WASHINGTON, Nov 27, 2012 (AFP)
WASHINGTON, Nov 27, 2012 (AFP)
The White House insisted Tuesday there were no “unanswered questions” about UN ambassador Susan Rice’s role in the Benghazi controversy, after her apparently discordant meeting with top Republicans.
White House spokesman Jay Carney also condemned the “obsession” in Washington about comments Rice made soon after the attacks on television, as a row rumbled on that could hurt her chances of becoming the next secretary of state.
“There are no unanswered questions about Ambassador Rice’s appearances on Sunday shows,” Carney said, referring to her comments, which were based on now-discredited CIA assessments about the nature of the September 11 attack.
Carney also condemned the fixation of some administration critics on what Rice said on Sunday talk shows about the attack, which killed four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
“People are more interested in talking points for a Sunday show several months ago, than they are in finding out what happened in Benghazi,” Carney said.
“The focus on, some might say, the obsession on comments made on Sunday shows seems to me and to many, to be misplaced.”
President Barack Obama, he argued, was more interested in the result of State Department and FBI probes into the killings and on bringing to justice those responsible.
Rice met Republican senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte earlier in an effort to quell the controversy over her remarks, but appeared to do little to assuage critics who said they were more concerned than before.
In her appearances on September 16, she said it was the government’s “best assessment” that the assault appeared to have started from a “spontaneous” reaction against an amateur anti-Muslim video made on American soil.
In a statement issued after the meeting Tuesday, Rice admitted for the first time that the talking points were “were incorrect in a key respect: there was no protest or demonstration in Benghazi.”
Rice, a close political ally of Obama, is a top contender to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in the president’s second term.
