http://youtu.be/p89u-WlmO-E
In an appearance on “Meet The Press,” on NBC News, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told David Gregory that she admits to giving inaccurate information on the Benghazi attack, but has no regrets.
Immediately following the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Rice made full rounds of the Sunday TV talk shows, during which she gave blatantly false information that was later proven incorrect.
“What I said to you that morning, and what I did every day since, was to share the best information that we had at the time,” Rice told moderator David Gregory on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “The information I provided … was what we had at the moment.”
Rice said “No,” when Gregory asked whether she had any regrets about her statements. She also claimed nobody in the administration intended to mislead the public, despite the recently released testimony clearly suggesting otherwise, but acknowledged some of her information was inaccurate.
On the Sunday shows, Rice said the Benghazi attacks appeared to be a “spontaneous reaction” to an anti-Islamic video on the Internet.
However, recently declassified Benghazi documents reveal Obama was told only that the attack in Libya was a terror attack, not a reaction to a video. The former head of AFRICOM, General Carter Ham, told the House Armed Services Committee that the White House situation room was alerted immediately after the attack.
“That information turned out, in some respects, not to be 100 percent correct,” Rice said. “But the notion that somehow I or anybody else in the administration misled the American people is patently false. And I think that that’s been amply demonstrated.”
On “Face The Nation” Sunday, Arizona Senator John McCain literally busted into laughter in response to Rice’s statements during her latest interview. “I’m almost speechless because it’s patently obvious, first of all, that Susan Rice had no reason to be on the programs, she had no involvement in it,” McCain said.
“Second of all, she read talking points that we are now beginning to believe came from the White House, which were absolutely false.”
We now know that the CIA station chief on the ground sent a message immediately saying ‘not/not spontaneous demonstration,'” McCain said, referring to testimony given to congressional lawmakers. “And, of course, the information was totally misleading, totally false, and for Susan Rice to say such a thing, it’s a little embarrassing to tell you the truth.”
She was, at the time, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a top candidate to become secretary of state. Following intense political pressure, Rice withdrew herself from consideration in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, after the firestorm of criticism she received for her response.
Rice said Sunday she didn’t know whether her responses killed her chances of getting the top U.S. diplomatic post.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What I do know is that I [now] have a great job.”
Four Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, and State Department information management officer Sean Smith, also died in the attack.
The administration later said the attacks appeared pre-planned, and pretended to have said it along, but they continued to maintain that exactly who and what started them remained unclear. Despite several investigations, and multiple references to the video during Obama’s speech in front of the U.N. General Council, the administration continues to perpetuate the easily played back falsehood.
