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Sen. Paul Asks President Obama: Where in the Hell Were the Marines?

Important questions remain unanswered about the Administration's mishandling of the Libya crisis

Oct 22, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul spoke at a gathering in New Hampshire, and had some strong questions for President Obama and his Administration's mishandling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya last month. Below is video and transcript of his remarks.


CLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL DISCUSS THE ADMINISTRATION'S FAILURE IN LIBYA

 

TRANSCRIPT:

I have some questions and you get presidential candidates up here, so I want you to ask the President this when he comes up here: Where the hell were the Marines? In Libya, where were the Marines? There were no uniformed Marines guarding our ambassador? Where do you think the most dangerous embassy in the world is? It's got to be Libya or Iraq.
In Iraq, I think they've got 17,000 people guarding the ambassador. They're not all Marines, but there's probably several hundred Marines, but there's a host of armed people guarding the ambassador. We have a fortress guarding the ambassador there. We didn't have any uniformed Marines? There was personnel, a 16-person security team. If the President comes up here, ask him: Why in the hell did you send them home? They specifically requested to stay.
Col. Wood, who is head of the security team, says he sent the cables: I want to stay in Libya because it's unsafe and the ambassador is unsafe.
The President says the buck stops here, ask him where in the hell were the Marines? Ask him, where the hell was that 16-person security team?
And then finally ask him: What happened to the plane? There was a DC-3 there supposed to be able to help people out of the country or to move about the country, they took their plane. They took their plane on May 4 of this year. You know what happened on May 8 of this year, four days later? The State Department spent $108,000 buying a new electrical charging station to green up the Vienna embassy.
So you have to ask yourself, is the green initiative, is the global warming campaign, more important than the security of an embassy? Greening up the Vienna Embassy. You know, the electric car, it's subsidized $250,000 per car. We probably spent $1 million to buy these electric cars to make a political statement in Vienna. We spent $100,000 for an electrical charging station to show off how green we were, but we wouldn't have one Marine guarding our embassy, we wouldn't allow 16 personnel to stay in Libya, we wouldn't allow them a plane, but we've got enough money to make a show of a very politicized agenda by the President. I think it's inexcusable and if he says the buck stops here, someone should be fired.

 

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