Filed by KOSU News in US News.
November 16, 2012

The doors will be closed so the nation won’t be able to watch. But one week after his scandal-tinged resignation, former CIA Director David Petraeus is today fielding questions from members of both the House and Senate intelligence committees.

He’s due to meet with the House panel this hour and with the senators at 9 a.m. ET.

The extramarital affair that brought down Petraeus is not the primary topic of the day, however.

As NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston said on Morning Edition, the lawmakers want to hear from Petraeus about why security was apparently lax at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where the ambassador and three other Americans were killed on Sept. 11. And they want to know why some Obama administration officials said in the days just after the attack that it might have been inspired by outrage over an anti-Muslim video produced in California, when there was also evidence that the attackers were connected to terrorist groups.

On that point about what administration officials were saying about the attack, CBS News reports it “has obtained the CIA talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Sept. 15 regarding the fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, four days earlier. CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan says the talking points, which were also given to members of the House intelligence committee, make no reference to terrorism being a likely factor in the assault, which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.”

Petraeus, who went to Libya following the attack, will surely be asked about what the CIA knew and what it told administration officials.

We’ll watch for news from Petraeus’s appearances. But, again, they’re going to be behind closed doors. So reports will be somewhat second-hand. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]