White House: Obama, Biden Weren’t Told About Libya Security Requests

next debate to educate the public on sercurity requests. Mountains out of mole hills.

Maybe you should go take their place and see what you say then.

they wanted security for the embassy which was hardened & had been sacked before.

Wonder who will be taken to the woodshed?

Her watch, her duty.

I think the people will see pass this.

he was concerned that Biden was caught off guard. Now we know why.

can we get the nitwit media to understand ONE thing about this.

Embassy vs CONSULATE

Biden noted this during the debate.

Ryan, being the nitwit he is, said they should have had "more' marines at the consolute in benghazi.

Well, no, cause Marines are not at consulates.

Embassies are the main diplomatic facilities in foreign countries.

Consulates are offices in other cities in the country.

it was attacked didn't matter if you had a squad or 2 marines....the office wasn't designed for such. In many countries its just a skelton force or locals.

I learned this years ago when I had my passport stolen in Turin, Italy. I had to take a train to Milan, where there was a U.S. consulate, to obtain an emergency passport so I could get out of the country. It was, of course, closer than the embassy in Rome.

Ever since then I have said to people "If you are going to have your passport stolen, have it stolen in a world capital so you don't have to travel to get to it or a consulate."

Some of that job has been contracted out to former military. They needed more protection and did not get it.

If true, I wonder how Bill feels about it.

...that the Republican budget included specific cuts for embassy security?

If the answer, from the Obama State Department was "no" to more security--was it due to budget cuts? Was the "no" because a budget could not even be passed--due to Republican obstructionism?

I think these are important questions.

A "no" doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't think that augmenting security wasn't important or necessary. Maybe previous Republican cuts for security, or Republican stonewalling on passing anything--played a hand.

I don't know the answers. I'm just asking the questions.

And I'm sick to death of right-wing hate media painting Obama as a liar and a cover-up artist on this--when there is absolutely no evidence of that, nor is there a plausible explanation for why he would do such a thing.

And has been for about 3 years now. No actual cuts have been made anywhere.

Requests from officers in the field weren't communicated to the White House and the decision was made as a State Dept. policy matter at Foggy Bottom. See, http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/11/biden_contradicts_state_department_on_benghazi_security

It's not surprising that a DOS policy decision was made to not treat Libya as a continuing high-risk post. As the report states, Nordstrum may well be accurate when he claims he was told "there would be too much political cost" to such an action.

But, ultimately, the Ambassador gets as much protection as he requests, and Stevens was on-board with policy because he was personally deeply invested in making regime change in Libya a success.

...from the get-go, but it was horrendously confusing and the right-wing noise machine started up from the very beginning and have continued to lie and engage in hysterics--that it is impossible to even get a reading on what happened.

I am sick to death of this.

The Republicans are trying to hang this on Obama, and say that he covered up that this was a terrorist attack. To what end? That doesn't even make sense. What broader statement are they trying to hang on their bizarre assertions?

I will admit, there is a lot that I don't understand. Obama has not been front and center and clearing this up. He has said that there is an ongoing investigation and the facts will be revealed as the investigation progresses. However...I am a bit foggy about all of this.

It feels like the Obama Administration is being more cautious because they know they're in an election season. They know that anything they say could be distorted or used to harm. Look at those bastards with their hearings--insinuating that the White House screwed up.

This entire situation really reeks, and watching the Republicans turn this into a political fiasco really leaves me wondering about what parts of this very awful situation were orchestrated drama and which parts are authentic? I hate to say it, but I don't trust the Republicans at all, and I consider them capable of anything. They're not being respectful or nor do they appear to be wanting to solve the problem. They seem to be solely hell bent on making this administration look bad very close to the election. I feel theatrics at play here--I'm just not sure when the theatrics began.

The Obama Administration is awaiting investigation results, so they don't report finalities--because those aren't in yet. At the very least--Republicans are filling in the blanks with their bizarre, unhinged conspiracy theories. At worst...well, you fill in the blanks.

From stories I've read, the CIA was housing operatives at the Bengazi consulate and immediately following the attack the CIA and other security forces began an investigation. This was classified information that was leaked this week by Darrell Issa's committee during hearings. They even showed a classified satellite photo of the compound on C-Span. So it seems the CIA was part of the equasion and maybe the Obama Adminstration wasn't free to discuss undercover/classified operations.

I'm still not sure how the story of a protest was quickly and repeatedly tied to this incident, even for several days after it occurred. Surely there had to have been quick and reliable intel that this was not the case. Has it been documented who or what was the first entity to link this incident to a "protest" that never actually happened?

The State Department security officials who testified before House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's panel Wednesday never said they had made their requests to the president, Rhodes pointed out. That would be natural because the State Department is responsible for diplomatic security, not the White House, he said. Rhodes also pointed out that the officials were requesting more security in Tripoli, not Benghazi.

Go figure.

as usual there is a key part of the equation missing from their (new favorite word) "narrative".

And just about every other rep whose name ends with (R).

and blaming it on the Dems, seems to me there should be a reminder of who was running the show when 911 happened

The problem is that aside issues of scale, they're not all that different.

There was a threat issued before 9/11/2012. It was non-specific--beef up all the embassies and consulates and installations or none of them. "We'll attack you" isn't very helpful. Rather like having a police force get a bomb threat: "A bomb will go off in Baltimore today." Inner Harbor? Shot tower? Museum? City hall? Johns Hopkins? Perhaps one of the docks? Office buildings?

Hard to deal with non-specific threats. They're only good for bludgeoning somebody after the fact.

The actual details of security were left to underlings. Presidents can't be responsible for making every decision by every political subordinate, otherwise all those secretaries and officials would have the job category "administrative aide."

The problem is for one 9/11 it's easy to recognize this is the case and defend the guy who didn't micromanage every single detail of his administration. In the other it's really necessary to say that the president really is in charge of either making every decision (or monitoring them); OR responsible for any bad decision. Whether you think the "9/11" is about * or Obama depends upon whether you're (D) or (R). Mostly.

Take Fast and Furious and its predecessors. * had a similar program. It was shut down. As president, he's responsible for it. Doesn't matter if he was told about it or not, the buck stops with him and only a weak coward would try to blame a subrodinate for crappy leadership. Obama as a similar program. All that matters is that he and Holder weren't personally informed about it. The buck stops several rungs down. Only a weak and cowardly partisan would try to blame a president for failing to know every detail in his administration.

"...the State Department is responsible for diplomatic security, not the White House never said they had made their requests to the president."

Not too many would know the President isn't responsible for every nuance of every specific thing going on in the world.