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UPDATE 1-Romney accuses Biden of contradicting State Department on Libya
* Romney says: "He's doubling down on denial"
* Republican candidate aims to puncture Obama's credibility
* Presidential campaign takes side tour into foreign policy
By Steve Holland
RICHMOND, Va., Oct 12 (Reuters) - Mitt Romney accused Vice President Joe Biden on Friday of contradicting the testimony of U.S. State Department officials on Libya, in an escalation of the Republican presidential challenger's attacks over the Sept. 11 deaths of four Americans there.
Hoping to puncture President Barack Obama's credibility on foreign policy ahead of the Nov. 6 election, Romney jumped on comments that Biden made on Thursday night during a debate with Romney's vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan.
When asked whether the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya had asked for more security ahead of the attack, Biden said: "Well, we weren't told they wanted more security again. We did not know they wanted more security again."
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 U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the assault at the site on Sept. 11.
"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," he said.
Romney's campaign is focused on the weak U.S. 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 U.S. troops from unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Romney, whose solid debate performance against Obama on Oct. 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 American 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.
The former governor of Massachusetts has not always been sure-footed on foreign policy. His initial reaction to the violence in Libya as well as in Egypt was seen as an off-key attempt to politicize a national tragedy, and he drew sharp criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for it.
The comments on Libya during the vice presidential debate may prove to be simply a warm-up act to the next presidential debate, on Oct. 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 11th anniversary of the Sept. 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.
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/mitt-romney-s-tax-dodge-20121012
The Republican charges are being led by the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee, which has engaged in a series of bumbling and bungling sham investigations meant solely to embarrass Obama since Darrell Issa became committee chair at the beginning of 2011. There are *no* records whatsoever showing that the committee’s only “witnessess,” Eric Nordstrom (a minor ex-security office who was only employed there for less than a year) and Colonel Andrew Wood (who was only a member of the Utah National Guard) went through embassy channels to share their supposed security concerns.
Nordstrom supposedly felt that US State Department officials stood in the way of his attempts to have security beefed up, but that was something for Ambassador Stevens and his staff to decide, and they are the people the State State department is going to listen to far more, and not someone like Nordstrom or Colonel Wood. If Issa and other Republicans were able to show actual embassy personnel being concerned about security, that would be a different matter, but Issa can’t and never will since that wasn’t the case at all.
It’s just more disinformation rubbish being tossed out by the Republicans in the hopes that it will stick thanks to a lazy, research-adverse news media (which is more and more the case unfortunately each year.)
Similarly, not every last detail ever raised within the State Dept will be brought to the Executive Branch … the general purpose of any organizational structure is to manage information, which means trusting your organization to filter out the small stuff entrusting it to lower management levels: it is simply good business.
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