
U.S. senator John McCain (R - AZ) is accusing the Obama administration of either perpetuating a cover up or being guilty of gross incompetence in the handling of the Benghazi attacks in Libya last month. (Video)
On Sunday, McCain appeared on Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer and voters can watch the full episode on CBS' website. You can also watch McCain's CNN interview about the Sept. 11 attacks on YouTube.
Speaking before a national audience a week before the Nov. 6 presidential elections, McCain lambasted President Barack Obama for not sending military help while the American consulate and CIA annex were attacked, an incident that resulted in the deaths of four Americans including ambassador Christopher Stevens. The senator added that the scandal is "as bad as Watergate" except that there were no American deaths involved in Watergate.
McCain said:
I don't know if it's either cover-up or gross -- the worst kind of incompetence, which doesn't allow -- doesn't qualify the president as commander in chief. You've got to -- the buildup to it. We knew of two attacks on our consulate. The British ambassador assassination attempt. Repeated warnings. Repeated warnings. The last message our beloved ambassador sent to us concerns about security in Benghazi. He had even voiced them to me when I was in Tripoli. Nothing was done.
On Sunday, RNC chairman Reince Priebus suggested that Obama may have been dishonest with the American people regarding the Libya attacks in an appearance on CNN's State of the Union. Intelligence officials say the Benghazi attack lasted for nearly seven hours and military special forces on the ground were ordered not to interfere and defend the embassy. Paratroopers from Italy could also have reached Libya in two hours but were ordered not to fly to Benghazi.
McCain added:
On the day of, obviously, there was no military either capability or orders to intervene in a seven-hour fight. And probably the worst of all of this, of course, is the gross, gross, outrageous statements that he made and his-- I was on your program when Susan Rice came on. And I was slack-jawed when she went through that routine of the-- that this was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a video. We now know there was no demonstration. There was no mob. So how could intelligence community ever reach a conclusion that there was a spontaneous demonstration when there wasn't?
Related: Dad of killed SEAL accused gov't of lying in Libya
The scandal appears to have unhinged support for the Obama/Biden ticket. Monday's polls released by Rasmussen now shows the president trailing Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the crucial battleground state of Ohio which holds 18 electoral votes. Romney now leads Obama 50% to 48% in the Buckeye State.
On Sunday, John McCain questioned why the video footage taken at the American compound are classified as "Top Secret" when such details would provide more information to the general public. The senator suggested that the release of such footage would provide evidence that there were no random protests outside of the building the night of the Sept. 11 attack.
McCain said:
So the president went on various shows, despite what he said he said in the Rose Garden, about terrorist acts, he went on several programs, including The View including Letterman, including before the UN where he continued to refer, days later, many days later, to this as a spontaneous demonstration because of a hateful video. We know that is patently false.
For two weeks, administration officials - including Obama - had blamed the deaths on a spontaneous demonstration which arose from an anti-Islam video leaked on the internet. Intelligence officials have since debunked those claims.
On Friday, Obama was grilled by an NBC affiliate station in Denver about the Benghazi attacks. (Article) However, the president refused to answer the reporter's question about whether or not officials denied requests for military help by the Americans under siege.
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