Officials: CIA reported consulate attacked by militants

WASHINGTON -- The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made anti-Islam video, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world. Those statements have become highly charged fodder for Republican Mitt Romney's campaign against President Barack Obama. Paul Ryan, the GOP vice-presidential nominee, led yesterday's charge.

"Look around the world, turn on your TV," Ryan said in a radio interview in Wisconsin. "And what we see in front of us is the absolute unraveling of the Obama administration's foreign policy."

Romney and Obama will debate foreign policy Monday night.

Obama, speaking Thursday on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," insisted that information was shared with the American people as it came in. The attack is under investigation, Obama said, and "the picture eventually gets filled in."

The report from the station chief was written late Wednesday, Sept. 12, and reached intelligence agencies in Washington the next day, intelligence officials said. It compiled intelligence reports from eyewitnesses that indicated militants launched the violence, using the pretext of the demonstrations against U.S. facilities in Egypt, to cover their intent.

It is not clear how widely the information from the CIA station chief was circulated.

The White House now says the attack probably was carried out by an al-Qaida-linked group with no public demonstration beforehand.