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Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said, "Gen. Petraeus as director of the CIA has been completely consistent."
Conrad, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that much of the confusion is due to the difference between classified and unclassified information.
"When people are talking in a classified setting, they can say much more than they can say in an unclassified setting," Conrad said.
The CIA talking points are a source of controversy because U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used them to describe the nature of the attack on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sept. 16. Republicans have attacked Rice, who is considered a possible nominee to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, for suggesting the attack was the result of spontaneous protests.
CBS News obtained the CIA talking points given both to Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 15, and they make no specific reference to "terrorism" being a likely factor in the assault. However, they did indicate that "extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."
Conrad said Rice "did completely the appropriate thing."
"She used the unclassified talking points that were signed off on by the entire intelligence community," Conrad said. "There are other things that are classified. That's a totally different subject."
;David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers on Friday that classified intelligence reports revealed that the deadly assault on the American diplomatic mission in Libya was a terrorist attack, but that the administration refrained from saying it suspected that the perpetrators of the attack were Al Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers to avoid tipping off the groups.
Mr. Petraeus, who resigned last week after admitting to an extramarital affair, said the names of groups suspected in the attack — including Al Qaeda’s franchise in North Africa and a local Libyan group, Ansar al-Shariah — were removed from the public explanation of the attack immediately after the assault to avoiding alerting the militants that American intelligence and law enforcement agencies were tracking them, lawmakers said.