Petraeus Switches Up His Story on the Benghazi Attacks

Wired
Spencer Ackerman

Former Gen. David Petraeus at a Fourth of July ceremony in Kabul, 2010

Former CIA Director David Petraeus knew all along that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked by al-Qaida-aligned terrorists this past September. Only he wasn’t so certain when he first briefed Congress on the Libyan disaster, just days after it occurred. And even the most Petraeus-friendly legislators find it odd that the former CIA director is retroactively editing his testimony.

Petraeus emerged from his compounding week-long fall from grace to testify behind closed doors to the House and Senate intelligence committees about what the CIA knew about the hours-long assault as it unfolded. The overarching and highly politicized question hanging over Benghazi is whether the Obama administration misrepresented the disaster by initially pointing to an anti-Islam video as the catalyst, rather than the complex terrorist attack that actually occurred. What’s begun to leak out of the Petraeus hearings is this: the former four-star general and spymaster was convinced from jump that this was the work of terrorists.

In his Friday testimony. Petraeus claimed “he thought all along that he made it clear there was terrorist involvement,” according to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). But, King said, “That was not my recollection” of Petraeus’ testimony.

Nor is it what Petraeus’ old boss was saying at the time. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, publicly explained on Sept. 28 that contemporaneous — and ultimately incorrect — intelligence reporting “led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” and “we provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress.”


Confusing matters further, Petraeus indicated to lawmakers that the “talking points” the CIA initially gave to the Obama administration and members of Congress omitted early references to terrorism. Those talking points, published on Thursday by CBS, say that the attack on the consulate was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.” They hold open the possibility that the intelligence picture will change — as, indeed, it did, significantly. Those talking points do not indicate the certainty that Petraeus now says he possessed to attribute the attack to Libyan militant group Ansar al-Sharia.

According to King, Petraeus couldn’t explain the discrepancy. King said the talking points went through an “interagency” review, but the CIA ultimately “said, ‘Okay for it to go.’”
The Obama administration’s explanation of the assault on Benghazi evolved from emphasizing an ultimately incorrect connection to the anti-Islam video to blaming Benghazi on a terrorist assault. Its defense is that the intelligence shifted; critics believe that Obama was covering up a terrorist attack to ensure his reelection. There are numerous unanswered questions about what happened in Benghazi: for instance, why security at the consulate was so light despite numerous precursor attacks that summer.

Petraeus, finally out the door of the administration and under investigation by his own former agency, just added a few more, rather than clearing up the existing ones.
We’ll update this post as more information from Petraeus’ testimony leaks out.

Update, 4:52 p.m.: According to the Associated Press, the CIA excised mentions of terrorist groups from the talking points “so as not to alert them that U.S. intelligence was on their trail.” Pentagon spokesman George Little had said the day following the attack that the U.S. would retaliate, but did not give any specifics as to who was responsible.

Mossad Chief Secretly Met With Top U.S. Officials Including Sitting Senators

IntelHub

A clandestine Washington visit by Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, in which he privately met with multiple Senators and other top officials, was revealed in testimony  during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence attended by CIA director David Petraeus and Intel Chief James Clapper.

Apparently Pardo and the Senators who secretly met with him believe it imperative to met in secret to discuss Americas backing of an Israeli strike on Iran regardless of the opinion of the American people.
Israeli mainstream media giant Haaretz recently reported on these startling revelations:

Mossad chief Tamir Pardo held secret talks with top U.S. officials in recent days, cursory comments made during a public Senate hearing indicated on Tuesday.


The clandestine Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was participated by CIA Director David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate panel.


During the meeting, Feinstein asked Clapper whether or not Israel intended to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the top U.S. intelligence official answering that he would rather discuss the issue behind closed doors.


Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo and cited what he called Israel’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

During the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, US Intel Chief James Clapper also attempted to change the terrorism narrative, shifting the blame from al Qaeda to Iran.

In an article published by Kurt Nimmo for Infowars.com, this fact was outlined in detail as well as completely debunked:

“We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas. Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime,” Clapper testified.


Other alleged terrorist threats were sidelined during the hearing, including discussion of al-Qaeda, which officials claim “has been badly degraded.”

It is clear that the war drums have intensified and the probability of an attack on Iran by US and Israeli forces has increased exponentially.

Consider this – Right now a nuclear submarine is heading to the Persian Gulf and at least 100,000 US troops are ready to take part in a ground attack on Iran at any moment.

CIA agent in police triggers probe

GulfNews

Differing explanations offered on posting in department amid fears of domestic spying

New York Council members Daniel Drumm and Robert Jackson
listen as NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly testifies
before the public safety committee.

Washington: Working inside the New York Police Department is one of the CIA's most experienced clandestine operatives. He arrived in July as the special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. While his title is clear, his job responsibilities are not.
 
Federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this top CIA officer was assigned to a municipal police department since AP revealed the assignment in August.

The CIA is prohibited from spying domestically, and its unusual partnership with the New York Police Department (NYPD) has troubled top lawmakers and prompted an internal investigation.

The last time a CIA officer worked so closely with the NYPD, beginning in the months after the 9/11 attacks, he became the architect of aggressive police programmes that monitored Muslim neighbourhoods.

With that earlier help from this CIA official, the police put entire communities under a microscope based on ethnicity rather than allegations of wrongdoing, according to the AP investigation.

It was an extraordinary collaboration that at times troubled some senior CIA officials and may have stretched the bounds of how the CIA is allowed to operate in the United States.
The arrangement surrounding the newly arrived CIA officer, who was at the centre of one of the worst US intelligence fiascos in recent history, has been portrayed differently from that of his predecessor.

When first asked by the AP, a senior US official described the posting as a sabbatical, a programme aimed at giving the man in New York more management training.

Technical information

Testifying at City Hall recently, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas". He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn't have access to any of our investigative files".

U.S. to spend $75 million on new Yemen military training

(Reuters) - The United States aims to spend $75 million to double the size of a special Yemeni counter-terrorism unit, a U.S. official said on Monday.

The funding, which has yet to be approved by Congress, is part of a broader effort to increase pressure on al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Michael Leiter, head of the National Counterterrorism Center, told Congress last week he saw AQAP as the biggest current threat to the U.S. homeland.

The group has claimed responsibility for a failed Christmas Day attack in 2009 aboard a U.S. airliner and a more recent attempt last year to blow up two U.S.-bound cargo planes with toner cartridges packed with explosives.

The U.S. official said the funds would be invested in a special Yemeni counter-terrorism unit that is operated under Yemen's interior ministry and now totals around 300 people.

The funds are unrelated to another $120 million earmarked for Yemen in President Barack Obama's 2012 budget request unveiled on Monday. The request includes $35 million in additional military assistance for Yemen and $69 million in economic assistance.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power for 30 years, has faced growing protests in recent weeks from thousands of Yemenis, inspired by uprisings that toppled Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

He is also under pressure to quash the resurgent al Qaeda wing in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, at the same time as he struggles to control southern secessionists and to cement a fragile truce with rebels in the north.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress last week that Yemen's "myriad political, security, and development challenges" pose the greatest threat to that poor Arab nation since its 1994 civil war.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by John Whitesides)