CBS transcript: Obama wouldn't call Benghazi terrorism

Staff and wire reports | USATODAY

On the eve of the presidential election CBS News program 60 Minutes released a transcript of an interview with President Obama in which he said it was "too early to tell" whether the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya was an act of terrorism.

The statement appears to contradict Obama's claim in a second debate with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney that he identified the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans as a terror attack the day after it happened.

Romney had criticized Obama at the Oct. 17 debate for refusing to accurately call the assault "terrorism" and pointed to instances where Obama referred to it several times as a spontaneous protest of an anti-Islam video for weeks afterward.

Obama said he referred to it as an act of terror Sept. 12 in a statement in the Rose Garden at the White House. Debate moderator Candy Crowley of CNN agreed and told Romney he was wrong.

But in an interview with CBS newsman Steve Kroft after the Rose Garden statement but on the same day, Obama was asked what he meant because Kroft indicated it was unclear:

Kroft: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya attack. Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?

Obama: Well it's too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans.

CBS News waited until Nov. 4 to post that portion of its interview and offered no explanation as to why it delayed release of a video clip that was pertinent to what became a significant story at the time.

On Friday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the congressional committee investigating the attack, suggested the White House intentionally misled the public because Obama's re-election campaign was claiming he had crushed al-Qaeda terrorists.

"They didn't want to admit it was a terrorist attack," Chaffetz said. "Admitting it was terrorism would fly in the face of what they had been telling the American people about al-Qaeda."

"No matter what happens on Tuesday, the Congress will continue to dive deep into this issue," he said of the election.

In the Rose Garden, his first official remarks on the attack, Obama read a 44-line statement on the deaths in Benghazi and extolled the memories of those who died.

Toward the end of his statement, he spoke generally of the "solemn memory" of the Sept. 11 attacks 11 years earlier. He talked of mourning those who died then, and how he had visited the graves of troops who died in Iraq and Afghanistan at Arlington National Cemetery and also to wounded troops at Walter Reed.

"Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe," he said. "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."

After the debate in which Obama claimed that statement referred to Benghazi, GOP vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan defended Romney's characterization of Obama's refusal to admit the truth.

"It was a passing comment about acts of terror in general, it was not a claim that this was a terrorist attack," Ryan said on ABC's Good Morning America that week. "Nobody believes that that Rose Garden speech from the president was suggesting that that (individual act) was an act of terror."

Contributing: Donna Leinwand in Washington