Petraeus: Some Parts of Susan Rice's "Presentation" Came From the White House, Not Intelligence, and Not Me

And other Things Which Would Have Been More Useful To Know Three Weeks Ago.

David Petraeus is going to tell members of Congress that he “knew almost immediately after the September 11th attack, that the group Ansar al Sharia, the al Qaeda sympathizing group in Libya was responsible for the attacks,” CNN reports.

In his closed door meeting on the Hill, “[Petraeus] will also say he had his own talking points separate from U.N. ambassador Susan Rice. [Hers] came from somewhere other in the administration than his direct talking points,” Barbara Starr of CNN reports, referencing a source close to Petraeus.

The former CIA director will move to further himself from comments that didn’t accurately characterize the terror attack that Rice made 5 days after on national television shows.

“When he looks at what Susan Rice said,” CNN reports, “here is what Petraeus’s take is, according to my source. Petraeus developed some talking points laying it all out. those talking points as always were approved by the intelligence community. But then he sees Susan Rice make her statements and he sees input from other areas of the administration. Petraeus — it is believed — will tell the committee he is not certain where Susan Rice got all of her information.”

Now, for weeks and weeks, we've been told that these Talking Points, as they're called, came directly from the "Intelligence Community."

Now a very high ranking member of that community says they didn't come from the IC at all, and thinks they came from the White House -- which was our strong suspicion before the Administration began telling the media this came from the IC.

The other thing he's claiming is that while he initially briefed Congressmen that there was some "evidence" for the Administration's story (the spontaneous protest), this was "disproved over time" -- in other words, "I didn't perjure myself, because even though what I said was wrong, I didn't know it was wrong when I said it."

But he's also claiming now that he new this was terrorism "almost immediately."

It appears he lied for Obama when it was critical that he lie for Obama. And now he's doing a Modified Limited Hang-Out, telling mostly the truth, while maintaining he also told the truth when he told a different account of the truth.

And I wonder why he'd do that.

posted by Ace at 10:47 AM

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