Romney criticises Biden on Benghazi attack
US Republican candidate Mitt Romney says Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks on Libya consulate attack were misleading.
Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for the US presidency, has accused Joe Biden, vice president, of contradicting the testimony of US State Department officials on Libya, in an escalation of the Republican presidential challenger’s attacks over the September 11 deaths of four US citizens there.
Hoping to puncture President Barack Obama’s credibility on foreign policy ahead of the November 6 election, Romney on Friday jumped on comments that Biden made a day earlier during a debate with Romney’s vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan.
“The vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials,” Romney told a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia.
Biden said in his debate with Ryan that “we weren’t told they wanted more security” as a row raged over the circumstances surrounding the attack.
Two State Department officials gave sworn testimony on Wednesday at a congressional hearing in Washington saying they had repeatedly requested beefed-up security for the compound before Christopher Stevens, US ambassador, and three other US citizens were killed in the September 11 assault.
‘Right to find out’
“The vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials,” Romney told a campaign
rally in Richmond. “He’s doubling down on denial.”
“When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, the sworn testimony of State Department officials, American citizens have a right to find out what’s going on,” Romney said.
Romney’s campaign is focused on the weak US economy but increasingly he has turned his attention to foreign policy, long considered a strength for Obama because he ordered the mission that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and is bringing home US troops from unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Romney, whose solid debate performance against Obama on October 3 halted a slide in the polls and gave him momentum, argues that Obama has projected a weak foreign policy in many ways by alienating allies and not being tough enough over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Romney has been demanding answers from Obama over the deaths in Libya. “We’re going to find out. And this is a time for us to make sure we do find out,” he said.
Romeny’s initial reaction to the violence in Libya as well as in Egypt was seen as an off-key attempt to politicise a national tragedy. The comments drew sharp criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for it.
Warm-up act
The comments on Libya during the vice presidential debate come ahead of the next presidential debate, on October 16 at Hofstra University in New York, in which Obama and Romney will go head-to-head for a second time.
Romney’s campaign has also sought to make an issue of what the Obama administration knew about what triggered the attack in Libya.
The White House initially said the violence was an impromptu reaction by Muslims upset at a video made in California that insulted the Prophet Mohammad.
Days later, the administration publicly called it a terrorist attack on the eleventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
“President Obama, this is an issue because Americans wonder why it was it took so long for you and your administration to admit that this was a terrorist attack,” Romney told a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, on Thursday night before the debate.