"There appears to be a concerted effort to mislead the American people," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah.(Photo: Rick Bowmer AP)
A Republican lawmaker says a new report that details how references
to al-Qaeda were removed from White House talking points on the U.S.
Consulate attack in Benghazi is further evidence the Obama
administration tried to mislead the public about what happened.
"There
appears to be a concerted effort to mislead the American people," says
Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. "At this point the Obama administration has
been elusive at best and misleading at worse."
Chaffetz was responding to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal
that CIA "officials" wanted the terrorist origins of the attack kept
from the public because the spy agency did not want certain al-Qaeda
operatives to know it was monitoring its communications.
The report cites "sources from a cross section of agencies" with knowledge of the investigation.
The
White House insisted for days after the Sept. 11 attack that it arose
from a protest against an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. On Sept. 16,
Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appeared on five
Sunday news shows to say that the assault was a "spontaneous protest"
prompted by a "hateful video," not a terror attack.
"Our current
best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is
that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous - not a
premeditated - response to what had transpired in Cairo," Rice told ABC.
Shawn
Turner, director of public affairs for the Office of National
Intelligence, told USA TODAY Tuesday: "Ambassador Rice was speaking
based on unclassified talking points provided by the intelligence
community."
The Journal said that military and intelligence
officials who were familiar with the classified intelligence but
weren't involved in the talking-points debate were "surprised" by Rice's
comments.
"They questioned why officials like her didn't state
the clear belief within intelligence circles that al-Qaeda's North
African affiliate was involved in the attack, and they saw the
administration's decision not to point to al-Qaeda as a reluctance to
talk about the attack as terrorism," the Journal said.
The
White House through a spokeswoman at the State Department, Erin Pelton,
said Rice's comments "were consistent with the intelligence community's
assessment at the time."
But congressional officials told the Journal that
Rice told lawmakers that she didn't "freelance" and mention al-Qaeda by
name during her television appearances because doing so would have
ventured into information that was still classified.
"I think it was pretty clear that night al-Qaeda was involved," Chaffetz said.
On
Nov. 27, when Rice met with senators on Capitol Hill to smooth things
over, she told them the Obama administration relayed to the public what
it knew of the attack as intelligence evolved, the Journal said.
However,
the CIA officially changed its assessment of the Benghazi attack on
Sept. 20, the day after the CIA station chief in Tripoli insisted that
no protest happened. Yet it was not until Oct. 11 that the Obama
administration went public with the accurate assessment, four weeks
after the attack.
The new report also raised questions about the role of former CIA chief David Petraeus.
Rep.
Peter King said Petraeus testified Nov. 16 that he knew the day after
the attack al-Qaeda was involved and that he approved a report to be
sent to the White House stating that viewpoint. Petraeus said he didn't
know who removed that from the assessment or why.
"These stories are inconsistent at best," Chaffetz said.
Acting
CIA Director Michael Morell also appeared not to know who edited out
the reference to terrorists. He met with the senators along with Rice on
Nov. 27 and said the FBI had asked that the reference to terrorists be
removed from the White House talking points. The CIA stated hours later
that Morell "misspoke."
Rice's statements on Sept. 16 were
"inexcusable" because she knew they were untrue, says Marc Thiessen, an
analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
"Having access to
classified information doesn't give you the right to lie," said
Thiessen, a speechwriter to former president George W. Bush. "If the
classified brief said no protest and the talking points said there was,
then she lied."
Administration officials' contention in Tuesday's
report that they didn't want to tip off terrorists that they were being
monitored doesn't makes sense because there's been no U.S. retaliation
for the attack, Thiessen said.
"It sends a signal of weakness, that you can attack and kill an American ambassador and pay no price," he said.
USA Today