Country ... USA
Republicans ... Get over it

Susan Rice to meet McCain over Libya row ... Rice, widely considered Obama's top pick to replace Clinton, seeks to defuse Libya attack row with the Republicans.

Burgess COMMENTARY
Ambassador Susan Rice makes the point that she has 'great respect for Senator McCain and his service to our country.' and that has been true for me as well. But the fact of him being a Prisoner of War (POW) during the Vietnam war does not give him the right to say what he wants when he wants almost 50 years later. I am frankly disgusted at the level of misinformation that flows around the US agenda driven media, and I would have hoped that a high profile Senator like Senator McCain would be above this, but instead he is more than a little active on behalf of Republican partisans.

Specifically, with respect to the release of information about the attacks on the US compound in Benghazi which killed Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans, I am not at all surprised that the early releases of information were inaccurate. While communications technology is pretty amazing, the flow of facts has to start somewhere, and the middle of the night in Benghazi is not going to be an easy place to start getting solid facts ... fog of war and all that ... not to mention several hundred miles from the US Embassy in Libya, in Tripoli.

Lest we forget ... the night of the attack on the US compound in Benghazi was the same night that there were protests outside US Embassies around the world because of the inappropriate amateur film that had been made in the US and recently circulated on the Internet. Washington would certainly have been getting dozens of reports about violence around US compounds during those days.

In old fashioned journalism is takes time to verify a story ... so also it takes time to verify reports coming into Washington from around the world. The public wants fast response from its government, and the public wants correct information as well. Ambassador Rice did her job based on 'talking points' prepared by the 'intelligence community', and they quite reasonably in my view excluded reference to a specific terrorist action.

I was in Nigeria when President Gowan was overthrown in a coup, and again when President Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. In both cases it was interesting to listen to the international news media talking about the events in Nigeria, and to marvel at how inaccurate all the reports were. I was in Rwanda and Burundi just before the infamous genocide, and again I was shocked by how difficult it was to get people in the policy bubbles of Washington, Paris, Brussels and London to take note of the situation on the ground. Communication is difficult ... and getting facts on the fly perhaps even more difficult.

I have been enormously disappointed in Senator McCain and his views of the US and foreign policy for some considerable time ... and it makes me even more concerned in the context of a two party system where he is perhaps the best spokesman on or analyst of foreign policy in the Republican Party.
Peter Burgess

Susan Rice to meet McCain over Libya row ... Rice, widely considered Obama's top pick to replace Clinton, seeks to defuse Libya attack row with the Republicans.

IMAGE Rice has emerged as a clear front-runner to replace Clinton during Obama's second four-year term [AFP]

President Barack Obama's top UN diplomat appears to have a clearer path to succeeding retiring Secretary of State Hilary Clinton after two top Republican critics moderated their accusations that Ambassador Susan Rice was part of a government cover-up of what happened in the September 11 attack on the US Consulate in Libya.

Rice, who has emerged as a clear front-runner to replace Clinton during Obama's second four-year term, is due to meet Senator John McCain on Tuesday in an apparent bid to defuse the bitter row over Libya.

McCain has led Republican attacks against Rice, accusing her of misleading the public over the September 11 assault on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

'My concerns are obviously that she told the American people things that were patently false, that were not true,' McCain said, confirming Tuesday's meeting, which stoked speculation Rice is the frontrunner for the nomination.

US media reported that the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, arranged at Rice's request, would take place at 9:30 am (1430 GMT) and that Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte would also attend, along with acting CIA director Mike Morell.

Toning down

Several leading Republicans have vowed to oppose Rice's elevation to become America's top diplomat at all costs if she is nominated for the position, but McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee, has softened his criticism in recent days.

Asked on Fox News if Rice could change his mind, McCain said: 'Sure. She can. I'd give everyone the benefit of explaining their position and the actions that they took. I'd be glad to have the opportunity.'

Republicans singled out Rice because she appeared on Sunday political talk shows five days after the Benghazi attack and said it was the 'best assessment' of the US government that the strike was not pre-planned.

Rice said the assault appeared to have started from a 'spontaneous' reaction by protesters angry at an amateur anti-Muslim video made on American soil, as had been the case in an earlier assault on the US embassy in Cairo.

President Barack Obama's administration subsequently admitted the attack had been carried out by militants linked to Al-Qaeda, and State Department and FBI probes are currently under way to find out what happened.

Rice appeared to be largely absolved of blame when the office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed the terms 'Al-Qaeda' and 'terrorism' had been removed from the 'talking points' brief she was given.

'Outrageous campaign'

In his first press conference after being re-elected, Obama rushed to Rice's defense, accusing the Republicans of an 'outrageous' attempt to 'besmirch her reputation' and challenging them to go after him instead.

Rice broke her silence on the row last week, saying she had been the victim of 'unfounded' Republican attacks.

'Let me be very clear. I have great respect for Senator McCain and his service to our country. I always have, and I always will,' Rice told reporters.

'I do think that some of the statements he made about me have been unfounded, but I look forward to having the opportunity at the appropriate time to discuss all of this with him,' she added.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to leave office early in the New Year but Obama has kept everyone waiting to see whether he is willing to name Rice and risk a potentially tricky Senate confirmation process if Republicans dig in.

The other main contender for the role is thought to be Democratic Senator John Kerry, the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who lost the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush.