Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Friday said Vice President Joe Biden proved his leadership is “not the kind … this country needs” when Biden threw the intelligence community under the bus during Thursday’s vice presidential debate with Paul Ryan.
“During the Vice Presidential debate, we were disappointed to see Vice President Biden blame the intelligence community for the inconsistent and shifting response of the Obama Administration to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi,” Hayden said in a joint statement with Michael Chertoff, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security.
Hayden said during and after the attacks on the U.S. consulate on Libya, it was “clear” that “any failure was not on the part of the intelligence community, but on the part of White House decision-makers who should have listened to, and acted on, available intelligence.”
During Thursday’s debate, Biden – in an attempt to absolve himself and Obama from any blame — first contradicted even State Department officials when he said the Obama administration never knew Americans in Libya asked for more security. Biden then blamed the U.S. intelligence community for telling the administration that the Libya attacks were not pre-planned terrorists assaults.
Biden said on Thursday that as the intelligence community learned more facts on the ground, “they changed their assessment.”
Hayden said Biden was not accepting responsibility for the White House’s national security failures, and it was not a sign of strong leadership.
“Blaming those who put their lives on the line is not the kind of leadership this country needs,” Hayden said.
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