Ms. Nuland has worked in the federal government for quite some time and for three administrations. She would not be in the positions she has held unless she was excellent at what she does.
The responsibility of the State Department Spokesperson is not to inflame a set of circumstances, quite the contrary it is to set a tone for what will follow by others inside and outside the State Department. A spokesperson does not set policy. And, true to form as she estimated in her first statement by Ambassador Rice to the public, the President would later address the tragedy as a terrorist attack. It was the responsibility of the President and not Ambassador Rice to give a military assessment to the nation.
Ms. Nuland had a difficult task, she didn't want to state anything to the public that was classified and at the point where Ambassador Stevens lost his life and that of his security detail the information surrounding the tragedy was mostly classified. I don't care what the Right Wing says, up to the point where more was known about Benghazi, it was classified. The primary source of public information was through news organizations and not the federal government.
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...Nuland’s email said such revelations (click here) “could be abused by members of Congress to beat the State Department for not paying attention to (central intelligence) agency warnings,” according to a congressional official who reviewed the 100 pages of emails....
Benghazi was basically an unknown to the USA after a civil war. All previous understanding of Libya before the civil war was null and void after the war.
There were CIA agents in the area of Benghazi putting together an assessment for the government. That information was not complete or available. If Ambassador Stevens was developing his own 'baseline' about Benghazi, it was now gone with his death. Why he chose to be in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 and not later is something we may never know. I do know in his emails from Tripoli there were reports of an explosion near his office and he believed he would be safer in Benghazi. He may have thought he would be safer in Benghazi on September 11th than in Tripoli. Those are his personal assessments.
It would seem it all to obvious Ms. Nuland was correct. She did a very good job actually. She had her hand on the pulse of the politics and how dysfunctional it could make the country in the face of the Benghazi attacks.
Neocons scream war at their earliest convenience. There was no reason to war on behalf of the USA even though the consulates were USA property. This was an action by militias and/or criminals and not a sovereign nation. It isn't as though the sovereign government wasn't interested in defending the USA consulates and/or capturing any criminals causing the death of a USA diplomat.
With a recovering USA economy there was a lot hanging in the balance. Any information in talking points that focused on a CIA lack of intelligence would result in the immediate political escalation to create a drum beat to war. Regardless of the solid decision making moment to moment by AFRICOM in regard to Benghanzi look at where we are with this tragedy today. There is no respect for the decision makers.
Regardless, here again, it would be the President making those statements to the nation, not the State Department or Ambassador Rice and not the Congress regardless of the political drive it displayed to enter a war within Libya. The politics would have caused too many problems and Ms. Nuland made an assessment. It was her right to do it. Those in office have to trust someone and Ms. Nuland has impeccable credentials.
The country remained engaged after the news of the attacks without sending itself into a financial or economic tailspin. She did her job and did it well.
Now, if anyone wants to have a dialogue about these events it needs to be 'in context' and not a matter of propaganda.
