Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, was one of the House members to get a classified briefing today on the attack on the American embassy in Libya on September 11th which lead to the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
“I think the members of the House who were in attendance and saw that footage and were able to ask questions, have a much clearer understanding of what happened during that attack, and I am going to be calling on the president and his security advisors to eventually at the appropriate time and place, present similar information to the American people. And I think it will go a long way toward informing everyone about how the attacks unfolded,” Braley says.
He says he is not exactly sure why the video is not being shown publicly, but says it was a sophisticated presentation that included surveillance video from various buildings and footage from drones. “And because of the classified nature of the materials we were shown, they may need to be weighing national security interests and part of their ongoing investigation, which is made more difficult by the fact that there is provisional government in Libya right now,” according to Braley.
Braley says he can’t reveal everything that he saw, but said it is important information. “I think that the video clearly provides a lot of missing information that makes it much clearer how the event unfolded, who was involved in the initial attack, what types of motivations might have been behind the attacks, and those are the types of facts that the American people need to know and understand,” Braley says.
The administration’s handling of the incident has been criticized, especially the comments made by the Ambassador to the United Nations that initially blamed the attack on an anti-Islamic video.