Veep Debate Violations
Biden exaggerated when he said House Republicans cut funding for embassy security by $300 million. The amount approved for fiscal year 2012 was $264 million less than requested, and covers construction and maintenance, not just security.
Biden’s Libya Claims
Biden claimed that Ryan “cut embassy security in his budget $300 million below what we asked for.”
That’s an exaggeration. The fiscal year 2012 funding was $264 million less than the administration had requested, and the funding isn’t only for security. It covers construction and maintenance as well.
Biden: Number one, the — this lecture on embassy security — the congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for, number one.
The Obama administration requested $1.801 billion for embassy security, construction and maintenance for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to The Hill newspaper. And House Republicans came back with a proposal to cut spending to $1.425 billion. Ultimately, the Republican-controlled House agreed to increase funding to $1.537 billion after negotiations with the Senate.
Biden also claimed that the administration wasn’t aware of security concerns among U.S. officials in Libya before the attack on the consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans. The vice president said: “[W]e weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again.”
We can’t say whether requests for more security — which were denied — reached the top. But American officials who worked in Libya over the summer placed the blame on a deputy assistant secretary of state — not top administration officials — when testifying before Congress this week.
Eric Nordstrom, the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, said: “All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources.”
Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guardsman who was leading a security team, testified: ”We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met.”
They placed the blame squarely on Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs, according to Foreign Policy magazine.....snip~
FactCheck.org : Veep Debate Violations
CNN Fact Check: What about the security in Benghazi?
Statement:
Biden: "The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for."
The facts:
According to Democratic House Oversight Committee staff, the amount that the GOP-led House passed for two accounts that pay for embassy security in fiscal 2012 ($2.311 billion) was $330 million less than the Obama administration had requested ($2.641 billion).
A GOP House Appropriations Committee aide confirmed the House bill had less in these accounts than what the administration requested.
However, the final bill,
after being worked on by the Democratic-led Senate, put in more money than what had passed in the House. The final bill, which passed with bipartisan support, gave a total of $2.37 billion to these accounts for fiscal 2012 -- about $270 million less than what the administration had requested.
Conclusion:
The GOP-led House did initially approve about $330 million less than what the administration requested, but in the final bill, passed with bipartisan support after adjustments by the Senate, put the amount a little closer to the administration's target.
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Course you already knew this from the same pieces I have up in 4 different threads and now this one.
