.
You have to give FoxNews credit for not denying the fact that they were working for the Republicans on the politicizing of the four deaths in Libya. They merely stopped the interview, and pretended it didn't even take place.
A few cowards are still actively playing politics with the events, but most have been reduced to childish name-calling!
Tempest in a teapot. The people going into Libya kew it was a dangerous sitatuion but they went anyway. They could have resigned if they felt their lives were at risk. They were ambushed by Al Queda. Well OK - Mid East politics is dangerous. Poison and assassination are political tools there just like we have elections here.
Even Yasser Arafat, who survived dozens of assassination attempts and stated often that he never slept in the same place twice, was likely taken out with poison as a revenge killing. This is just how things are done there. If you accept a post as ambassador or consul there, you and your staff know the risks. You don't HAVE to go.
It is unfair to blame the Ambassador and his staff. There have been several major attacks on American soil that came from within, such as the Colorado shootings (twice), the Sikh Temple, Oklahoma, and others.
The GOP is spending more time on this than they are on the thousands of women and children that go missing and are found murdered in this country on almost a weekly basis. Al Queda does not strike weekly. If the GOP spent this much focus on the internal serial killers, as they do on this one Al Queda attack on foreign soil, the streets of America might be safer.
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First, GOP tried to make a scandal out of Solyndra; there was none. China poured BIL into their thin-film solar products, driving down costs 30%. Then they dumped those same lower-cost, thin-film solar products onto the US Market. Solyndra had a better product, trying to get to "economy of scales", when they were so drastically undercut and sabotaged. GOP are willing to give the 4 top oil companies, making BIL/quarter, $34 BIL in tax cut subsidies. Plus dirty fossil fuels gets at least another $10 BIL in corporate welfare, but Renewable Energy isn't allowed to get to "economies of scale", so 7 BILLION humans get a Sustainable Future? Three decades of lies about Global Warming, now has the planet on a trajectory to become uninhabitable. In short, THE DAMAGE REPORT is in: "the GOP, corrupt corporation who own them, uninformed Conservatives who support this corruption are now responsible for the murder of TENS of MIL from sea level rise, severe weather events, & especially food crop failures." 600 MILLION people have been affected, since 2010. Of that 600 MILLION, 200 MILLION children are dying of starvation & malnutrition, thanks to the GOP.
The 2nd scandal the GOP tried to create was a nonexistent cover-up with FAST AND FURIOUS, started under the Bush Administration. 70,000 documents were turned over to Darrel Issa . 1000 e-mails were kept because they were connected to "PENDING CASES". There was no cover-up as the investigation came to show.
NOW the sick, dysfunctional, psychotic, pathological liars, are trying to create yet another SCANDAL out of Benghazi, where none exists. Petraeus has testified there were two sets of "TALKING POINTS", one CLASSIFIED, one NOT CLASSIFIED. Why would RICE go out & expose "Classified Information", when those weren't the talking points the INTEL Community gave her ? They didn't want al-Qaeda to know they were onto them. An investigative reporter talking to, TALK of the Nation 11-13-12 went through a play-by-play. Ambassador Hill also described at length how an Embassey or Consulate works. There was a crowd of 200 people at Benghazi 3 hours after Egypt, just like crowds in Egypt, except in Egypt they weren't armed. There's many armed militias running around Libya because of the ground war. Egypt had a peaceful transition & a military that looked after things for over a year. Libya does NOT have that. Aren't the GOP, the cut and gut mentality, that think that's the solution to everything? If there's no funds available then, there isn't tons of beefed up security.
200 MIL Americans get that the Right Wing are engaged in a Campaign of DECEIT that is now entering its 4th decade. MOTTO: "FIX THE DATA TO PUSH THE HIDDEN AGENDAS--LIE, DECEIVE, FABRICATE". GOP POLICIES = "DEATH SPIRALS". Keystone XL PIPELINE="DEATH SPIRAL". Three decades of lies about deregulation allowed derivatives stuffed with junk to damage the economy for the 3rd time in Sept 2008. $11 TRIL dollars in assets trashed, millions put out of work, millions of foreclosures from those job losses, & 16 million children homeless living on the streets with their families. Cut and Gut Budget = "DEATH SPIRAL". Forced on Roosevelt in 1937 caused a "double-dip" GREAT DEPRESSION, drove unemployment above 15%; exactly what we see going on in Iceland (15%), Portugal & Spain, (21-25%), Greece (25%-50%). Most dangerous "DEATH SPIRAL" = Global Warming. Planet on a trajectory to become uninhabitable; goes over an irreversible cliff 2015 from Keystone XL Pipeline spewing 70% more pollution. BIL in damages in 2012 = TRIL 2015-2020 from sea level rise, severe weather events, & food crop failures. They've murdered TENS of MILLIONS. We get that they're a bunch of sick, dysfunctional, psychotic, pathological liars & now murderers; they don't have to keep proving it to us by trying to concoct "SCANDALS WHERE NONE EXIST". They should worry about their own Campaign of DECEIT. GOP POLICIES= "DEATH SPIRALS". As absolute butchers of verifiable Truths, they're HUGE VIOLATORS of the Universal LAWS running the show, therefore HUGE VIOLATORS of God's World. People as sick, dysfunctional, psychotic, incessant bald-faced liars, that 95% of the GOP are, have no business being in positions of power at any level of government. They destroy everything they touch. The American People need to "CLEAN OUT" the US HOUSE of 234 GOP DECEIT & SENATE of another 40, 2014, so that we have a government that can actually govern, instead of the incessant lies & sabotage.
We could be growing GDP by 158%, with MILLIONS of Green and Infrastructure Jobs, leave THE DEBT in the dust, & get a Sustainable Future. The GOP have done nothing but sabotage that option, because they're owned by BIG OIL. (REINVENTING FIRE by rmi.org)
CBS News Political Director John Dickerson said on "CBS This Morning" that the administration thinks the Republicans "can never be satisfied" regardless of what Rice says."
===============================================================
The Repubs are wasting time again.Based on their nonsensecal,fake hysterical,fake "truth seeking" stunts should be responded to with the same...
The answer to every question by ANY Repub should be "32"
There is your answer McCain...Graham...it is "32"
You lost the election,stop pitching tantrums,and fake hysteria.
But that doesn't bother the GOP.
While talking points to the media before all of the intelligence had been processed warrants all of this attention.
In my book, anybody who ever believed one word from GW Bush was a g d fool. Bush was the most vile, dishonest POS who has shamed the White House in my 50+ year lifetime.
But most people assume that the president of the United States wouldn't stoop to lying about such things in order to get an authorization to go to war.
Such normal trust was obviously misplaced when it came to GW Bush.
Questioning or denying the administration role and failing to hold these idiots accountable may be Airborne's feel good purpose, but can only encourage a repeat of such debacles.
They lost the policy arguments on Nov 6th, now they're ceding any chance of hanging on to some sort of moral high ground.
And for what? A sop to the GOP's racist base?
A chance to get John Kerry into the State job so they can run Scott Brown for his Senate seat?
A diversion to cover up the fact that their only 'plan' for the last 4 years, defeating Obama's reelection, failed, and the have NOTHING else?
John McCain used to be an American hero. He has become a sad, pathetic figure.
Sorry for the tangent, but there are others that, when all added up, show Graham as being a prop.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/fox-news-interview-guest-network-wing-republican-party_n_2192506.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
A few cowards are still actively playing politics with the events, but most have been reduced to childish name-calling!
Even Yasser Arafat, who survived dozens of assassination attempts and stated often that he never slept in the same place twice, was likely taken out with poison as a revenge killing. This is just how things are done there. If you accept a post as ambassador or consul there, you and your staff know the risks. You don't HAVE to go.
The GOP is spending more time on this than they are on the thousands of women and children that go missing and are found murdered in this country on almost a weekly basis. Al Queda does not strike weekly. If the GOP spent this much focus on the internal serial killers, as they do on this one Al Queda attack on foreign soil, the streets of America might be safer.