Passing the buck on Benghazi

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said yesterday there are “no unanswered
questions” about Rice’s appearances on the Sept. 16 Sunday shows after the
Libya attack and the talking points that she used, “provided by the
intelligence community.” “Those questions have been answered,” he said after
Rice and CIA acting director Michael Morell met privately with three key
senators.

How is it possible to say this after the senators came out of the meeting
saying they were more disturbed than before?

The exact timeline on who knew what and when has needed to be clarified
urgently since the former CIA chief, Gen. David Petraeus, testified to Congress
on Nov. 17 that he had always believed that the armed assault on the U.S.
consulate — which killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador — was a
terrorist attack. Rice has been accused of playing down the Sept. 11 attack for
political reasons by blaming it on “spontaneous” protests linked to an
anti-Islamic video.

This buck has been passed around so much that it’s making me dizzy. The
administration seems to be pointing the finger at the intelligence community:
In a statement issued after yesterday’s meeting, Rice noted that “the
intelligence assessment has evolved,” and that the initial talking points of
the intelligence community were “incorrect.” The bottom line remains: Who cut
the references to terrorism and al Qaeda in the talking points used by Rice? In
the latest version of the shifting narrative available today, we still don’t
know for sure.

The senators said in a statement last night: “At approximately 4 this
afternoon, CIA officials contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell
misspoke in our earlier meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al Qaeda
references, not the FBI. They were unable to give a reason as to why.” So do we
now know for certain that it was the CIA and if so, did they act under
political pressure?

Just as important are the questions surrounding Rice’s fitness for the job of
secretary of State, as formulated by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). While the
U.N. ambassador’s loyalty to the president is well-known, that fierce loyalty
may be hindering her in taking independent judgments given her access to
classified information in her current post.

Rice will get the opportunity to address Collins’s concerns directly today.
Nine weeks after the Sept. 11 events, the lack of clear answers is astonishing.