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Title: Witness Says More Security Would Not Have Prevented Libya Deaths
Source:
The Hill
URL Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-aff ... nt-have-prevented-libya-deaths
Published: Oct 10, 2012
Author: Jordy Yager
Post Date: 2012-10-10 14:07:22 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 3163
Comments: 3
A key witness at a House hearing Wednesday disputed Republican assertions that more security measures would have prevented the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three others at a U.S. Consulate in Libya. “The ferocity and intensity of the attack was nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service,” said Eric Nordstrom, a regional security officer who left Tripoli about two months before the attack. “Having an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault,” Nordstrom said at Wednesday’s hearing. Nordstrom’s account directly contradicted arguments made by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) at the opening of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Nordstrom was invited to testify by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the committee's chairman. Chaffetz contended that the State Department refused requests to provide the Consulate in Benghazi with more security ahead of the attack. “I believe personally, with more assets, more resources, just meeting the minimum standards, we could have and should have saved the life of Ambassador Stevens and the other people,” said Chaffetz, who visited Libya last weekend on a congressional trip. Stevens and three other diplomats were killed in a September 11 attack on the consulate. The Obama administration has come under intense criticism over the attack, particularly for its initial argument that the attack spun out of a protest of an anti-Islam film. Officials now say the incident was a terrorist attack. Republicans and Mitt Romney's campaign have used the Libyan attack to showcase their argument that President Obama is in over his head when it comes to foreign policy and national security, which has been a political strength of the president's. Democrats sought Wednesday to put blame on Republicans for reducing funding for embassy security. “The fact is that, since 2011, the House has cut embassy security by hundreds of millions of dollars below the amounts requested by the president," Rep Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the panel's ranking Democrat, said in an opening statement. "The Senate restored some of these funds, but the final amounts were still far below the administration’s requests. And they were far below the levels we enacted in 2010.” According to a Democratic staff memo obtained by The Hill, the House cut the two State Department accounts for “Worldwide Security Protection” and “Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance” by a total of $459 million in 2011 and 2012 below the Obama administration's funding request. The Democrat-controlled Senate was able to reinstate $88.25 million — still $370.7 million lower than what the administration wanted. Issa said more Democrats than Republicans - including Cummings - voted for those bills and called them a “bipartisan” effort. Republicans pointed to a July 2012 report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that found $200 million in waste to justify the cuts. The senior State Department witness at the hearing told lawmakers that investigators had not reached any conclusions about whether more security preparations would have thwarted the attack. “We too ask ourselves if we provided our people in the field with everything they needed to do their jobs,” said Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary for management. “We are already asking ourselves every question to better understand what happened, and how, if we can, we reduce the risk of it happening again.” Another State Department witness, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs Charlene Lamb testified, under a line of questioning from Issa, that the Consulate had enough security resources given what officials detected as known threats to the U.S. facility. Lamb’s response “somehow doesn't seem to ring true to the American people,” said Issa, referring to an attack earlier that year on the Consulate and the looming threat that was carried with the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — when the Benghazi attack occurred.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
#2. To: Capitalist Eric (#1)
Obama left the door wide open and evil Islamofascists walked right on in... What a LOSER we have in the White House...MUD
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestA key witness at a House hearing Wednesday disputed Republican assertions that more security measures would have prevented the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three others at a U.S. Consulate in Libya.
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Then his apologists claim being adequately-prepared would NOT have mattered!!
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