Republican presidential candidate Florida Senator Marco Rubio declared, “If [Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton’s going to go around taking credit for her time as secretary of state, then she must take responsibilities for failures that happened at the State Department under her watch” on Thursday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.
Rubio said, “Benghazi was a very dangerous city. The Red Cross had already pulled out of Benghazi at the time. The Brits had already pulled out of Benghazi at the time. Our own facility had already been attacked with a firebomb previously to that. And despite all of this, the State Department made a decision to leave that consulate in Benghazi open. I would say that that right there is a red flag. They should have known that they shouldn’t have been there. But let’s suppose they decide to stay there. If you decide you’re going to stay there, then you have to ensure that you have sufficient security for that facility. Again, they failed to do that. The attackers breached it very quickly, and happened to catch the ambassador there, and killed him and of course three others lost their lives as well as a result of that. So, they had insufficient security for the facility. In fact, they had outsourced the security to Libyan militias. And then, on top that, there was no plan in place of extraction. If in fact there was an attack, they did not have military assets nearby to respond quickly and save lives. It was a massive incompetence at every level and the buck stops at the top. If Hillary Clinton’s going to go around taking credit for her time as secretary of state, then she must take responsibilities for failures that happened at the State Department under her watch, and this was the costliest of all, in terms of human lives, American lives.”
He added, regarding Clinton not getting requests for additional security while receiving emails from Sidney Blumenthal, “That’s the incompetence level in this. Look, they should have known Benghazi was incredibly dangerous, and that alone should have anchored a debate about whether or not we should retain a facility there. If they decide to keep a facility there, then you have to make sure that that facility is accurately — acceptably secured, and that’s not what happened here. As you saw how quickly it was breached…the perimeter security was outsourced to a Libyan militia, and then on top of that, you have to have an extraction plan in place, the ability to bring military assets quickly to respond to any threat of life that might exist, that also was not in place. So, all three of things tell you there was a massive systemic failure here, and the buck has to start at the top, and that would be Hillary Clinton during her time at the State Department.”
Rubio also argued that the decision to blame a video for the attack, “gives you great insight into the way they conduct their performances and how they do things. That Sunday, they sent Susan Rice on the talk shows to say that this was what it was, and even while she was already expressing significant doubt about whether that was the case. And again, it goes back to the narrative at the time. They did not want the narrative to be that there were radicals active in Libya. they wanted the narrative to be that the operation had been successful, that Libya was transitioning, and they didn’t want the narrative to be that there were organized groups on the ground capable of conducting terrorist attacks. So, they wanted it some sort of spontaneous things caused by a video in the West. Of course, it had nothing to do with the video, they knew that very early on, at least she sure did. And yet she stood by and said or did nothing, while different individuals in the administration were going out and telling people that this in fact was a spontaneous attack led by a handful of people, not an organized terrorist plot to kill Americans.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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