Five days after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice described what precipitated the deadly incident based on initial intelligence that later proved incorrect, the deputy CIA director told Congress on Thursday. 
 
 In a closed-door session with the House Intelligence committee, Mike Morell said Rice was provided with an unclassified version of events at the U.S. mission in Benghazi that left American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others dead, according to Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the panel. 
 
 The assessment concluded that a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muslim video had evolved into an attack on the American consulate, a description that Rice presented in television interviews the Sunday morning after the attack. 
 
 Schiff told reporters that he didn't think the intelligence community had politicized the information. "They gave us the best initial assessments, and those proved inaccurate, but they warned us those assessments were subject to change as they got more information," he said. 
 
 Rice's comments on national television have drawn fierce criticism, with some Senate Republicans promising to block her nomination if President Barack Obama taps her to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama angrily defended Rice on Wednesday at a White House news conference and called the complaints outrageous attempts to besmirch her reputation. 
 
 Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, said Rice "was given that same information we received from the administration through the intelligence community. And that's the information she testified to, end of story." 
 
 In one of her TV interviews, Rice said she was providing the "best information and the best assessment we have today." 
 
 "In fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. That what happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video," she said. "People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent. Those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya, and that then spun out of control." 
 
 That answer has drawn constant criticism from Republicans, who question why Rice failed to call the event a terrorist attack. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham said they would work to defeat Rice's selection if she is nominated to be the nation's top diplomat. Graham said Wednesday that he couldn't back anyone who is "up to their eyeballs in the Benghazi debacle." 
 
 Ruppersberger said the initial attack on the consulate was chaotic, with "a lot of people running around," while the second attack, on a CIA annex near the consulate, "seemed a lot more sophisticated," with the use of mortars, more clearly pointing to terrorist training and tactics. 
 
 Obama aides say the president's vigorous defense of Rice during the news conference should not be seen as a sign that he plans to nominate her for the top job at the State Department. Instead, they said it reflects a frustration within the administration that Rice, a longtime Obama adviser, is being unfairly targeted by Republican lawmakers. 
 
 Rice continues to have strong support within the White House as a candidate for the top post at the State Department. Democratic Sen. John Kerry and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, remains a leading contender as well. 
 
 Obama aides say the president hasn't made a decision on that job or others opening in his administration, and may not do so until after Thanksgiving. 
 
 In the meantime, several House and Senate committees are conducting hearings on the Libya attack, with the Senate Intelligence Committee meeting Thursday afternoon with Morell and other administration officials. The panels will hear from former CIA Director David Petraeus on Friday, one week after he resigned amid the revelation of an extramarital affair. 
 
 The lawmakers viewed video of the Benghazi attack that showed events in real time. They watched a composite of security video from the consulate and a surveillance feed taken by an unarmed CIA Predator drone. 
 
 "We saw a real-time film ... of exactly what happened," Democratic Senate Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein told reporters. She said there would be at least two more closed fact-finding hearings before lawmakers would conduct a public session to share what they had learned. 
 
 "We know mistakes were made and we've got to learn from that," Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the committee's ranking Republican, told reporters. 
 
 Clinton has agreed to appear before Congress to answer questions about the Benghazi attack. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Clinton will testify after an independent Accountability Review Board presents its findings. Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she expects the report's completion in December and that Clinton will appear at that time. 
 
 Toner said he could not say when the review board would complete its work, but other State Department officials have said it may not be finished until January, meaning that any Clinton appearance could be delayed. 
 
 McCain and Graham have called for the creation of a Watergate-style select committee to investigate the attack, but there is little interest in that step beyond a few Republican lawmakers. Both Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican House Speaker John Boehner said the existing congressional committees should handle the work. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Donna Cassata contributed to this report. ||||| A State Department official told Congress that his plea for troops to help defend the besieged U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, was rejected and that he knew all along that terrorists were behind the attacks. 
 
 Gregory Hicks, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat in Libya at the time of the attack, said he was told special forces troops that wanted to board a Libyan cargo plane heading to Benghazi were ordered not to go during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2012, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. 
 
 Today’s hearing revived efforts by Republicans to show the Obama administration didn’t provide enough security to U.S. diplomats in Libya before the attacks, failed to respond militarily during it and engaged in what Representative Darrell Issa, the committee’s chairman, has called a cover-up afterward to hide the role of terrorists linked to al-Qaeda. 
 
 Obama administration officials have rejected all of those characterizations, and Democrats have said Republicans are trying to exploit a tragedy for political gain. 
 
 “What should have been a bipartisan investigation involving our national security was another sorry example of Republicans promising explosive new facts but delivering only a press spectacle,” Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said in a statement. 
 
 Review Board 
 
 Issa of California said today that leaders of a review board appointed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- Thomas Pickering, a former undersecretary of state, and retired Admiral Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- refused to testify before the panel and that the Obama administration hasn’t cooperated. 
 
 Pickering disputed that, saying in an interview on MSNBC today: “I’m willing to testify. I made that clear yesterday. The White House, I understand, made that clear to Mr. Issa. He declined.” 
 
 Hicks said in his testimony that he was stunned when Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the attack on national television days later as growing out of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islamic video that sparked demonstrations in Egypt and elsewhere. 
 
 “My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed,” Hicks said. adding later, “The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya.” 
 
 The administration later corrected the “talking points” that Rice had used, acknowledging that there was no demonstration and that militant groups staged the assault. 
 
 Recounting the events of Sept. 11, Hicks said he called Stevens in Tripoli and the ambassador said, “‘Greg, we’re under attack.” 
 
 Hicks said a call later informing him Stevens was dead was “the saddest phone call in my life.” 
 
 Scaring Attackers 
 
 Hicks said he tried in vain to get fighter jets to fly over Benghazi in an effort to scare off the attackers. He also said four U.S. special forces troops were ordered not to board a Libyan military transport plane that flew to Benghazi from Tripoli in the hours after the attack. 
 
 “We wanted to send further reinforcements to Benghazi,” Hicks said. “People in Benghazi had been fighting all night. They were tired. They were exhausted. We wanted to make sure the airport was secure for their withdrawal.” 
 
 Pentagon spokesman George Little said today the four-man unit was ordered to remain in Tripoli because the mission in Benghazi had already shifted to evacuation. 
 
 “We continue to believe that there was nothing this team could have done to assist during the second attack in Benghazi on Sept. 11,” Little told reporters at the Pentagon. “The team remained in Tripoli and performed admirably.” 
 
 Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified last year that while troops were mobilized to prepare a response, the military assets weren’t close enough to reach Benghazi in time. He said the Pentagon “spared no expense to save American lives.” 
 
 Leadership’s Role 
 
 Eric Nordstrom, who served as the regional security officer at the Tripoli embassy last year, said in written testimony that the Accountability Review Board appointed by Clinton chose to “ignore the role senior department leadership played before, during and after the 11 September attack.” 
 
 The review board found that the State Department showed “a lack of proactive leadership and management ability,” although the panel didn’t formally interview Clinton and no government employees were found to have violated their duties. One resigned and three others were relieved of certain duties. None were fired. 
 
 Nordstrom told a congressional committee in October that he was turned down by the department when he requested extension of a 16-member security support team that was scheduled to leave Tripoli in August. Clinton has testified she never was informed of the request. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net ||||| WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s shifting accounts of the fatal attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, have left President Obama suddenly exposed on national security and foreign policy, a field where he had enjoyed a seemingly unassailable advantage over Mitt Romney in the presidential race. 
 
 After first describing the attack as a spontaneous demonstration run amok, administration officials now describe it as a terrorist act with possible involvement by Al Qaeda. The changing accounts prompted the spokesman for the nation’s top intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., to issue a statement on Friday acknowledging that American intelligence agencies “revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.” 
 
 The unusual statement was not solicited by the White House, according to Shawn Turner, the spokesman for Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, but it seemed calculated to relieve some of the pressure on the White House for the contradictory accounts given in the two and a half weeks since the attack. It is unlikely to stop questions from the Romney campaign, which senses an opportunity. 
 
 “This incident is a hinge event in the campaign because it opens up the opportunity to talk more broadly about Obama’s foreign policy,” said Richard S. Williamson, a former diplomat and an adviser to Mr. Romney. 
 
 But the questions are likely to come not just from partisan Republicans. The Benghazi attack calls into question the accuracy of intelligence-gathering and whether vulnerable American personnel overseas are receiving adequate protection. Even allies of the president like Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have petitioned the White House for more information about how the government protects diplomatic installations abroad. 
 
 Almost since the smoke cleared in Benghazi, Republicans have accused Mr. Obama’s aides of deliberately playing down the attack. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, condemned the administration’s initial account of the attack as “disgraceful,” saying on CBS that it “shows a fundamental misunderstanding not only of warfare, but of what’s going on in that part of the world.” 
 
 The White House maintains that its account changed as intelligence agencies gathered more details about the attack, not from any desire to diminish its gravity. Mr. Obama, his aides point out, labeled the assault an “act of terror” in his first public response, in the Rose Garden, a day after it happened. 
 
 “In any situation like this, you know more one week later than you did the day after, and more two weeks later than you did one week after,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. “Given the demand for information, we feel there is a responsibility to provide the facts as we understand them.” 
 
 For the White House, the latest intelligence is helpful in one regard: It indicates that the attack, while carried out in an organized manner, mainly by a local extremist group in eastern Libya, Ansar al-Shariah, was probably not planned months or weeks in advance. 
 
 After poring over intercepted electronic communications, informant reports and photographs and video from the scene, American intelligence and counterterrorism officials have concluded that a small number of the local Libyan militia members probably have ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Qaeda affiliate in North Africa. But analysts say they have not found any evidence to indicate that the affiliate ordered or planned the attack. 
 
 In his statement, Mr. Turner said that it was unclear who had directed the attack, but that “we do assess that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to, Al Qaeda.” 
 
 At the same time, further details about the attack could lay bare lapses in security that could damage the administration. CNN has reported, from a diary belonging to J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador killed in the attack, that he harbored worries about his security. Mr. Williamson, who served as special envoy to Sudan under President George W. Bush, said it was unlikely that Mr. Stevens would not have relayed those concerns to the State Department. 
 
 Mr. Romney has been cautious in his public comments about the attack since his initial response, which was criticized by Mr. Obama and Republicans for being premature and unseemly in the face of a tragedy. But Mr. Romney has singled out the administration for its conflicting accounts, and has begun questioning whether it heeded warnings of anti-American attacks in the region, timed to the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
– The nation's spy chief took the unusual step yesterday of issuing a statement to defend the shifting US position on the Libya consulate attack, reports the Washington Post. Yes, said national intelligence director James Clapper, the assault initially seemed to be a spontaneous response to that anti-Islam movie, but we “revised our initial assessments to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists. Some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al-Qaeda." The New York Times thinks it's an attempt to take pressure off the White House as Republicans zero in on a potential miscue on national security—if it was a planned attack, why didn't we know about it?—and foreign policy. The Wall Street Journal notes that Mitt Romney kept up the pressure yesterday on the campaign trail: "There was a great deal of confusion about that from the very beginning on the part of the administration, and whether that was something that they were trying to paper over or whether it was just confusion given the uncertain intelligence reports—time will tell." Frequent White House critic Peter King called for the resignation of Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, who stated repeatedly in the days after the attack that it was spontaneous. "Somebody has to pay the price for this," the GOP congressman told CNN.