Washington (dpa) - Former CIA chief David Petraeus, who stepped
down last week over a sex scandal, testified Friday in Congress
behind closed doors about the terrorist attack on the US consulate in
Benghazi, Libya.
But his role in the aftermath of the September 11 attack that
killed US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other US officials
was the top of the agenda, even though the former NATO commander in
Afghanistan apologized to lawmakers about his affair with his
biographer Paula Broadwell, according to The New York Times.
According to legislators who spoke to US media after his
closed-door testimony, Petraeus said that the Obama administration at
first withheld their suspicions that al-Qaeda-linked groups had
carried out the attack in order not to tip off the attackers, the
Times reported.
Petraeus visited Tripoli after the attack in his role as
CIA director and interviewed many of the people that were involved,
which added pressure for Petraeus to testify even though he has
resigned from the CIA.
Republicans have blasted administration officials for taking more
than a week to declare the attack the work of terrorists. They have
focussed their fire on UN ambassador Susan Rice for going on talk
shows just days after the attack to insist that it arose
spontaneously in protest over a US-produced video that insulted
Muslims.
Senator Kent Conrad, a member of the Senate panel that grilled
Petraeus, said he was satisfied that Rice had conducted herself
properly, and according to the way she had been prepared by US
security officials. She had been coached with talking points that
blamed the attacks on the provocative video.
"She did entirely the responsible thing in answering questions
based on what was unclassified and agreed to by the entire
intelligence community as reflecting their unclassified views at the
moment that she used those talking points," Conrad said.
The talking points had been provided by the CIA and signed off by
the intelligence community, Senator Dianne Feinstein said. "I don't
think she should be pilloried for this," the senator said.
But Republicans said she should have been more careful to avoid
leaving the false impression that the offensive video was
responsible. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham
earlier this week called Rice untrustworthy and unqualified to be the
nation's top diplomat if Obama chooses her to succeed Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton is to testify in public in December after the series of
closed-door hearings over the coming weeks.
McCain has called for a Watergate-type joint committee of both
chambers to investigate the shortcomings of the administration of US
President Barack Obama in dealing with the attack and its aftermath.
In the Petraeus scandal, the CIA has opened its own preliminary
investigation into his extramarital affair and whether it posed a
security risk. FBI officials, who have been investigating for months,
have reportedly concluded that there was no such risk.
