Kerry, Rice position themselves on Benghazi attack

The Cable ^ | September 27, 2012 | Josh Rogin

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The two most discussed candidates to be America's next top diplomat now find themselves on opposite sides of the Libya issue, with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in the role of defending the administration's narrative and Sen. John Kerry(D-MA) promising tough congressional oversight while giving the State Department room to conduct its own investigation.

As the controversy over the administration's handling of the issue grows,Rice's comments on the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi are coming under increasing attack. Her insistence on a number of Sunday talk shows Sept. 16 that,according to the best information available at the time,the attack was an unplanned assault and the result of an anti-Islam video is facing harsh criticism from senators. Administration officials, including most recently Defense Secretary Leon Panetta,have since called it a "terrorist attack," and even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has indicated that al Qaeda affiliated groups were involved.

"First of all, there's an FBI investigation which is ongoing and we look to that investigation to give us the definitive word as to what transpired. But putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is what happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo,almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, prompted by the video," Rice said Sept. 16 on NBC's Meet the Press.

........Privately,however, Kerry has been pressing the administration for answers. He sent a letter to Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides about Diplomatic Security on Sept. 17, The letter, which was previously undisclosed but obtained by The Cable,asks Nides to answer a host of questions on the security conditions at the Benghazi consulate and the cooperation of the governments in Egypt,Libya,and Yemen during and after the attacks.....

[Brad from Tennessee]

[(kerry) got 3 band aid wounds to get out of Viet nam]

Two of these resulted from Kerry firing his grenade launcher at a point that would put him on the bare edge of the shrapnel radius. The last one resulted from throwing a frag grenade into a large cache of rice and getting cut by an ejected rice grain. A Navy surgeon scoffed at the first “wound” so Kerry simply forwarded the Purple Heart paperwork to Sen. Ted Kennedy's office who got it approved.

[what's up]

There's no reason the State Dept. can't come up with some kind of report within 30 days.

The reason they don't want to is not that it would be perceived as partisan, but that State will be unable to cover its tracks.

The Pickering stunt is a stall to get past elections; another cynical stunt by Madame Hillary.