l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Obama’s New Lie – No Funding For Embassy Security Was The Problem
October 11, 2012 by Doug Johnson
Libyagate has team Obama reeling. Here’s David Axelrod on CNN’s Starting
Point with Soledad O’Brien (video) trotting out the new Obama spin on how
they weren’t really lying about the attack in Libya and trying to pin the
blame on Republicans. It’s really quite comical:
“Well, the role of the White House was to convey the information that
we were receiving from our intelligence people on the ground and in the area
. And that’s what we’ve done throughout. No one has an interest in
obscuring facts about this. The President, of all people, wants all the
facts so that he can act on them and make sure that in the future, if there
were deficiencies, that we address them. The other thing is, and the primary
task right now, is to find those who are responsible and bring them to
justice. So we work with the facts that we have, as the facts emerge, the
White House and the State Department have shared them. And now the task
should be to ask, ‘What do we need to do in the future to guard against
this kind of a situation?’ One thing we shouldn’t do, however, Soledad, is
what Paul Ryan and the Republicans in Congress have suggested, which is to
cut back on funding for the security of these facilities.”
The lies of the administration on the root cause of the assassination of U.S
. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other men are so well documented that
they need not be covered here again.
The real humor in Axelrod’s trope is the bit about finding those
responsible. Team Obama’s lead investigators, the FBI (really?), didn’t
make bombed out embassy for over 15 days. In fact I’m still not sure if
they’ve made it to the scene of the crime.
But the last bit about cutting back on the funding for security is the new
“big lie” from the Obama camp.
Overall budgets for embassy security and construction were not cut. The
Heritage Foundation did the research.
Comparing FY 2011 actual funding versus the FY 2012 estimate, there
appears to be a reduction in Worldwide Security Protection and Embassy
Security, Construction and Maintenance. But that reduction does not account
for additional funding in FY 2012 from Overseas Contingency Operations funds
amounting to $236 million for Worldwide Security Protection (p. 63) and $33
million for Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance (p. 467). As a
result, total funds for Worldwide Security Protection for FY 2012 are
estimated to be $94 million higher than in FY 2011, while Embassy Security,
Construction and Maintenance is estimated to be $61 million less than FY
2011. Together, there is a net increase.
And in testimony before Congress today the State Department confirmed that
budgets had nothing to do with the manpower and assets in Libya pre 9/11/12.
Rob Port found this from Joel Gehrke at The Examiner:
Was the refusal to provide more security caused by budget cuts to
embassy security? “No, sir,” Charlene Lamb, the Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State for International Programs, told the committee.
Lamb said that the State Department was right not to grant Nordstrom’s
request for more security. “We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi
on the night of 9/11,” Lamb said, per The Cable, citing the Libyan
security personnel.
The $16 billion dollar State Department budget had plenty of money to for
other urgent matters like “green” energy. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) notes in
The Washington Times:
[O]n May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna
to purchase a $108,000 electric vehicle charging station for the embassy
motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts. The purchase was a part of the State
Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which
included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program
expenditures at various U.S. Embassies.
In fact, at a May 10 gala held at the U.S. embassy in Vienna, the
ambassador showcased his new Volts and other green investments as part of
the U.S. government’s commitment to “climate change solutions.”
The event posting on the embassy website read: “Celebrating the
Greening of the Embassy.”
While the embassy in Vienna was going green, the consulate in Benghazi
was getting bombed, and little was done to stop it.
The administration had everything they needed, except for a plan. From Joel
Gehrke’s previously linked piece:
Eric Nordstrom, the man responsible for U.S. Embassy security in Libya
this summer, told Congress today that the Obama Administration decided to “
hope everything would” change for the better rather than provide additional
security.
“So when I requested resources, when I requested assets, instead of
supporting those assets, I was criticized,” Nordstrom said during a House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the security provided
to the American personnel in Benghazi. “[T]here was no plan. And it was
hope that everything would get better.”
Paul Ryan will have a chance to refute this pathetic new wrinkle to
Libyagate tonight if Joe Biden attempts to play that card. I secretly hope
he does because it opens the whole topic of the administration’s lies and
coverup for Ryan to layout to the viewing audience.
That’s what we call a softball… |
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