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Subscribe to RSSUPDATED 4:24 p.m. ET -- President Barack Obama’s possible choice of United Nations envoy Susan Rice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to be in greater jeopardy Wednesday after one key Republican senator broadened the scope of questions about her record. Another GOP senator implied she was too much of a personal and party loyalist to head the State Department and urged the president to “step back” from the idea of nominating Rice.
Rice went to Capitol Hill Wednesday for a second consecutive day of meetings with skeptical GOP senators, meeting with Susan Collins of Maine and Bob Corker of Tennessee, who is slated to become the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and would have a key role in the confirmation hearing for a secretary of state nominee.
UN ambassador Susan Rice has become a lightning rod for criticism from Republicans who blame her for more than one security failure abroad. But President Obama continues to support Rice, who is expected to become Obama's choice to replace Hillary Clinton as the next Secretary of State. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
Until Wednesday, Rice had come under Republican fire primarily for her role in speaking for the Obama administration in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
But in comments to reporters after meeting with Rice, Collins expanded the criticism of Rice to include her potential role in protecting the American embassies in Kenya and Somalia that were hit by al Qaida attacks in 1998, when Rice served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
Collins said she was “very troubled by the fact that we seem not to have learned from the 1998 bombings of two of our embassies in Africa at the time when Ambassador Rice was the assistant secretary for African affairs. Those bombings in 1998 resulted in the loss of life of 12 Americans as well as many other foreign nationals.”
She said, “What troubles me so much is the Benghazi attack in many ways echoes the attacks on those embassies in 1998, when Susan Rice was head of the African region for our State Department. In both cases the ambassadors begged for additional security” but she said, as with the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate in Benghazi, those requests were turned down by the State Department.
Collins said that Rice told her “she would have to refresh her memory” of the 1998 events and that she was not directly involved in turning down the request for embassy security in 1998.
But Collins seemed dissatisfied with Rice’s response, saying, “Surely given her position as the assistant secretary for African affairs, she had to be aware of the general threat assessment and of the ambassadors’ repeated requests for more security.”
Sen. Susan Collins talks about her meeting with Ambassador Susan Rice and says Sen. John Kerry would be a better Secretary of State. Collins also said it's premature to reach a judgment on the confirmation.
Collins said that before she could support Rice’s nomination, “I would need to have additional information.”
Collins, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, is up for re-election in 2014. Obama carried her state in the presidential election with 56 percent of the vote.
After his meeting with Rice, Corker seemed to be sending a plea or a warning to Obama to not pick his U.N. envoy as the next secretary of state.
“I know that at some point I may play a semi-important role in who the next secretary of state may be,” Corker told reporters at the Capitol. “I would just ask the president to step back for a moment and realize that all of us here hold the secretary of state to a very different standard than most Cabinet members.”
Corker said, “We want someone of independence.”
He added that “all of us … can become close to people and have loyal soldiers,” implying that Rice was one of those personal loyalists and therefore wouldn’t be right for the job. It was an echo of his comment Tuesday that “when I hear Susan (Rice) talk, she sounds to me like she'd be a great head of the Democratic National Committee.”
At a meeting at the White House with his Cabinet members, with Rice present, in response to a question from a reporter about how senators were treating Rice, Obama said Wednesday, "Susan Rice is extraordinary. I couldn't be prouder of the job that she's done."
At Obama’s Nov. 14 press conference, after Rice came under fire from Republican senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, the president gave a vigorous defense of his U.N. envoy.
“When they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me,” he said. “And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity of the State Department, then I will nominate her.”
McCain, Graham, and Ayotte have all said they’d oppose Rice if Obama nominates her, but the comments Wednesday from Collins and Corker appeared to reflect a growing skepticism in Republican ranks.
When a reporter asked Collins about Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as a potential secretary of state, she replied, “I think John Kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues.”
This comment added to the apparent GOP support for Kerry.
On Tuesday McCain told Fox News, “John Kerry came within a whisker of being president of the United States. I think works in his favor (as a nominee to be secretary of state). But I would love to hear him make the case. But I don`t have anything in his background like this tragedy in Benghazi that would make me really want to carefully examine the whole situation.”
For a nomination that hasn’t yet happened and may not happen at all, the potential Rice nomination is generating enormous political heat and noise. That’s partly because it’s shaping up as a nose-to-nose test of Obama’s presidential clout and credibility in the aftermath of his Nov. 6 victory. But it’s also partly because the political futures of Collins, Kerry and others could be on the line.
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Bush was given inaccurate intelligence about Iraq's weapon's of mass destruction and passed that on to the American people. That is true. However, Bush told the truth as he knew it. On the other hand, Obama changed the accurate intelligence about Benghazi to fit his political agenda...in other words... he lied. Big difference! I'll take a President that tells me the truth as he knows it over a President that lies any day!!
Obama DID???????? Is that what Petraeus testified to last week?
Where do you guys go for information..... is it Beck U or the Drudge Report
How did he lie?
You can't answer.
Which makes you a liar.
To...Mutable"""
Really....
***Philosophical or not, since its founding in 1992, Chalabi's INC has been trying to drag the United States into war with Iraq. By its very nature, the INC's strategy -- building a paramilitary presence inside Iraq, creating a provisional government, launching attacks on Iraqi cities -- was intended to create inexorable momentum for a war in which in the United States would be compelled to support the INC. But American policy in the 1990s was focused primarily on containing Saddam Hussein and depriving him of weapons of mass destruction, so the INC's efforts were sidetracked during the Clinton administration.
*****Britain's furious security services have established Prime Minister Tony Blair's claim Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - including some which could be launched within 45 minutes - came from "a highly discredited source": Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress.************
*********" The original tip on the trailers was provided by a defector working with Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress and now a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin**********
*****It was information provided by Chalabi that led Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to a prewar belief that Iraqis would rise up and welcome the invading coalition forces with open arms, that the Republican Guard troops would surrender in droves, and the regime of Saddam Hussein would crumble in a matter of days. Because that information was wrong, officials at the State Department and the CIA have argued that Chalabi has been discredited and should have no leadership role in postwar Iraq *******
*****Despite being detested by the State Department and the CIA, Ahmed Chalabi found strong support in the Pentagon and US Congress, which generously provided funds in support of his
opposition to Saddam Hussein through the INC.******
*****"These people simply wanted military intervention." Sometimes unfairly, Chalabi is blamed for encouraging his friends in Washington to think that an invasion would be a breeze and reconstructing Iraq not much harder*********.
*******Citing New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, Kurtz suggests that Chalabi was a key source of WMD "evidence" for the infamously biased "intelligence unit" known as the Cabal set up in the Pentagon by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last fall, when he found he couldn't get what he wanted from the CIA. Kurtz goes on to say, "Chalabi may have been feeding the (New York) Times and other news organizations the same disputed information."********
******Chalabi's claim about Saddam's weapons were passed to Downing Street through a special secret unit set up by Rumsfeld to "review" intelligence reports from the CIA and other US spy agencies who had cast doubt on the existence of the weapons.
In the run-up to war, Rumsfeld ordered the unit to "re-examine information provided by Iraqi exiles and to evaluate warnings of the threat posed by Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda and Saddam's efforts to develop illegal weapons". The information was to be given the same credibility as from intelligence sources.*******
To the Germans, Chalabi provided a source code named "Curveball" (appropriately, as it turned out), who told of Saddam's building mobile bioweapons labs. Another defector sent to the DIA by Chalabi supported Curveball's tale. DIA labeled this defector a "fabricator" and attached a warning notice to his report, but the notice was so highly restricted that other intelligence officials never saw it.
Both defectors' reports—apparently pure fiction—worked their way into official pronouncements and became part of the Bush administration's building case for war.
Months later, when Colin Powell was feeling burned for having dramatically presented "facts" to the United Nations Security Council that turned out to be shaky at best, the secretary of State privately, but bitterly, blamed Chalabi.
Powell also faults the neocons in the Bush administration who swallowed Chalabi's phony stories and pushed them into speeches by the president and vice president.****
Obama repeated over and over that the attack was the result of a video. You can say he used the word "terror" in one speech, but he clearly led the American people to believe the video was the main cause of the attack on the embassy. To say any differently is simply a lie or a failure to be reasonable.
How about Bush ignoring the warnings before 9/11. You are distorting the truth.
BUSH...??...TRUTH
Now that is an oxymoron.
Mutable- can you source where Obama said "over and over" that the attack was the result of the video? and why do this day are there still reports that there was a demonstration in Benghazie about the video which the terrorists used as a cover?
Ever heard the term fog of war and conflicting testimony? Your side is just partisan and looking for ANY issues.
How many embassies were attacked during Bush's tenure and how many killed as a result but dont remember any right wing outcry!!!!!!!
Hypocrits is all you are
djj....kinda like Obama ignoring the request from the Libyan embassy for more security? BTW....every day we receive threats from numerous sources that are never acted upon. In the case of the Libyan Embassy, the source was our own people!!!! Big difference!!!
Demtothebone.... there is no evidence that there ever was a crowd of protesters outside the Libyan embassy. That was a ruse by the Obama administration! It was always a terrorist attack. Period. End of story.
Mutable- have you ever worked for a large corporation? You keep on saying Obama this Obama that. Do you really really really believe that everything goes to POTUS for a decision?
Why was the budget cut for security personnel? Isnt deficit reduction our number one need??????
Mutable- there are reports of a demonstration at the consulate( the embassy is in Tripoli). Its called FOG OF WAR and you often do get conflicting reports and may NEVER be 100% certain what exactly happened.
Mutable- since you are an obvious admirer of Reagan how did he end his recession? He deficit spent- isnt that another way of saying Keynesian economics?
The Ambassador sent emails and there was no demonstration in Benghazi. Also the Lybian leader Mohammed Magarief spoke of the planned attack and apologized to the American people. The evidence of the attack on the building shows more damage inside than outside the building and safe house. So the only conflicting reports are the ones given by Obama, Clinton, and Rice. And stop with the whole "Bush was worse" for those of us in the middle of the left and right rants it appears you think that because we put up with Bush and Cheney we should put up with more smoke and mirrors from the Obama Administration. We don't want or need any of the politics that are just more of the same. Obama said he was going to have a "Transparent Administration" so lets see some "Change" or get out
To Mutable """
Why do repubs have a habit of blowing the cover on special ops actions
and why would anybody think their was a protest over a movie
David Ignatius is a well respected journalist with a long record of being a knowledgible individual and a non ideologue. His 10/18/12 Washington Post article states there were conflicting reports on a demonstration.
There is a phenonomen called FOG OF WAR and we may NEVER be certain what happened.
We on the left mention Bush because you guys on the right somehow seem amazed when these events occurr and act as if something like this NEVER happened before.
Demtothebone....There is also something called Brain Fog....you appear to be a prime candidate for it!
Wyo2....well said. Much better than I could say! Thank you. Bush made many mistakes...we all agree with that. That doesn't excuse the left from making mistakes and then continuing to blame Bush! It gets really old!
Mutable- ever notice you NEVER answer a question?
So I guess the deaths of 3 people do not matter to liberals. One of them was an ambassaor who was tortured and raped before he was killed. The O' Bama administration knows NOTHING about foreign policy except to spike the Osama Bin Laden football. Did it every occur to any of you and especially this administration that putting an Ambassador who was openly gay in a Muslim country might be just a bit insulting to them?
You live in some paranoid right wing circle jerk world.
Nothing you post has basis in reality.
What an ass clown you are.
Where were you when we were attacked on 9/11? GW had some warnings before the attack. How about the invasion of Iraq on faulty intelligence where no WMDs were found and thousands of military members lost their lives and were injured? You narrow minded opinion is disgusting.
And the two you remind me of the Brown Shirts of Weimar Germany in the '30's. Hope you like your Hitler.
shipwrecxk and djj - you need to go get your foil hat refitted, the one you have now is falling off.
Another disgusting GOP who is only concerned about staying relevant and being re-elected. She sat quiet when the US went into Iraq and found NO WMDs because it was based on faulty intelligence. Now she decides to go after the UN Ambassador, one of our best one Susan wants to make sure that she discredits anyone associated with the President so the GOP has a better chance of winning the White House in 2016 since Susan makes good money from Defense contracts and we are more likely to go to war under a GOP.
Know how you can tell a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.
We would be better off to kick all the politicians out of office, and randomly pick 500 people from phone books.
All any of them are interested in is staying in power, and getting the most money in their pockets. they are all thieves, from the top to the bottom.
Let's not forget...even 2mos before Benghazi, our very own FBI was investigating the head of the CIA..and obozo didn't know that either? Really people?
You brainwashed obomots keep trying to lie and fly cover for the EPIC CLOWN obozo. The truth will slowly come out and with some luck, we can convene a grand jury and have obozo HIMSELF lie instead of one of his cronies. Then we can impeach his worthless @$$.
To Slide"""
To funny ..
hey Polly wanna a cracker
Did Bush get intelligence about 911?
Yes.
WOW 3000 people dead and a $Trillion war in the wrong country and you attack Obama for a rocket attack in a foreeign country?
ahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahha
What a fool.
Common Sense - how's that conspiracy theory about the twin towers working for you? And Repubs did so it's okay if Dems do it, perfect tool for a fool
Yeah....every freakin day the PDB contained numerous threats from many different sources. But at no time was there any intelligence that clearly stated a date, time or location on which the President could act. Do you understand that pea brain??? In Obama's case, he received several requests from the Embassy itself for additional security, after several instances involving security breaches. Not to mention it was the anniversary of 9/11....even you would have enough sense to take some action.
wyo2- unaware that the conspiracy theory on the twin towers was a left wing only concept? can you source or like so much of the "facts" thrown out by your side it turns out to be fiction
Can you explain WTF you're trying to say?
The repubs are busting Susan Rice's chops because they want Kerry to take that spot in order to free up the senate seat for a repub. They really do not give a crap who has the position...THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT ANYONE BUT THEIR OWN LACK OF RELEVENCE.....THEIR GOAL IS TO GET A REPUB IN KERRY'S SEAT.
I really hope Obama nominates Susan and appoints her while this group of yahoos is not in session. Instead of working on the recovery of the US, they are dragging up ancient history that they didn't care about until this week ...DUH !!!!
And just how are the Republicans going to get the Kerry seat?? In a state as blue as they come, Republicans are out numbered 3 to 1 and their moderate senator just got beat by almost 8 points. Not to mention Governor Patrick will temporarily appoint a Democrat to the seat. Duh........
.....Not unlike Condi Rice & GWB...................
Still upset about not winning the election, can these people get anything actually done?
The GOP let the cat of the bag by endorsing Senator John Kerry. If Sen. Kerry get the spot, his SENATE SEAT will be VACATED. Just in time to get Scott Brown back into the Senate. HMMMM!
Bingo.
its all about politics just as the RepubliCON leadership met the day Obama was inaugurated in 1/20/09 to make him a One Term President.
Meanwhile 4 more Americans died in Iraq.
Does the GOP care what we labeled those killers?
Nope...Couldn't care less.
Republicans have really lost it. Instead of
focusing on why they got pounded in the election they want to stall Obama, yet
again, on any issue. “She was too much of a personal and party loyalist to head
the State Department” REALLY???? How about, um, I don’t know… HILLARY
CLINTON?????
She read a brief prepared by the
intelligence community LED BY THE CIA—who explained to her that they did have
more information but that there were covert operatives on the ground
investigating and gathering more information. If they had told what they knew
at that time, operatives could have been killed. Some of those responsible were
captured shortly thereafter. And Obama called it an act of terrorism the same
day it happened.
And, oh yeah, you Republicans cut the funding
for the defense of our embassies! “we seem not to have learned from the 1998
bombings of two of our embassies in Africa”…then why did you cut the funding
for their protection?
If McCain & Grahm don't like her, she must be qualified. Besides this such a non-issue. What is all the huff huff about unless it's just partisan politics from very sore spoiled childlike LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I wish the GOP would man up and stop acting like children, its sickening to see supposidely intelligent adults fighting over a toy fire truck..
To all concerned, are you not aware that the intelligence community breaks international law, when it must, to advance Americas interests? The CIA and the NSA, because of the nature of their business must do this from time to time. I am of the opinion, without proof of course, that these agencies circumvent legal directives and protocol on a regular basis. Add to this the confusion of what was happening rapidly on the ground and you can see how one or many could receive corrupted information. In matters of security, the Sec of Defense probably has more authority than the State Dept about the relase of information. I do not believe, at the time of this debacle the president had all the facts. I do believe he has most of them now. Why are these Republicans wasting our time when they already know what I think? I say, I think because I can never prove my assumption.
I agree, but not about breaking the law. As I said above The CIA explained that they did have
more information but that there were covert operatives on the ground
investigating and gathering more information. If they had told what they knew
at that time, operatives could have been killed
So instead of saying we don't know. Lie about it? Sure that makes sense??????????
As if we needed any, this is further proof of the desperate measures being employed by a defeated and confused GOP.
This is a manufactured and spurious crisis, where Rice ( I don't particularly care for her bull-in-the-Chinashop antics at the UN, frankly), wasn't in on the Bhenghazi situation.
McCain et al showing what poor losers they are.
This is pure politics at its ugly worst. If the grumpy old man from Arizona can derail Rice, the next person in line is supposedly John Kerry. If Kerry gets the job, then the Koch brothers can buy Scott Brown another Senate seat. There is no other rational explanation for this kind of behavior from grown men.
Some GOP members haven't gotten over having a black President. They sure don't want a black person as secretary of state. What next? A black Pope? Get over it! Blocking this nomination would be like a high class lynching.
It's always the dims stuck on race.
My it's good seeing these threads not so dominated by the right wing flying monkeys spewing their right wing blogesphere of dis- misinformation and plain old lies echo chamber talking points with impunity
wonder what changed
McCain....."So the CIA said that Doers of Evil carried out these acts but you said they were Evil Doers"
Rice......"And?"
McCain......"AH HA...A cover up!!!!!!!"
Rice......"Can we go now"
1. References were removed to not tip off al-Qaeda and were substituted with "extremists," according to David Petraeus.
2. The links to al-Qaeda were too "tenuous" to make public by DNI because the source wasn't trusted.
3. "The talking points were debated and edited by a collective of experts from around the IC," not just DNI, according to a DNI spokesman.
4. The CIA told Senators McCain, Graham, and Ayotte the FBI removed references to al-Qaeda from the talking points "to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation."
5. The CIA later called Senators McCain, Graham, and Ayotte back, saying they had misspoke to them and that they — not the FBI — had edited the talking points.
It looks like once again. it's everyone else's fault.
How about big questions about McConnell (who should be retired by now), John Bohner, McCain (who should be retired by now)??
If you have big questions , ask them.
Don't leave us hanging.
McCain......."So you are a Rhodes Scholar"
Rice....."Yes"
McCain......So you reported that the rockets fired were dark green when in fact they were green.......AH HA...A cover up!!!!!!"
Rice........."The rockets were brought from Iran which were sold to Iran by Reagan during the Iran/Contra arms deal......They faded in color a bit"
McCain......"Color is very important in this investigation"
We're with the President on this. Anyone that doesn't trust his decision can sit home and sulk.
4 called out for help and you said NO Mr. President?
We are with you.
Anyone who didn't vote for the Great Barack Obama should be arrested for treason and tried as a Taliban terrorist. Or hung for being racist.
GOP voted down funding for added security.
End of story...Game over....Thanks for playing....Please insert another quarter...Check Mate.
Ambassador Stevens deserved to die. He was a white man in Africa. Rice is a great hero for helping Barack get elected.
She was loyal to the Democratic Party and I hope they reward her Generously.
She should run for president because she is also black.
Obama supporter here: This is a minor matter, but I do believe the Prez deserves a slap on this one. When the story broke I knew it was no innocent protest, then the Libyan head of state confirmed it. Out of left field the administration came out the next day and made a big deal of saying it appeared to be a random protests and unplanned. My guess is that Rice was following the wishes of the administration who were worried about election backlash. Now Rice will end up taking the fall and frankly, she probably should.
The stupid thing is that it really would not have been a big deal if they had just come out and said what everyone already knew--it was a planned terrorist attack on 9/11. There is no way it would have cost them the election. Barak ought to learn from this. He is a decent president, but so far his administration has been pretty forgettable. He needs to rise above poll-driven political spin and actually DO something with his mandate.
You are a traitor to the party and are not stating the approved talking points.
You must be a white man.
I hope Obama makes you suffer.
Beer Mug,
I believe he deserves more than a slap but thanks for allowing yourself to think outside of the party line. I did the same with W. He lost my support halfway through his first term and I did not vote for him again. At some point we need to go back to being American Voters and not Political Party Sheep. I gave you a vote for having the gall to have an independent thought. A rare trait in either party nowadays.
Really? It's a "minor matter" that 4 Americans were murdered on American soil and the American people STILL have no answers about why these people were denied extra security, among many questions rleated to this matter AND why American seals who were nearby at the time of the attacks and repeatedly requested permission to assist were told to stand down THREE TIMES?!?
I wonder if it was one of YOUR family members who was murdered, Beer Mug, if you would still consider this a "minor matter."
It's pretty obvious that the reason Republicans are against Rice and for Kerry is so that another runoff election for Massachusetts senator will be required. Giving Brown another chance to get back his lost senate seat is more important that any questions or concerns about Benghazi. Can anyone remember the last time the republicans agreed with anything the democrats put forward...........especially in support of Kerry?