WASHINGTON (AP) — Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration
used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi,
Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public,
according to emails released Wednesday by the White House.
Under pressure in the
investigation that continues eight months after the attacks, the White
House on Wednesday released 99 pages of emails and a single page of
hand-written notes made by Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell,
after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15. On that page,
Morell scratched out from the CIA's early drafts of talking points
mentions of al-Qaida, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic
extremists and a warning to the Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks
of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.
Petraeus apparently was displeased by the removal of so much of the
material his analysts initially had proposed for release. The talking
points were sent to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to prepare her for an
appearance on news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also to members of the
House Intelligence Committee.
"No mention of the cable to Cairo, either?" Petraeus wrote after
receiving Morell's edited version, developed after an intense
back-and-forth among Obama administration officials. "Frankly, I'd just
as soon not use this, then."
Petreaus' email comes at the end of extensive back-and-forth between officials at the CIA, White House, State Department
and other agencies weighing in on a public explanation for the Sept.
11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three
other Americans
The emails were partially blacked out, including removal of names of
senders and recipients who are career employees at the CIA and
elsewhere.
The emails show only minor edits were requested by the White House, and most of the objections came from the State Department.
"The White House cleared quickly, but State has major concerns," read
an email that a CIA official sent to Petraeus on Friday, Sept. 14.
Critics have highlighted an email by then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
that expressed concern that any mention of prior warnings or the
involvement of al-Qaida would give congressional Republicans ammunition
to attack the administration in the weeks before the presidential
election. Fighting terror was one of President Barack Obama's re-election strong points
That email was among those released by the White House, sent by
Nuland on Sept. 14 at 7:39 p.m. to officials in the White House, State
Department and CIA. She wrote she was concerned they could prejudice the
investigation and be "abused by members to beat the State Department
for not paying attention to agency warnings so why do we want to feed
that either? Concerned."
After Nuland sent several more emails throughout that Friday evening
expressing further concerns, Jake Sullivan, then-deputy chief of staff
at the State Department, said the issues would be worked out at a
meeting at the White House on Saturday morning.
A senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters Wednesday that
Morell made the changes to the talking points after that meeting because
of his own concerns that they could prejudge an FBI investigation into
who was responsible for the attacks.
The official said Morell also didn't think it was fair to disclose
the CIA's advance warning without giving the State Department a chance
to explain how it responded. The official spoke on a condition of
anonymity without authorization to speak about the emails on the record.
Petraeus declined to be interviewed Wednesday.
The intelligence official said Morell was aware of Nuland's
objections but did not make the changes under pressure from the State
Department but because he independently shared the concerns.
That is contradicted in an email sent to Rice on Saturday, Sept. 15,
at 1:23 p.m. by a member of her staff whose name was blacked out. The
email said Morell indicated he would work with Sullivan and Ben Rhodes,
the White House deputy national security adviser, to revise the talking
points. The intelligence official disputed that assertion and insisted
Morell acted alone.
An email from Morell also says he spoke to Petraeus "about State's
deep concerns about mentioning the warnings and the other work done on
this."
The emails were shared with Congress earlier this year as a condition
for allowing the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director to move
forward. An interim report last month from the Republicans on five House
committees criticized the Obama administration and mentioned the
emails, but the issue exploded last Friday when new details emerged.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
read some of the emails aloud last Wednesday at a hearing with State
Department officials. The next day, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio,
called on the White House to release the emails.
A Boehner spokesman said Wednesday the emails released by the White House only confirm the interim report.
"They contradict statements made by the White House that it and the
State Department only changed one word in the talking points," Boehner
spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement. "The seemingly political
nature of the State Department's concerns raises questions about the
motivations behind these changes and who at the State Department was
seeking them."
The White House released the full set of emails sent to Congress
under the pressure in hopes of putting an end to the controversy that
has dogged the administration for months. White House spokesman Eric
Schultz said Wednesday that "these e-mails have been selectively and
inaccurately read out to the media."
"To make clear what is and is not in these e-mails, today the White
House took the extraordinary step of releasing these e-mails," Schultz
said in a statement. "You can now see what the Congress has seen —
collectively these e-mails make clear that the interagency process,
including the White House's interactions, were focused on providing the
facts as we knew them based on the best information available at the
time and protecting an ongoing investigation."
An official with the CIA's office of congressional affairs whose name
was blacked out sent the final version to Petraeus on Saturday, Sept.
15, at 12:51 p.m. Petraeus responded at 2:27 saying he'd prefer not to
even use them in that form.
But he said the decision was up to the White House's national security staff.
"NSS's call, to be sure; however, this is certainly not what Vice
Chairman (Dutch) Ruppersberger was hoping to get for unclas use.
Regardless, thanks for the great work."
Ruppersberger is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
At a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder
said there has been "very, very substantial progress" in the
investigation into who was responsible for the twin nighttime attacks in
Benghazi. Earlier this month, the FBI said it was seeking information
on three people who were on the grounds of the diplomatic mission when
it was attacked. The FBI posted photographs of the three people and said
they may be able to provide information to help in the investigation.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who sits on the Intelligence Committee,
said, "I didn't find anything that looked like a smoking gun in terms of
political cooking of the talking points. There is very little input
from the White House."
But he added, "There are some things to criticize in here. The State Department looks like it is trying to avoid blame."
___
Associated Press writers Donna Cassata and Adam Goldman contributed to this report.
By | Associated Press – 4 mins 7 secs ago
View PhotoA portion of a page of emails that …
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