Posted on 10/01/2012 6:13:17 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, in an interview with Fox News, suggested the Obama administration politicized the intelligence in the immediate aftermath of the deadly consulate attack in Libya to fit a convenient story line, that it was spontaneous violence and not pre-meditated terrorism.
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“I argue the administration made some serious mistakes when they highlighted the video, escalated its credibility to the presidential level and then took it on TV in Pakistan with U.S. taxpayers dollars,” Rogers said, referring to an American government ad that aired in Pakistan condemning the video and the violence.
“I think those are all serious mistakes that we're paying the price for," Rogers told Fox News. He suggested the problem stemmed from the Obama administration seeing the intelligence as "what they wanted it to be -- not what it was."
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Rogers, who told Fox News a day after the attack that he suspected terrorism, said the intelligence director's statement appeared to be an effort to obscure the facts.
“Part of problem is this circling of the wagons," Rogers said, calling it "concerning."
"Again Americans need to understand the truth," he said. "And the facts are what the facts are -- and the intelligence is what the intelligence is -- and we've got to avoid this notion of any political convenience, of any political interpretation, or we will make serious mistakes.”
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Fox News also asked an administration official why the administration chose Ambassador Rice to go before TV cameras to discuss the sensitive intelligence details, instead of officials like Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
“We lost an ambassador in the attacks," the administration official told Fox News, asking to remain anonymous. "It made (sense) to put out a senior diplomat to speak to that tragedy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I think this is an extremely generous assessment. They didn’t see what they wanted to see. They said whatever they wanted to say and depended on a fawning press not to call them on it. So far, they have succeeded.
It’s amazing to me the story is still Mitt Romney’s speaking out of turn and not Obama’s and HRC’s mendacity and incompetence.
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