AC360: Benghazi Talking Points vs. the Truth

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Late today, our national security producer, Pam Benson, was told that the original draft of the unclassified talking points to be sent to the intelligence committee did suggest that the Benghazi attack had links to Al Qaeda.

It was taken out, but the senior official with knowledge of this process says it was not taken out by the White House and it wasn’t a White House decision, but a joint interagency decision.

They decided to tone it down and they replaced it with the term extremists and the reason we are told that that was done was not political.

But because the al Qaeda link at the time was still tenuous and they wanted to also protect the source of that information because it was so fresh.

COOPER: As my memory serves, Susan Rice I think who was on “Face the Nation”, went on to say that the demonstrations, which were not demonstrations were hijacked by extremist groups.

She wasn’t sure if it was al Qaeda affiliated or Libyan extremists or who it was and it was still in the early days of the investigation.

Did Petraeus’ testimony today seem to clear up why Ambassador Rice went on the talk shows five days after the attacks and attributed the assault to a spontaneous protest that was hijacked?

BASH: I know this is going to shock you, but it cleared up confusion. The answer to that question is depends who you ask and it doesn’t change the minds of Republicans already arguing that Susan Rice is not qualified to be secretary of state.

But what did come out of the closed door briefings today that I thought was interesting was that Petraeus told lawmakers that the reason the talking points that Rice got did not mention the terrorists element.

He said this in the briefing today of what I just told you is that the al Qaeda affiliates wasn’t really clear that they were actually involved and more importantly, it was still classified and it could have compromised the intelligence sources at the time.