Gibbs defends administration's response to deadly attack, says not ‘misleading’

A top adviser to President Obama on Sunday defended the administration for saying in the aftermath of a deadly assault on a U.S. outpost that it was not a pre-planned terrorist attack.

Campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said the answers given Sept. 16 by Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, were based on “the best information she had” and not intended to mislead the public.

"No one either intentionally or unintentionally misled anyone involved in this," Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.” "No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than we do."

Rice gave her responses on five Sunday morning TV talks shows, days after at least 20 attacks on U.S. outposts in the Middle East and North Africa, including one on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

She said that attack was “spontaneous” and started with an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, over an anti-Islamic film.

Gibbs, a former White House spokesman for Obama, also said he expects more information will emerge.

"As we have learned more and as this investigation continues, I would anticipate we will continue to learn more facts about the awful assassination murder of our ambassador," he told Fox.

White House spokesman Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late last week acknowledged the assault in Libya was a terror attack. However, the administration has stood by its assertion that investigations so far show the attack was not pre-planned.

Gibbs also defended President Obama’s decision so far not to hold one-on-one meetings with world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York while making time to appear on ABC’s “The View” daytime talk show.

“So, he has time for Whoopi Goldberg but he doesn’t have time for world leaders?" asked Fox host Chris Wallace.

Gibbs in part replied: “The White House has phones.”

Source : foxnews[dot]com Read More

Marines arrive in Yemen after embassy attack, protests spread

U.S. Marines are on the ground in Yemen to deal with the aftermath of an attack on the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Sanaa, as the Obama administration warns of sustained protests outside diplomatic posts across the Middle East and North Africa. 

Pentagon spokesman George Little told Fox News the team is in Yemen as a "precautionary measure." 

The move comes as Reuters reports that protesters jumped over U.S. Embassy walls in both Sudan and Tunisia. Reuters reports that protesters also set fire to trees and broke windows inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Tunis. 

A senior U.S. official, without explaining the extent of the breach in the latter attack, told Fox News that Tunisian security forces "have responded effectively" so far to the incident. 

"We're keeping a close eye on events there, but for the moment, the Tunisians are doing precisely what they should do in the face of such events," the official said. 

One official also reportedly claimed that protesters in Sudan have been expelled. Witnesses said Sudanese police opened fire on those trying to climb the walls. 

That is just a snapshot of the violent unrest playing out Friday, in the widest protests yet across the Muslim world. 

One protester was killed in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes with security forces, after a crowd of protesters set fire to a KFC and an Arby's restaurant. Protesters hurled stones and glass at police in a furious melee that left 25 people wounded, 18 of them police. 

Security forces in Egypt and Yemen fired tear gas and clashed with protesters to keep them away from U.S. embassies. And Germany's Foreign Minister says the country's embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum has been stormed by protesters and set partially on fire. 

The intense demonstrations, purportedly by people upset over an anti-Islam film, follow warnings by the State Department that the protests could spread across the region. The department, on its Twitter account, cautioned Thursday of sustained protests in Egypt, Oman and Jordan, among other places. 

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI also issued a joint intelligence bulletin warning that the violent outrage aimed at U.S. embassies could be spread to America by extremist groups.   

In a statement to Fox News, a DHS official said that there is no specific, credible information at this time to indicate that the attacks have increased the threat of violent reaction in the U.S., but it will continue to identify potential threats and take appropriate measures. 

Four Americans were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Tuesday. A Marine unit was dispatched earlier in the week to Tripoli, to help fortify the U.S. Embassy there in the wake of the attack in the eastern part of the country. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source : foxnews[dot]com Read More