November 3, 2009: Robert Gibbs. Contradictions. Semantics. Fail.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is contradicting claims by Pentagon officials that terrorist detainees will receive H1N1 flu vaccines before many American citizens:
Robert Gibbs on Tuesday said concern that terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba were receiving vaccines was misplaced. Gibbs says no vaccines are at the naval base and none are on the way. A spokesman for the U.S. jail facility a day earlier said guards and then inmates were scheduled for inoculations. Critics were fast to object, saying U.S. civilians were waiting for vaccines while suspected terrorists were being given injections.Well, that settles that. Or DOES IT?
Source: Associated Press
Guantanamo Bay detainees will be receiving the H1N1 vaccine, the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday, even though White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said minutes earlier that the vaccine is not "on the way."
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Gibbs was correct in saying the vaccine is not currently on its way, but clarified that it will be at the naval base on Cuba by the end of November.
Gibbs was less forthcoming when asked about earlier reports in which military officials said the vaccine would soon be on its way. Following some complaints that the detainees could be receiving the treatment before other Americans, Gibbs seemed to suggest that there were no plans to vaccinate the 215 detainees remaining in the facility.
"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo. There is no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," Gibbs said. "I don't know what the Pentagon said. ... There wasn't any there and there wasn't any on the way."
Source: FoxNews

