Dems Blame House GOP for Lack of Security at U.S. Consulate in Benghazi [Cummings, Holmes-Norton]

CNS ^ | October 10, 2012 | Elizabeth Harrington

[Hunton Peck]

House Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee used their opening statements today to blame Republicans for the lack of security in Benghazi, Libya, during a hearing on the security breaches surrounding the attack on the U.S. consulate last month, which killed four Americans, including the ambassador, and occurred on the anniversary of 9/11.

“The chairman has said that our committee will examine not only the Libya attack but security at outposts across the Middle East,” said Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who called the hearing today on Capitol Hill.

“Mr. Chairman I fully support this effort,” Cummings said. “And if that is our goal, we have to examine the funding.”

“The fact is, since 2011 the House has cut embassy security by hundreds of millions of dollars below amounts requested by the president,” he said. “The House has done that.” The House of Representatives is dominated by 240 Republicans to 190 Democrats.

“The Senate restored some of these funds, but the final amounts are still far below the administration’s request,” said Cummings. “And they were far below the levels we enacted in 2010.”

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Democrat, also pointed to House Republicans after Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said the deaths of Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans could have been prevented had normal security been in place.

“The tragic events in Benghazi point out the hazards of serving our country [and] go far beyond the military,” Holmes Norton said. “I agree with Mr. Chaffetz that perhaps had there been more resources, we might have had a different result.”

“But I must note that while the Republican’s budget increases the budget of the Defense Department, it slashes the budget that would have protected these diplomats,” said Holmes-Norton.

Chaffetz had referenced two terrorist attacks in Libya prior to the attack on the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2012, saying those incidents should have raised cause for concern.

“I believe personally with more assets, more resources, just meeting the minimum standards we could’ve and should’ve saved the life of Ambassador Stevens and the other people that were there,” he said.

“Any reasonable person looking at the security situation in Libya had to come to the conclusion that it was tumultuous at best,” Chaffetz said.

As CNSNews.com reported today, Issa and Chaffetz sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning those attacks and related matters. The first known attack against the consulate occurred on Apr. 6, five months before the Sept. 11 attack.

“Two Libyans who had been fired from a contractor providing unarmed static security for Consulate Benghazi, threw a small IED over the Consulate fence,” Issa and Chaffetz wrote in their letter to Clinton. “There were no casualties or damage and the suspects were arrested but not prosecuted.”

Another attack occurred on June 6. “Under cover of darkness, assailants placed an IED on the north gate of Consulate Benghazi, blowing a hole in the security perimeter that was described by one individual as ‘big enough for forty men to go through.’”

[Tuanedge]

Well, my idea was to grab significant leaders of the socialist plague, throw them into the back of cargo vans, and inject them with borderline lethal doses of psychotropic drugs, so when they're found months later picking lettuce, all they remember is that their name is Manuel, and that Manuel is a pretty bird... But everybody else in my revolutionary cell said noOOo.../s

[BitWielder1]

The dems can never take responsibility for anything.
Always put the blame on someone else.
Have they blamed Bush for it yet?

[El Cid]

Gee ... if they had only redirected that money that they sent to Solyndra to instead to have gone to the Embassy Defense Fund, all would have been hunky dorey...
Maybe if they had redirected the money and money for armaments that the current Administration sent to the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood ‘freedom fighters’, they'd also have avoided these murders of American diplomats.

[Lacey2]

Since when can the House pass spendinglegislation without the Dem controlled Senate?

[Mr. Peabody]

You’re right. No budget has been passed.
What are these knuckleheads talking about?

[Cowboy Bob]

[Cummings, Holmes-Norton]

Q. What do you think about Cummings and Holmes-Norton?

A. I don't think about Cummings and Holmes-Norton...

[El Cid]

For an Administration that has spent the last 4 years squandering our tax revenue - essentially burning existing cash reserves on every whim that strikes the fancy of the Emperor in the White House (e.g., Billions for Green projects UAW bailouts; Mortgage bailouts; etc), and has worked actively to devalue our currency by various Q.E.s ... this was a pretty cheeky response by the Dems...

[blueunicorn6]

The Democrats HAVE TO WIN so they can keep looting the public treasury.

[tumblindice]

I had to go check and make sure the guy running the aerator and overseeding my lawn wasn't a `Manual Labor.' I dethatched it myself and it kicked my a$$. He isn't. I saw no evidence of fluoridation. Those are all good ideas. Welcome to FR, trooper.

[GeronL]

How did the House cut anything when Congress hasn’t passed a budget in 3 years??

[USNBandit]

The whole government has been working on a series of CRs for the past 3 years. Even if there was a budget, there wouldn’t have been a budget line for Libyan embassies and consulates in there. Very weak argument.

[Hunton Peck]

That’s the standard scam: Dems demand untold millions, billions, or trillions, GOPpers respond with something relatively feasible (though usually still more than what would be needed if it weren’t for the extravagant waste that’s SOP for government), and thereafter, everything becomes the GOP’s fault.

[loveliberty2]

"Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." - See "Letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785," in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), pp. 814-815.

Great advice for any who aspire to be in positions of leadership!

[circlecity]

The Administration and State Department didn’t have any trouble coming up with a ton of money to buy a bunch of commercial time and production costs to run commercials in the middle east apologizing for the Mohammed video, though, did they?

[Kay]

SIZZLE!! Zinger of a great point!!

[Pietro]

"he said Obama fought for more funding for security"

Ok, so how much money are they currently spending on security?

Please provide spending amounts for Sofia, Bulgaria, Prague Czech Rep, etc. and where was Lybia on that list?

Chase the rats backl into their own crap trap.

[popdonnelly]

Democrats are really good at BS. The Administration is responsible for security at diplomatic posts, and they’re blaming Republicans. It’s so much shameless BS.

[popdonnelly]

Yeah, this is today’s Democratic talking point. It’s a very stupid talking point. Do they think this absolves the Administration, and particularly the State Department, of responsibility here? And what about the Administration’s inability to tell a straight story?

[popdonnelly]

What a stupid argument! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.