Report: CIA 'officials' behind Benghazi talking points

• White House insisted the 9/11 attack arose from a protest against an anti-Islam film
• CIA changed its attack assessment after a station chief insisted there was no protest
• A published report says intel officials were "surprised" by Ambassador Rice's comments

A Republican lawmaker says a new report that details how references to al-Qaeda were removed from White House talking points on the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi is further evidence the Obama administration tried to mislead the public about what happened.

"There appears to be a concerted effort to mislead the American people," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. "At this point the Obama administration has been elusive at best and misleading at worse."

Chaffetz was responding to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal that CIA "officials" wanted the terrorist origins of the attack kept from the public because the spy agency did not want certain al-Qaeda operatives to know it was monitoring its communications.

The report cites "sources from a cross section of agencies" with knowledge of the investigation, and it comes as House Republicans introduced a resolution Tuesday to set up a Watergate-style investigative committee to probe the attack and the way it was handled by the Obama administration.

The White House insisted for days after the Sept. 11 attack that it arose from a protest against an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. On Sept. 16, Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appeared on five Sunday news shows to say that the assault was a "spontaneous protest" prompted by a "hateful video," not a terror attack.

"Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo," Rice told ABC.

Shawn Turner, director of public affairs for the Office of National Intelligence, told USA TODAY Tuesday: "Ambassador Rice was speaking based on unclassified talking points provided by the intelligence community."

The Journal said that military and intelligence officials who were familiar with the classified intelligence but weren't involved in the talking-points debate were "surprised" by Rice's comments.

"They questioned why officials like her didn't state the clear belief within intelligence circles that al-Qaeda's North African affiliate was involved in the attack, and they saw the administration's decision not to point to al-Qaeda as a reluctance to talk about the attack as terrorism," the Journal said.

The White House through a spokeswoman at the State Department, Erin Pelton, said Rice's comments "were consistent with the intelligence community's assessment at the time."

But congressional officials told the Journal that Rice told lawmakers that she didn't "freelance" and mention al-Qaeda by name during her television appearances because doing so would have ventured into information that was still classified.

"I think it was pretty clear that night al-Qaeda was involved," Chaffetz said.

On Nov. 27, when Rice met with senators on Capitol Hill to smooth things over, she told them the Obama administration relayed to the public what it knew of the attack as intelligence evolved, the Journal said.

However, the CIA officially changed its assessment of the Benghazi attack on Sept. 20, the day after the CIA station chief in Tripoli insisted that no protest happened. Yet it was not until Oct. 11 that the Obama administration went public with the accurate assessment, four weeks after the attack.

The new report also raised questions about the role of former CIA chief David Petraeus.

Rep. Peter King said Petraeus testified Nov. 16 that he knew the day after the attack al-Qaeda was involved and that he approved a report to be sent to the White House stating that viewpoint. Petraeus said he didn't know who removed that from the assessment or why.

"These stories are inconsistent at best," Chaffetz said.

Acting CIA Director Michael Morell also appeared not to know who edited out the reference to terrorists. He met with the senators along with Rice on Nov. 27 and said the FBI had asked that the reference to terrorists be removed from the White House talking points. The CIA stated hours later that Morell "misspoke."

Rice's statements on Sept. 16 were "inexcusable" because she knew they were untrue, says Marc Thiessen, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Having access to classified information doesn't give you the right to lie," said Thiessen, a speechwriter to former president George W. Bush. "If the classified brief said no protest and the talking points said there was, then she lied."

Administration officials' contention in Tuesday's report that they didn't want to tip off terrorists that they were being monitored doesn't makes sense because there's been no U.S. retaliation for the attack, Thiessen said.

"It sends a signal of weakness, that you can attack and kill an American ambassador and pay no price," he said.

House Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., introduced the resolution that would create a "select committee" to investigate the attack and the administration's response. The resolution has 14 co-sponsors.