Rand Paul asks “Where Were the Marines?”

Posted on October 26, 2012 by mp_root

RAND PAUL – “WHERE WERE THE MARINES?”

Rand Paul has a message for President Obama…come clean and take responsibility for the Libya debacle caused by the administration’s incompetence in securing our diplomats abroad, and subsequent cover-up by the administration.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) October 24, 2012 The first and most pressing question for Mr. Obama remains: Where the hell were the Marines? Two of the most potentially vulnerable or dangerous American embassies are in Iraq and Libya. In Iraq, we have roughly 17,000 people guarding our ambassador. Not all of them are Marines, but some several hundred are, and they guard our ambassador behind a 10-foot-high walled fortress. In Iraq, we cannot afford to take any unnecessary risks with our diplomats and go to great lengths to ensure that there are plenty of armed personnel between our representatives and any potential threats. In Libya, there were no uniformed Marines guarding our ambassador. Originally, there was a 16-person security team led by Col. Andrew Wood, who had requested to stay in Libya. In July, Stevens sent memos to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requesting an “extension of tour of duty (TDY) personnel.” Stevens was referring to Col. Wood’s 16-man team, which was scheduled to leave in August. Stevens requested on Aug. 2 – just six weeks before his murder – to keep security personnel in Libya “through mid-September,” calling the conditions there “unpredictable, volatile and violent.” Col. Woods has also said that he repeatedly requested to remain in Libya because he felt both the environment and the ambassador were unsafe. Now, after the tragic fact, no one knows what happened to Stevens’ original request. Why was the security team that both Stevens and Col. Woods requested sent home? Who made this decision? …The president now says, “The buck stops here.” It’s time for him to prove it, and if he won’t, it is time for Congress to do its job and get to the bottom of it. For two weeks the administration refused to acknowledge what everyone else could plainly see, because admitting that the terrorists were still out there, still plotting against America, was also admitting that all of Obama’s rhetoric about repairing our relationships in the Middle East is a big fat failure. ⁞ Have you had enough of Obama’s lies yet? Do we want another 4 years of this? We need a leader willing to stand up to terrorists. Help us produce the TV ad to hit Obama on Foreign Policy - America needs to see this!