Sources: Office of the DNI cut "al Qaeda" reference from Benghazi talking points, and CIA, FBI signed off 
 
 (CBS News) WASHINGTON - CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack - with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes. 
 
 There has been considerable discussion about who made the changes to the talking points that Rice stuck to in her television appearances on Sept. 16 (video), five days after the attack that killed American Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals. 
 
 Republicans have accused her of making misleading statements by referring to the assault as a "spontaneous" demonstration by extremists. Some have suggested she used the terminology she did for political reasons. 
 
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 However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too "tenuous" to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information -- the reference to al Qaeda -- in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers. 
 
 "The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level -- which Rice, as a member of President Obama's cabinet, would have been privy to. 
 
 An intelligence source says the talking points were passed from the CIA to the DNI, where the substantive edits were made, and then to FBI, which made more edits as part of "standard procedure." 
 
 Timeline: How Benghazi attack, probe unfolded 
 
 The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He ultimately did review the points, before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 14. They were compiled the day before. 
 
 Brennan says her source wouldn't confirm who in the agency suggested the final edits which were signed off on by all intelligence agencies. 
 
 Another source, a senior U.S. official familiar with the drafting of the talking points, tells CBS News the "controversy this word choice has caused came as a surprise." 
 
 "The points were not, as has been insinuated by some, edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack," the official tells CBS News, adding that there were "legitimate intelligence and legal issues to consider, as is almost always the case when explaining classified assessments publicly." 
 
 "Most people understand that saying 'extremists' were involved in a direct assault on the mission isn't shying away from the idea of terrorist involvement," added the official. "Because of the various elements involved in the attack, the term extremist was meant to capture the range of participants." 
 
 A spokeswoman for House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers suggested today that the DNI's explanation is different that what the committee was told behind closed doors last week. 
 
 "The statement released Monday evening by the DNI's spokesman regarding how the Intelligence Community's talking points were changed gives a new explanation that differs significantly from information provided in testimony to the Committee last week," House Intelligence Committee spokeswoman Susan Phalen told CBS News. "Chairman Rogers looks forward to discussing this new explanation with Director Clapper as soon as possible to understand how the DNI reached this conclusion and why leaders of the Intelligence Community testified late last week that they were unaware of who changed the talking points." 
 
 Several militant groups have been eyed as likely culprits, including the Islamic extremist militia Ansar al Sharia, which was based in Eastern Libya and enjoyed huge power in Benghazi before the attack. Gen. Carter Ham, chief of the U.S. Africa Command, said recently that there were "linkages" between al Qaeda and some of the people who attacked the consulate and the CIA annex about a mile away. 
 
 CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, himself a former Deputy Director of the DNI's analysis division, explained on "CBS This Morning" in the weeks after the Benghazi attack why it has been so difficult for American intelligence agents to clearly identify and label the suspects in the assault. ( 
 
 "We want a wiring diagram," Miller said. "We want an organized picture: 'It was al Qaeda who ordered it, it was Ansar al Sharia who carried it out, it was this group that assisted. The problem is, the lines have blurred between those groups and their members. Ansar al Sharias are popping up in places like Benghazi, but also in Yemen, also in Tunisia, in all these countries -- and they're not al Qaeda, but they are reading from the al Qaeda narrative and they are being influenced by people who are formerly influential extremists in al Qaeda." 
 
 "The actual truth is, the picture isn't that clear, but we can piece it together, and that's not satisfying to people who are used to saying, 'You can attach this attack to that group,'" said Miller. ||||| The Obama administration released 100 pages of emails Wednesday that reveal differences between intelligence analysts and State Department officials over how to describe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya. 
 
 The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the emails, which were provided to Congressional intelligence committees several months ago. 
 
 (Read the emails here.) 
 
 Since the assault that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Republicans have accused President Obama and his senior advisers of mischaracterizing the attack, largely to prevent political repercussions during what was then a close re-election campaign. 
 
 Much of the Republican concern has focused on whether administration officials acknowledged early enough that an Islamist terrorist organization was behind the attack, rather than groups of demonstrators participating in anti-American protests outside many U.S. diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa. 
 
 According to the emails and initial CIA-drafted talking points, the agency believed the attack included a mix of Islamist extremists from Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaeda affiliated group, and angry demonstrators. 
 
 White House officials did not challenge that analysis, the emails show. 
 
 But CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell later removed the reference to Ansar al-Sharia because, senior administration officials said, the assessment was still classified and because FBI officials believed making the information public could compromise their investigation. 
 
 Senior administration officials said Wednesday the emails capture what is a fairly routine conversation between agencies over how to talk about a major event. What was most challenging in this case, senior administration officials said, was doing so within days of the attack as intelligence agencies working in a volatile environment were trying to piece together what happened and who had carried it out. 
 
 The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence requested the talking points during a Sept. 14 briefing with then-CIA Director David H. Petraeus. The request set off the internal discussion over how much information could be revealed by members of Congress in the days ahead -- and by administration officials. 
 
 U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who did not participate in the email exchanges directly, appeared on a series of Sunday shows two days after the Petraeus briefing. The talking points she delivered emerged from the email discussion revealed Wednesday, and eventually cost her the nomination for Secretary of State amid Republican criticism that she intentionally misrepresented the attack. 
 
 The talking points, which were edited a dozen times between Sept. 14 and 15, also show that the source of the debate between the CIA and the State Department was whether previous agency warnings of attacks in the Benghazi area should be included in public statements. 
 
 The two agencies had the most at stake in the Benghazi aftermath. The attacks targeted a State Department post and a CIA site, where a U.S.-effort to disarm Libya’s militia in the area was centered. Virtually no Americans were in the diplomatic post, only at the CIA site where the agency was responsible for security. 
 
 Senior administration officials said Wednesday that Morrell, who took the lead in editing the talking points drafted by the CIA’s director of of the Office of Terrorism Analysis, agreed with State Department concerns over including the warnings. 
 
 But Petraeus, Morrell’s boss at the time, appeared to have reservations about not including the warnings, which would have made the CIA look prescient at the State Department’s expense. 
 
 “I spoke to the Director earlier about State’s deep concerns about mentioning the warnings and the other work done on this,” Morrell wrote to an official in the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs and Office of Legislative Affairs in the early afternoon of Sept. 15, referring to Petraeus. “But you will want to reemphasize in your note to DCIA.” 
 
 About two hours later, Petraeus responds to an email with the final talking points form the Office of Legislative Affairs. 
 
 “Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this,” Petraeus wrote. “”NSS’s call, to be sure; however, this is certainly not what Vice Chairman Ruppersberger was hoping to get for unclass use.” 
 
 In the email, Petraeus is using the acronym for the National Security Council staff and is referring to Rep. Charles Albert “Dutch” Ruppersberger III (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House intelligence committee. 
 
 White House Benghazi Emails
– The Wall Street Journal today takes a look at the life and death of 94 little words: the heavily edited and ultimately faulty Benghazi talking points compiled by the CIA in the wake of the consulate attack. Just a day after the attack, the CIA's reports were already referencing al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb. The following day, David Petraeus appeared before House and Senate groups; he, too, mentioned the terrorists, and was asked to compile unclassified talking points that Congress could use. By noon on Sept. 14, a draft was circulating—and it referenced al-Qaeda. But an exhausting process of editing followed, with more than two dozen CIA officials weighing in on the copy over email—and battling about the inclusion of al-Qaeda. Those opposed argued it should be removed because the intel was shaky (sourced from intercepted phone calls) and over fears it could alert al-Qaeda members to the fact that they were being watched. The opponents won out, though the term "extremists" remained; the FBI agreed with the call. It also contained this line: "The demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo." On Sept. 15, the CIA station chief in Tripoli began to voice his concern with the assertions that the attack was both spontaneous and that demonstrations were occurring. He sent the CIA an email summarizing his thoughts the next day—but Susan Rice had already been hand-delivered the 94 fateful words the night before, so that she could prep for her news show appearances. Click for the Journal's full take, which charts the ultimate change in the CIA's assessment.