Congressman Bruce Braley is calling on the Obama Administration to release the video of the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans.
“If there is an ability to de-classify that without threatening our national security, then it would be helpful to eliminate many of the misconceptions,” Braley says.
The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked this past September 11th and the U.S. Ambassador to Libya was among those killed. Braley saw the video for himself on December 5.
“I was privileged to have an opportunity along with members of the House and Senate to attend a classified briefing where surveilance video from the compound itself and drone video was shown to us in a logical, sequential fashion so that we could understand how these events unfolded,” Braley says. “And we had top level people from the State Department, the Defense Department and the CIA there to explain what we were seeing and how it impacted decisions that were being made.”
Republicans have accused the Obama Administration of purposely misleading the public with initial reports that the attack was an outgrowth of a protest over an American-made movie that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Braley says his request that the video of the attack be made public “has nothing to do with exonnerating the State Department.”
“It has to do with getting the American people the real-time evidence of what happened at that compound,” Braley says.
Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, made his comments during a Friday appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program. It will be rebroadcast Sunday at noon.