White House releases Benghazi emails under strain

       
The White House release of some 100 pages of emails and notes about the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, has failed to satisfy congressional Republicans, who are demanding more information about the issue that opposition Republicans in Congress have used for months to attack the Obama administration.              

The Sept. 11, 2012, attack killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Since then, critics have seized on the administration's initial public response to the terror attack, which at first was blamed on a protest over an anti-Islam video produced in the U.S.               

One of the partially blacked-out emails released Wednesday shows that then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used five days after the deadly assault because he wanted to see more detail publicly released, including a warning the CIA issued about plans for a break-in at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.               

The White House also released a single page of handwritten notes made by Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House the day before Rice's appearance on television news shows to discuss the attack. 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 Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.              

"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."                 

A senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters Wednesday that Morell made the changes to the talking points because of his concerns that they could prejudge an FBI investigation into who was responsible for the Benghazi attack.                 

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 because they were not authorized to speak about the emails on the record. Petraeus declined to be interviewed.               

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 in November. 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. "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. 
              
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 week 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, a Republican, 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.          


AP