Next Debate will have this to deal with this

[crashmister]

Jetty, let me ask you, why would the Republican Chairman, Darrel Issa, and Republican Co chair Jason Chaffetz, adjourn a committee in a Republican controlled congress? Ya can't blame OB, he's got nothing to do with it. This committee works in complete autonomy of or from the white house. The bigger question, why after a series of clasified briefings dem's were excluded from, was the decision made to adjourn the committee until after the election? Seem's to me that as soon as the MSM started asking hard questions as to why one side of the committee was concerned about security levels they voted to cut 458 million in funding for, they adjourn the committee.
Can you say political damage control.
Read pages 5 & 6, or the whole memo which I recommend. It's the link I tried to attach. Won't work as an attachment.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/upl ... -09-12.pdf

[crashmister]

Jetty, a few thing's you might have missed, Marines guard Embassy's This was a consulate which is little more than an office and even that designation is in dispute.

Dear Nicolas:
A consulate is like a junior embassy. It's generally located in a busy tourist city, and takes care of minor diplomatic tasks such as issuing visas. The word consulate literally means office of the consul, who is a diplomat appointed to foster trade and take care of expatriates. You can read some pointed essays about the role of the modern day consulate at the American Foreign Service site.
Embassies are much bigger deals. The word embassy comes from the French ambassy, or office of the ambassador. Ambassadors are high-ranking diplomatic representatives who serve as spokespersons for their national governments. If one country recognizes the sovereignty of another, they generally establish an embassy there. Embassies take care of the same administrative duties as consulates, but they also represent their governments abroad.

This can be tricky business. For instance, the United States doesn't maintain an embassy in Taiwan (in order to maintain diplomatic relations with China), but it does operates a consulate there to take care of its overseas citizens. For an interesting online look at another prickly diplomatic relation, check out the U.S. Embassy in Malaysia, which features a reaction statement to the recent incarceration of Malaysia's former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

You may recall the famous photograph from 1975 of American citizens ostensibly fleeing the American embassy in Saigon. The building was in fact an apartment complex across the street, but the message was clear: once the embassy leaves, the country symbolically leaves.

Now you want to talk common sence? If this was a cordinated attack as large as many would have you believe, 8 guy's with M16 would have been overrun in the first minuets. They held long enough for the CIA to arrive and evac all but Stevens. Had it been a hard core terror group, they would have most likely taken Stevens body. Instead they left it and left the compound and locals took Steven to a local hospital. The CIA safe house/fall back location 1 experienced sporadic small arm's, rocket, and mortar fire. Had that been a sustained attack, the frigging building would have collapsed under 7 hours of mortar and rocket fire. The "Safe house" Building is a residential property taken over by the CIA, not a reinforced military position. The drone in question was described as a predator that arrived in the final hour of the attack, which by that time, the CIA had said died down enough for them to evacuate to the airport. But it was also described as unarmed surveillance again by CIA.
Jety, my whole point is I have found a number of statments that have been made that are flat out false. More of them by the committee members than anyone else. Like Chaffetz clasified photo, well there's nothing clasified about it. The committee did manage to make a list of CIA assetts working in Benghazi public.
And yeah money is a huge part of problem here when you understand that US consulate security are not US military personell. They're payed security guards. Some local natives some Americans. But all of em collect a paycheck.
Trust me on this one bud, They're not adjourning this hearing because they're afraid it'll make OB look bad so what else is there?

[swordfish]

Id vote for the one to take that money and fold it into programs that need it, such as community outreach, or straight up to pay down our debt if only by a couple billion... Sad, how much they spend in that and I am suffering over 20 bucks to get some gas in my tank to go fishing...

-swordfish

[Green Tide]

I hear ya swordfish. The majority is probably on media, so the people in that field are making the money that will carry them over tothe next election. I know a guy that works making the bandit style roadside signs and they are wide open along with all the other methods used. It is a huge boost to them.
It would probably be a good choice for a start up to maybe work part time at home and then fill in the gap during election cycles. In other words you loose your butt on paper every other year, until the next major election.

Rob that was a great site. No searching and reading. Just easy readable data as soon as you get there.

[crashmister]

Looks like pugs are writing off the white house for the senate right now. Last week and this week almost all the ad buy's are in senate races.
John, your idea about a small business is spot on. I have a friend, Greg Kaplan who started out selling fireworks about 18 years ago. After a couple of years he started selling Christmas trees, he just kept picking up on other holidays to the point now he sells stuff for all the major holidays in about 12 locations just over the IL / IN border. Guy's worth millions. He's so close to the IL border where fire works are illegal, most of his customer base is from IL. A good seasonal business model can be a gold mine.

[CubanExpress]

Yeah, I'm sure the Democrats really wanted to hold off till after the election to drop this Republican bombshell.

[crashmister]

From the CNN time line.

October 27

Petraeus and Broadwell both attend the Office of Strategic Services Dinner in Washington. They do not sit together.

The FBI agent in Tampa who had been approached by Kelley reaches out to office of Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Washington, to express concern about lack of progress in investigation. Reichert contacts House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, according to a spokesman for the congressman. Doug Heye says Cantor had a conversation with the official, described as a whistle-blower, about the affair and subsequently his chief of staff notified FBI Director Muller.

No question what they knew and when. But then there's this,


News
WASHINGTON -- The pivotal role of the Central Intelligence Agency in the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, last month burst into the public spotlight late on Thursday, after a series of news reports added another layer of complication to a controversy that has loomed over the final days of the presidential election.

Several of the articles -- the product of a background briefing by American intelligence officials, the first official acknowledgement of the extent of the CIA's role -- laid out a detailed timeline of the CIA's actions on the ground during the attack.

The attack on Sept. 11 against the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi by an armed Islamic militant group ultimately left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. CIA operatives were at the compound within 25 minutes of the assault, and played a major role in helping fight off the attack over the next several hours, the intelligence officials told reporters. Two operatives would later die in the fighting that night.

The fact that the CIA had a facility at the compound in Benghazi had been an open secret for weeks, although its central role was not fully acknowledged.

A Fox News report last Friday had alleged that several operators at an agency annex had been denied help from their CIA higher-ups during the fighting, something the CIA denies, and there had even been indelicate hints of secret components to the Benghazi compound during an open hearing on Capitol Hill back in mid-October.

A U.S. official familiar with the Benghazi intelligence, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed to HuffPost that the CIA had an extensive presence in Benghazi, and that the two former Navy SEALs who died in the assault, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were contractors working for the agency.

According to documents released by the House Oversight Committee, when the Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy signed an order last December to maintain a presence in the Benghazi compound for another year, his official memo counted 35 "U.S. government personnel," of whom only eight were State Department. Many of the rest were secretly with the CIA, the official confirmed.

The U.S. official noted that at no point in the October congressional hearing did any of the State Department officials testifying use the word "consulate" to describe the Benghazi compound. This was no accident. In fact, the compound served little routine diplomatic purpose, and was largely under the operational control of the CIA.

Republicans and conservative media outlets, particularly Fox News, have repeatedly faulted the Obama administration, and in particular the State Department, for its immediate handling of the crisis, and for its incomplete and sometimes inaccurate description of events after the attacks in Benghazi.

Some, like Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), have alternated between publicly urging the release of more information and cautioning against the risk of revealing government secrets. During the October congressional hearing, Chaffetz had halted the testimony of a State Department official when she brought up the annex, out of concerns that her remarks might "deal with sources and methods that would be totally inappropriate in an open forum such as this."

"Sources and methods" is widely understood to be a term that refers to intelligence operations.

The involvement of the CIA may help explain, if not quite justify, some of the evident disarray around the administration's handling of the attacks, former agency officials told HuffPost. When secret agencies are involved, and especially when they are as pivotal as they were in Benghazi, public explanations can be treacherous, and officials will go out of their way to avoid exposing the agency's role, especially if the operations could be ongoing.

"The CIA can't admit their role because it compromises the cover of the facility, and that's the most important thing," said Bob Baer, who spent two decades as a field officer in the CIA. "You can never compromise cover."

It's not a perfect explanation. The Obama White House has shown a willingness to part with sensitive information in the past when it suits them, most notably in the aftermath of the Osama bin Laden raid. Before that raid, the very existence of a top unit of Navy SEALS known as Team Six, or the Devgru, had been considered an unmentionable secret.

And the prominent involvement of the CIA in Benghazi raises as many questions as it resolves, including why there was so little intelligence ahead of the attack, and insufficient manpower to protect against it.

But there were other potentially mitigating consequences of the CIA's significant involvement in the facility, the U.S. official told HuffPost. For one thing, according to an in-depth investigation by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, it was partly confusion over who had ultimate responsibility for security at the compound, particularly in an emergency situation like the September attack, that contributed to the disarray during the response.

"State Department officials believed that responsibility was set to be shouldered in part by CIA personnel in the city through a series of secret agreements that even some officials in Washington didn't know about," the Journal wrote.

The Journal's report placed the blame for many of the missteps in Benghazi specifically on CIA director David Petraeus, who was described as aloof in the weeks after that episode. Petraeus was faulted for failing to attend the funeral of the two former Navy SEALS, both identified as CIA contractors, who died during the attack, and for later attending a screening of the spy-thriller "Argo" amid sensitive internal deliberations.

A senior intelligence official disputed this characterization to the Journal, calling Petraeus "fully engaged from the start."

The U.S. official told HuffPost that a two-day delay in publicly identifying Woods and Doherty was a consequence of the unique sensitivity of determining whether they would be outed as CIA agents, or if the State Department would claim the two as theirs.

Both Woods and Doherty were ultimately identified vaguely as Embassy "security officers."

And, according to the Journal, part of the reason for an extensive hold-up in securing the main diplomatic compound -- where many papers belonging to Ambassador Stevens were later recovered by reporters -- was because resources had been redirected to secure the CIA annexes.

Paul Pillar, a Georgetown University professor and 28-year CIA veteran, told HuffPost that a bigger problem for making sense of the early hours and days of the attack was "the understandably fragmentary and inconclusive nature of early reporting when anything like this happens."

"That would have been the case regardless of which specific agencies were involved on the ground in Benghazi," he added. But the "direct involvement of an intelligence agency on the ground can be an added matter of delicacy in making public statements about a situation."

Kinda what I've been saying all along. Pretty much say's why the hearing's went classified. Also explains why CIA stuck to the protest story. Still don't explain why that assesment wasn't questioned, but with 28 other city's across the Middle East in turmoil over it (Video), I can understand it.

[crashmister]

Not to mention, I seem to recall another lady named Rice who was at the time National security advisor, and who's CIA provided bad intel of WMD's that didn't exist that got us into a war with Iraq which cost 4000+ american lives, 10's if not 100's of thousands of Iraqui lives and about 3 trillion dollars we really didn't have. And she later became Secretary of state. Then, Susan Rice, the UN ambassador makes several public statments about Benghazi based on CIA intel and exactly the same people who defended Condi Rice, want Susan Rices's resignation for having nothing more to do with Benghazi then stating exactly what the CIA reports said. But it's not political. Seriously?

[CubanExpress]

[CubanExpress]

The Petraeus affair: A lot more than sex
November 14, 2012


(CNN) -- Unlike many stories about powerful Washington figures having secret affairs, the downfall of spy chief David Petraeus goes beyond sex.

The scandal surrounding the decorated four-star Army general who once ran the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan involves questions of national security, politics and even the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

Petraeus, 60, resigned Friday after acknowledging he had an affair with a woman later identified as his biographer, Paula Broadwell, 40, a fellow West Point graduate who spent months studying the general's leadership of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

FBI agents were at Broadwell's Charlotte, North Carolina, home late Monday, said local FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch. She declined to say what the agents were doing there.

Video from CNN affiliate WCNC showed a handful of people getting out of vehicles, carrying boxes and bags into the house. None spoke to reporters, even when asked who they were.

Timeline of the Petraeus affair

Days after Petraeus' resignation stunned Washington, information continues to emerge. Among other things, a video has surfaced of a speech by Petraeus' paramour in which she suggested the Libya attack was targeting a secret prison at the Benghazi consulate annex, raising unverified concerns about possible security leaks.

The affair came to light during an FBI investigation of "jealous" e-mails reportedly sent by Broadwell to a woman named Jill Kelley, a government source familiar with the investigation told CNN on Monday.

Kelley, 37, and her husband Scott released a statement saying they have been friends with Petraeus and his family for more than five years and asked for privacy.

Although Kelley lives in Tampa, Florida, she's known as a member of Washington's social circuit, according to the government source. The source has not spoken to Kelley, but says friends describe her as feeling like she is an "innocent victim."

Petraeus has denied having an affair with anyone other than Broadwell, according to a friend of the former general who has spoken with him since news of the affair broke.

The scandal also is rumbling through the halls of Congress, where leaders in both parties are seeking answers about the FBI investigation and there's much speculation about the impact Petraeus' resignation will have into the inquiry into the Benghazi attack.

Petraeus was scheduled to testify on the attack and the government's reaction to it this week.

King: Petraeus' resignation doesn't preclude testimony

Here's a look at the major threads of this still-unfolding story:

Why does it matter? Security and Benghazi

While affairs may be commonplace in Washington, when they involve the director of the CIA, things can take on a different tone.

Analysts say there is no evidence that a security breach occurred as a result of the affair, but that hasn't stopped discussion that Broadwell could have gained access to classified information as a result of what she has routinely described as "unprecedented access" to Petraeus.

That discussion seemed to gain momentum Monday thanks to comments Broadwell made in a speech last month at the University of Denver.

Is Petraeus pillow talk a security threat?

"I don't know if a lot of you have heard this, but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to get these prisoners back," Broadwell said.

A senior intelligence official told CNN on Monday, "These detention claims are categorically not true. Nobody was ever held at the annex before, during, or after the attacks."

Broadwell's source for that previously unpublished bit of information remains unclear, and there's no evidence so far that it came from Petraeus. Administration officials have said the Benghazi assault was a terrorist attack.

The New York Times also reported Sunday that investigators found classified documents on Broadwell's laptop computer. The newspaper cited investigators as saying Petraeus denied he had given them to her.

Retired Gen. James "Spider" Marks, for whom Broadwell once worked and who knows Petraeus, said he doubts security protocols were breached despite what seems an unlikely indiscretion on the part of Petraeus.

"There's almost zero percent chance that national security was compromised or at risk," he said Monday.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said an extramarital affair by a CIA officer is not automatically considered a security violation.

"It depends on the circumstances," the official said.

The official also said Broadwell did not have a security clearance from the CIA.

Another official said Broadwell, who is an officer in the Army reserve, did have some kind of security clearance and that there are no issues with Broadwell having unauthorized access to classified information.

Petraeus' resignation also presents challenges to the congressional inquiry into the Benghazi attack.

CNN has confirmed that Petraeus recently traveled to Libya to meet the CIA station chief to discuss the attack. He was scheduled to testify before a congressional committee this week on the assault and the U.S. government response to it.

Will national security scandal create national security risk?

That now will not happen, but it is possible that he could be summoned by Congress to testify later.

Some Republicans have criticized the administration's response to the Benghazi attack and have speculated that Petraeus' departure was linked to the congressional inquiry.

Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said elements of the story "don't add up." He called Petraeus "an absolutely essential witness, maybe more than anybody else."

However, a senior U.S. official said Petraeus' departure wasn't connected to the Benghazi hearing.

"Director Petraeus' frank and forthright letter of resignation stands on its own," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "Any suggestion that his departure has anything to do with criticism about Benghazi is completely baseless."

Who's who in the Petraeus scandal

The investigation

Congressional leaders are calling for an explanation of why they weren't notified sooner of the FBI's inquiry when it became clear Petraeus was involved.

Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are expected to meet Wednesday with acting CIA Director Mike Morell and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce to discuss the Petraeus investigation and congressional oversight.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday" that she would "absolutely" push for answers.

"I mean, this is something that could have had an effect on national security," she said. "I think we should have been told. There is a way to do it. And that is, just to inform the chair and the vice chairman of both committees, to -- this has happened before, not with precise, same things, but, none of the four of us have ever breached that confidentiality."

On Monday, Feinstein told NBC that her concern about the situation "has actually escalated the last few days."

"...A decision was made somewhere not to brief us, which is atypical," Feinstein said. "This is certainly an operationally sensitive matter. But we weren't briefed. I don't know who made that decision."

The FBI investigation began when Kelley went to FBI officials to complain that Broadwell was sending harassing e-mails to her, a U.S. official told CNN. Kelley received the worrisome e-mails in May, an official said, describing the messages as along the lines of "stay away from my guy," but not explicitly threatening.

Opinion: How Petraeus changed the U.S. military

According to a source with knowledge of the e-mails, the messages accused Kelley of untoward behavior with some generals at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida where Kelley did volunteer work.

The e-mails detailed the "comings and goings of the generals and Ms. Kelley," said the source, who declined to speak on the record because of sensitivity of the investigation.

Among those believed to be referenced in the e-mails was Petreaus. Because parts of Petreaus' schedule were not public, the e-mails raised questions about whether the sender of the e-mails had access to his private schedule or other sensitive information.

The content of the e-mails was first reported by NBC News.

At one point, Petraeus told Broadwell to stop sending the e-mails, a U.S. official said. It was not clear whether his request was made during or after his affair with Broadwell.

During the investigation, other communications surfaced between Petraeus and Broadwell, a married mother of two, according to a U.S. official.

Petraeus used a personal account to e-mail Broadwell, not his CIA account, a U.S. official said.

The FBI interviewed Petraeus, said the official, who stressed that the CIA director was never the target of the investigation and his communications were never compromised.

Broadwell was interviewed twice by the FBI, a U.S. official said.

The official said the investigation is not officially closed, but it appeared there will be no charges.

According to a congressional aide familiar with the matter, the House and Senate intelligence committees weren't informed that there was an FBI investigation into the situation until Friday.

Opinion: 5 things we've learned from Petraeus scandal

"The committees are required to be kept informed of significant intelligence activities," the aide said Saturday. "If there was an official investigation that was looking, at least in part, at information that was compromising the CIA director, then I think there's a solid argument to say that the committee leadership should have been notified to at least some level of detail."

But former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes told CNN on Monday that if, as the investigation progresses, the FBI is not "uncovering criminal activity" or a "breach of security" then "there really isn't a need" to notify members of Congress.

The FBI has "very strict protocols" about who should be notified in this type of investigation, Fuentes said.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, knew in October about Petraeus' involvement in an extramarital affair, a spokesman for the congressman told CNN on Sunday.

Doug Heye said Cantor was tipped to the information by an FBI employee. The congressman had a conversation with the official, described as a whistle-blower, about the affair and national security concerns involved in the matter, he said.

The affair

Broadwell and Petraeus first met in 2006 at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where she was a student, Broadwell wrote in the preface of the biography she co-authored on Petraeus.

She told him about her interest in studying military leadership, and he offered his help.

"I later discovered that he was famous for this type of mentoring and networking, especially with aspiring soldier-scholars," Broadwell wrote.

She traveled to Afghanistan, where she interviewed Petraeus repeatedly, sometimes on long runs that likely increased the general's respect for her.

"She probably kicked his butt," Marks said. "And it was probably the first time that had ever happened to him, so he let his guard down. He brought her in."

Such runs were a common way for Petraeus to conduct business, an adviser who worked on and off in Afghanistan with Petraeus and Broadwell told CNN. Still, some staffers were jealous of the access she had to him and the lengthy interactions they had, the adviser said.

Out of those conversations and months of other research came the best-selling book "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus."

In promoting the book, and defending it against critics who said it was too sympathetic, she frequently spoke of her unprecedented access to the general and glowingly of his character.

"I'm not a spokesperson for him, and if showing a role model to other people in the world or other readers is a repugnant thing, then I'm sorry, but I think the values that he upholds and tries to instill in his organizations are valuable and worth pointing out," she told CNN in February.

The actual affair began about two months after Petraeus took over at the CIA in September 2011, according to one Petraeus friend.

It ended about four months ago, and the two last talked about a month ago, the friend said.

The decision to end the relationship was mutual, the friend said.

Another of the former general's friends said Petraeus felt isolated after leaving the camaraderie of the military, and it made him more vulnerable.

"I think leaving the Army, the emotions, and the psychological effect impacted on him more than he thought it would," the friend said.

Broadwell, with her background in military and intelligence issues, was someone he could talk to, the friend said.

"He enjoyed her company," the friend said. "She was an attractive gal and they had things in common."

According to her biography at the University of Denver, Broadwell graduated with honors from the U.S. Military Academy and has had "assignments with the U.S. intelligence community, U.S. Special Operations Command and an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force."

She is a now a doctoral student at King's College in London, where her webpage indicates she is interested in studying military leadership, organizational and management theories and U.S. foreign, defense and intelligence policies.

CNN has not been able to contact Broadwell for comment. Her house in Charlotte did not appear occupied Monday.

Former Petraeus spokesman Steve Boylan said the retired general is devastated by the incident, and focused on his family.

"Furious would be an understatement," to describe Petraeus' wife, he said.

"He's taking this hard," Boylan said. "He is aware of the impact this has had on his family, and he knows what a wonderful family he has. On a personal level, he sees this as a failure, and this is a man who has never failed at anything."

[crashmister]

So one must ask, why didn't Cantor mention this to the house intelligence or security committee chairmen? It's not like he had to reach across the isle, their both in his party. Is Cantor going to testify as to what he knew and when he knew it?
What do ya bet after all is said and done we get the "No evidence of wrongdoing" line?
The thing that stuck out from my point of view was the statment made by Nordstrom last Feb. about the Benghazi compound, "While the status of Benghazi remains undefined" DS” – Diplomatic Security – “is hesitant to devout (sic) resources and as I indicated previously, this has severely hampered operations in Benghazi.
This pretty much say's this was not a state department compound but a CIA compound. If as I believe based on these and other statments made By Chaffetz, this was a CIA compound and not a "consulate" as some described, And not one member of congress at the Issa hearing refered to it as a consulate, only as a compound, it would certainly explain why both hearings are now classified, and why the intel CIA provided after the attack was inaccurate, or as I like to call it, FALSE
I'm also wondering what new revelations they expect to get from Petraeus? He's already testified once. "General, did you practice safe sex?"

[crashmister]

Just read this.

WASHINGTON — Ex-CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers during private hearings Friday that he believed all along that the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya was a terrorist strike, even though that wasn't how the Obama administration initially described it publicly.

The retired general addressed the House Intelligence Committee in his first Capitol Hill testimony since resigning last week over an extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, but he did not discuss that scandal except to express regret about the circumstances of his departure.

Lawmakers said Petraeus testified that the CIA's talking points written in response to the assault on the diplomat post in Benghazi that killed four Americans referred to it as a terrorist attack. But Petraeus told the lawmakers it was removed by other federal agencies who made changes to the CIA's draft.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said Petraeus said he did not know who removed the reference to terrorism. King said to this day it's still not clear how the final talking points emerged that were used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice five days after the attack when the White House sent her to appear in a series of television interviews. Rice said it appeared the attack was sparked by a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muslim video.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Petraeus disputed Republican suggestions that the White House misled the public on what led to the violence in the midst of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

"There was an interagency process to draft it, not a political process," Schiff said after the hearing. "They came up with the best assessment without compromising classified information or source or methods. So changes were made to protect classified information.

"The general was adamant there was no politicization of the process, no White House interference or political agenda," Schiff said. "He completely debunked that idea."

Schiff said Petraeus said Rice's comments in the television interviews "reflected the best intelligence at the time that could be released publicly."

[CubanExpress]

Oh, that's juicy. I wonder which federal agencies made the changes to the CIA's draft?

The plot thickens...

[crashmister]

After the hearing the press was interviewing McCain who said it was clearly an intelligence failure. When asked if he thought he owed Rice an apology, he gave the reporter a world class dirty look and walked away.
Pretty obvious why everything was classified and edited by the intelligence community, they even eluded to it right after the attack if memory serves, like when the Issa hearing made public the list of Libyan national's working with the CIA in Benghazi. Also pretty clear they knew who did what and when because both the senate and congressional intelligence committee's were briefed on the classified reports in the day's and weeks after the attack. While Rice got the unclassified talking points, they got the classified report naming militant groups Ansar al-Shariah and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb but that those names were replaced with the word "extremist" in the final draft Rice quoted.
All that said, I have to ask, why was Jason Chaffetz co chair in a hearing that he himself already knew fact's of? He knew exactly what happened and why it was being kept secret, But went ahead and held a hearing that eventually outed classified CIA assets and information.