奥巴马为利比亚美领馆遭袭事件承担责任

President Barack Obama said for the first time on Tuesday that he ultimately was responsible for the safety of four Americans who were killed in Libya last month, but denounced as 'offensive' Republican charges that the White House initially resisted labeling the incident a terrorist attack.

周二，美国总统奥巴马(Barack Obama)首次表示，他对上个月在利比亚被害的四名美国人的安全负有最终的责任，但他同时将有关白宫起初拒绝给这一事件贴上恐怖袭击标签的说法斥之为共和党人的“冒犯性指控。

Libya was one of the few foreign-policy issues raised in Tuesday's 90-minute presidential debate, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney repeated his charge that the Obama administration was slow in responding to signs of a growing terrorist threat in Libya and North Africa.

在周二这场历时90分钟的总统候选人辩论中，利比亚袭击事件是被提及的为数不多几个外交政策问题之一，共和党候选人罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)重复其原有的指责说，对于显示利比亚和北非地区恐怖主义威胁日增的迹象，奥巴马政府反应迟缓。

But Mr. Romney's suggestion the Obama administration may have had political motives in failing to initially call the siege on the U.S. consulate a terrorist attack led to one of the sharpest exchanges of the debate.

但罗姆尼有关奥巴马政府起初没有将围攻美国驻利比亚领事馆的行动称之为恐怖袭击可能是有政治动机的暗示，导致他与奥巴马之间发生了这场辩论中最激烈的一次言语交锋。

'The suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive,' Mr. Obama said. 'That's not what we do.'

奥巴马说，暗示说我的团队中有人在我们失去四位自己人之后还会玩弄政治把戏或误导公众的话，无论其矛头针对的是谁，是国务卿还是美国驻联合国大使，都是冒犯性的；那不是我们干的事。

Mr. Romney responded: 'It took them a long time to say this was a terrorist act by a terrorist group.'

罗姆尼回应说，奥巴马政府在事发很长时间后才说这是由恐怖团伙实施的一次恐怖行动。

Mr. Obama said Mr. Romney should check the transcript of the president's comments from Sept. 12, the day after the attack. And indeed, Mr. Obama did use the word 'terror' in his comments in the Rose Garden, though not as precisely as he suggested during the debate. 'No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation,' Mr. Obama said at the time. That statement also referred implicitly to an anti-Islamic video that the administration, in other accounts, initially blamed for protests that led to the assault.

奥巴马说，罗姆尼应该核对总统自9月12日(袭击事件发生的次日)以来相关言论的文字记录。事实上，奥巴马9月12日当天在白宫玫瑰园评论这一事件时确实使用了“恐怖一词，虽然并非像他在此次辩论中所暗示的那样用得很精确。奥巴马当时说，任何恐怖行为都不会动摇这个伟大国家的决心。奥巴马在此次讲话中还含蓄地提到了一则反伊斯兰教的视频，其他文字记录显示奥巴马政府起初称这段视频引发了导致此次袭击的抗议活动。

The debate followed interviews given Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where she defended the White House's actions in Libya and said the State Department was in charge of security at the consulate in Benghazi.

在美国举行第二场总统候选人辩论之前，国务卿克林顿(Hillary Clinton)周一在接受采访时为白宫在利比亚的行动进行了辩护，并说美国驻班加西领事馆的安全是由美国国务院负责的。

However, Mr. Obama said: 'I'm the president. And I'm always responsible.'

但奥巴马在辩论中说，我是总统，我总是需要承担责任的。

The discussion about Libya during the debate began with a citizen's question to Mr. Obama about a lack of security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Mr. Obama did not directly explain during the debate why there were security complaints by U.S. officials in Libya.

在一名出席辩论会的美国人就美国驻班加西领事馆缺乏安保措施一事向奥巴马提问后，两位候选人开始在辩论会上谈论利比亚问题。奥巴马在辩论中没有直接解释为何在利比亚的美国官员会就安保问题提出抱怨。

Mrs. Clinton, in recent interviews, sought to deflect political pressure on Mr. Obama by saying she took responsibility for any security lapses in the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens.

克林顿近日在接受采访时试图将此事造成的政治压力从奥巴马肩上转移开，称这次导致美国驻利比亚大使史蒂文斯(Stevens)被杀的袭击事件所暴露出的所有安全疏失，她都负有责任。

'I take responsibility,' Mrs. Clinton told The Wall Street Journal, stressing that State Department security securityprofessionals─not the White House─vet the threats posed to overseas missions.

克林顿对《华尔街日报》说，我会负责。她强调说负责评估美国驻海外使团所面临安全威胁的是国务院的安保专业人士而非白宫。

Still, Mrs. Clinton's statements seemed to do little to damp the broader GOP push to attack Mr. Obama's national-security credentials going into the final weeks of the campaign.

但在美国总统选战进入最后几周之际，克林顿这番表态似乎无力阻止共和党人以更大力度借这件事来攻击奥巴马捍卫美国国家安全的能力。

Republican criticism has partly been fueled by the Obama administration's shifting descriptions of the assault. Senior officials had initially said the attack on Benghazi stemmed from a 'spontaneous' reaction in the Muslim world to the posting of a U.S.-made video that mocked the Islamic faith's Prophet Muhammad. The White House later said the assault represented a terrorist attack.

奥巴马政府对这一袭击事件的描述前后不一在一定程度上也给共和党的批评提供了口实。美国高级官员起初曾说，班加西发生的这次袭击起源于穆斯林世界对美国制作的那段视频的自发反应。这段视频嘲笑了伊斯兰教所信仰的先知默罕默德(Prophet Muhammad)。白宫后来又说，这次攻击行动是恐怖袭击。