RICE TOLD NO BEANS ON SECRETARY OF STATE JOB
By
Jim Kouri, CPP
December 27, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice is out of the running to replace Hillary Clinton as President Barack Obama's Secretary of State, according to Fox News Channel on Thursday afternoon. Amb. Rice is expected to remain at the United Nations as a result, but there's talk of her becoming Obama's National Security Advisor, a job not necessitating the Senate's okay.
Critics of the Obama administration claim she would not have received sufficient support from the Republican senators and some Democratic lawmakers, as well.
Her much-anticipated closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers turned out to be a bust for getting the facts behind the alleged Benghazi-consulate cover up by members of the State Department, the CIA and the Defense Department. A law enforcement official claims several members of the Senate and House denounced the meeting as being a waste of time.
Rice met with three Republican senators who have criticized her comments about the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
"I want to say that I'm more troubled today," Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said after she and fellow GOP Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) met with Mrs. Rice for an hour on Capitol Hill. The CIA's Acting Director Michael Morell accompanied Rice to the meeting.
Morell took over command of the CIA when Gen. David Petraeus stepped down from his post as CIA chief as a result of a sex-scandal involving his biographer.
Following his meeting with Amb. Rice and CIA Director Morell, Sen. McCain told Fox News Channel, "I am significantly troubled by some of the answers we got, and some we didn't get."
McCain is threatened to block Mrs. Rice's confirmation if she is nominated to succeed Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The Obama administration has touted Rice's name as a possible Clinton replacement. In addition, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) is supported by fellow lawmakers for the Secretary of State post as Hillary Clinton's successor in President Obama's second-term.
The three GOP senators, all members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are the most vocal critics of Amb. Rice's comments on the Sunday morning news shows five days after the attack.
According to her defenders, Rice had based her presentation on inaccurate or doctored intelligence assessments that the military-style assault on the U.S. Consulate and a nearby CIA facility, which killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, appeared to be spontaneous, inspired by protests across the Arab world against an anti-Islam video made in the United States.
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But many within the intelligence and military communities claim that within hours of the Benghazi attack it was revealed that the consulate experienced a planned terrorist action complete with heavy firepower including rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
Rice's emphatic statements on the TV news shows stirred up an uproar among Republicans and some Democrats who said the administration was misleading the Americans over the issue and blamed Rice.
"Everyone, particularly the intelligence community, has worked in good faith to provide the best assessment based on the information available," Rice claimed.
During the attack on the US consulate, Central Intelligence Agency operatives twice asked for permission to help Ambassador Chris Stevens and his staff, and twice were told to 'stand down' -- while a later request for military backup was denied.
� 2012 Jim Kouri- All Rights Reserved
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