• The White House on  Wednesday released 100  pages of emails detailing discussion inside the  administration over last year’s  deadly attacks on a U.S. diplomatic  compound in Benghazi, Libya
• Among the details, the documents show that  then-CIA Director David  Petraeus objected to the final version that U.N.  Ambassador Susan Rice  used five days after the assault
• The handwritten note came from Petraeus’  deputy. On it, Mike Morell  scratched out items eliminated from the CIA’s early  drafts, including  mentions of al-Qaeda
• After receiving Morell’s edited version,  Petraeus wrote: ‘Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this’

By  James Nye

PUBLISHED: 18:34 EST, 15 May  2013 |  UPDATED: 21:35  EST, 15 May 2013

 

Then CIA-Director David Petraeus strongly  objected to the Obama administrations version of events of the terror attack on  the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, newly released emails  show.

Petraeus, who was forced resigned in disgrace  in November after an extra-marital affair became public wanted to see more  detail made public, including a warning issued from the CIA about plans for an  embassy attack.

The documents give a glimpse into the  administration’s message control as officials carefully debated via  email  which details U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice  should highlight  when she went on talk shows five days later to discuss  the September 11 assault  on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

The White House on Wednesday released 99  pages of emails and a single page of hand-written notes made by Petraeus’  deputy, Mike Morell, made after a meeting at the White House the day before then  U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice began giving interviews to the media based on the  agreed ‘talking points.’

On that page, Morell scratched out from the  CIA’s early drafts of talking points mentions of al-Qaeda, the experience of  fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo  on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration.

‘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.’

Senior administration officials told  reporters Wednesday that Morell made the changes to the talking points because  of his own concerns that they could prejudge an FBI investigation into who was  responsible for the September 11th, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador  Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

 

The officials 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 officials spoke on a condition of  anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the emails on the  record.

Officials said that Morell acted on his own  judgement and not with any pressure coming down from the State  Department.

However, when Petraeus received the final  draft of the media talking points he was dismissive, saying that the reduced  list would not satisfy the House Democrat who had asked for it.

‘This is certainly not what Vice Chairman  Ruppersberger was hoping to get,’ Mr. Petraeus wrote, in reference to  Representative C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on  the House Intelligence Committee.

 

The White House released the emails to the  media after some of them leaked on Friday and seemed to suggest that President  Obama’s national security team may have altered the talking points for political  gain.

And while the White House claims these are  all the correspondence that occurred in the aftermath of the terror attack on  Benghazi, they suggest more of battle between the State Department and the CIA –  rather than the president’s own team.

‘In recent days, these e-mails have been  selectively and inaccurately  read out to the media,’ said a White House  spokesman, Eric Schultz.

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-Qaeda 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 September 14th at 7:39 p.m. to officials in the  White House, State Department and CIA.

‘I have serious concerns about all the parts  highlighted below, and arming members of Congress to start making assertions to  the media that we ourselves are not making because we don’t want to prejudice  the investigation,’ she wrote.

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.

The general counsel for the national  intelligence director’s office briefed members and staff from the Senate  Intelligence Committee and leadership on the emails on February 15th at a  session in which staff could take notes.

A similar briefing took place March 19 for  the House Intelligence Committee and leadership staff

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.

Congressional officials selectively shared  parts of the emails, and new revelations  emerged Friday that showed State  Department and other administration  officials pressing for references to terror  groups and prior warnings be deleted, expressing concerns about the political  implications.

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.

 

Scandal: Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, pictured,  conducted an affair from November 2011 until July 2012 – forcing his resignation  when details were made public

The White House says congressional  Republicans have misrepresented some of them.

The emails released by the White House were  partially blacked out, including to remove names of senders and recipients who  are career employees at the CIA and elsewhere.

 

The names were replaced with references to  the office where they worked.

The talking points were used by Rice in her  appearance on five news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also sent to Congress.

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.

‘As mentioned last night, State had voiced  strong concerns with the original text due to the criminal investigation,’ the  official wrote.

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.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the top  Democrat on the House Armed  Services Committee, said Wednesday’s release of the  emails was a ‘wise  choice’

 

There was little in the roughly 100 pages of  emails about Rice’s ‘talking points’ that had not been leaked  previously.

While awkward for the White House, releasing  the  emails was an effort to counter complaints from Republicans and the  media  that President Barack Obama’s administration is secretive.

They included an email confirming perhaps the  most damaging charge that  administration officials removed mention from Rice’s  talking points that the CIA had warned of an al Qaeda threat in the area of the  eastern  Libyan city before the attacks.

In the Benghazi emails, then-State Department  spokeswoman  Victoria Nuland raised concerns about references to intelligence  about  the threat from militants in eastern Libya.

Nuland wrote that she had ‘serious concerns’  that the talking  points would provide members of Congress with material to  ‘beat the  State Department for not paying attention to (Central Intelligence)  Agency warnings’ about threats in the region.

 

It was not clear who she was referring to but  Republicans have tried to link former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a  possible Democratic candidate for president in 2016, to the controversy over  Benghazi.

‘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,’ said Brendan Buck, a  spokesman for Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John  Boehner.

Republicans say the talking points were an  attempt to portray the attacks as arising from a spontaneous protest, and not an  organized militant assault, so as to protect Obama in last year’s presidential  campaign from any charges that he was weak on fighting terrorism.

The White House vehemently denies any  cover-up and emphasizes that the controversy over the talking points focuses on  intelligence that eventually evolved. The emails, officials said, showed a  normal back and forth between government agencies on a fluid national security  event.

‘Collectively these emails 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,’ White House spokesman Eric  Schultz said.

Officials also suggested that Nuland was not  the only one with concerns about the original talking points.
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