Panetta and Petraeus differed in their assessment of the Benghazi attack. The initial intelligence reports provided to the president suggested that the attack in Benghazi was “the work of mob protesters rather than an organized assault.”
Petraeus, working with CIA analysts, had come to this conclusion and presented it in the White House situation room the day after the attack.
“I questioned it from the beginning,” Panetta writes, “not because I had different information, but because it seemed to me that most spontaneous demonstrators don’t arrive for a protest carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers.”
Petraeus “defended the theory of his analysts, however, arguing that there was so much weaponry floating around Libya that it was plausible in this instance.”
That theory was made into talking points for the House Intelligence Committee. “Although they weren’t intended for use by UN ambassador Susan Rice, she used them during several interviews she gave that weekend,” undercutting the claim by some, Panetta argues, that the talking points “were specifically written for Rice so she could ‘mislead’ the country,” he adds. “To the contrary, it was the working premise of CIA analysts as of that time.
That “intelligence is difficult and often contradictory,” he adds “should surprise nobody.”
