Archive for the ‘Foreign policy’ Category

Barbara Boxer endorses Chuck Hagel; Schumer on board

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 by:Carolyn Lochhead
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California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer endorsed her former GOP colleague for Defense Secretary late Monday evening. Boxer had withheld support after President Obama nominated the Nebraskan last week, citing questions about his position on Israel, women’s issues and gays and lesbians.

Boxer said she spoke with Hagel “extensively” by telephone last week and received a detailed written response to her questions late Monday.

In a telephone press call, Boxer said Hagel answered all her concerns, and said he fully supports President Obama’s policies. She said he told her he considered his reference to “the Jewish lobby” one of his biggest mistakes and wished he could take it back. As for his support for Israel, Boxer said, “I’m not worried about it.”

Boxer said Hagel’s voting record was consistently pro-Israel. “I feel people are being very unfair,” Boxer said. Citing his votes and writings, she said, “It’s not true that he hasn’t always believed there’s a deep and abiding connection between our two nations.”

She said she got full assurances on Hagel’s support for gays and lesbians in the military, a promise to fully execute repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and full equal benefits for the families of gay and lesbian service members. She said he had apologized to James Hormel for once calling him “aggressively gay.” Boxer said she secured another pledge that Hagel would work on what she called an epidemic of sexual assault in the military.

Boxer served with Hagel for a decade on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Boxer was one of the few in the Senate who voted initially against the Iraq War. She praised Hagel’s turn against that war as a Republican. ” can tell you Sen. hagel was always an independent and courageous vote on the committee,” Boxer said. “So few people were speaking out, and when he turned against the war his voice was so important…in helping to change public opinion and he took a lot of hits for it.”

Support from liberals such as Boxer is critical to Hagel’s confirmation, as he is facing stiff resistance from Republican neoconservatives who disliked his anti-war stance on Iraq. Any Democratic defections could doom the nomination. New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, considered pivotal to Hagel’s confirmation, endorsed Hagel Tuesday. Boxer said she first learned of Schumer’s endorsement on the press call and said the two came to their conclusions independently.

Schumer said in a statement he had concerns with Hagel over Israel and Iran, but kept them private until he had a chance to speak with Hagel, whom he met with Monday for 90 minutes. “Based on several key assurances provided by Senator Hagel, I am currently prepared to vote for his confirmation,” Schumer said. “I encourage my Senate colleagues who have shared my previous concerns to also support him.”

“On Iran, Senator Hagel rejected a strategy of containment and expressed the need to keep all options on the table…But he didn’t stop there. In our conversation, Sen. Hagel made a crystal-clear promise that he would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including the use of military force. He said his “top priority” as Secretary of Defense would be the planning of military contingencies related to Iran.” That includes tough sanctions.

On Hezbollah, and Hamas, Schumer said “notwithstanding any letters he refused to sign in the past—he has always considered the group to be a terrorist organization.” Schumer said he asked about a letter Hagel signed in March 2009 urging Obama to open direct talks with Hamas leaders. Schumer said Hagel assured him “that he today believes there should be no negotiations with Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist group until they renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist.

“Senator Hagel volunteered that he has always supported Israel’s right to retaliate militarily in the face of terrorist attacks by Hezbollah or Hamas. He understood the predicament Israel is in when terrorist groups hide rocket launchers among civilian populations and stage attacks from there. He supported Israel’s right to defend herself even in those difficult circumstances.”

“Regarding his unfortunate use of the term “Jewish lobby” to refer to certain pro-Israel groups, Senator Hagel understands the sensitivity around such a loaded term and regrets saying it.

“I know some will question whether Senator Hagel’s assurances are merely attempts to quiet critics as he seeks confirmation to this critical post. But I don’t think so. Senator Hagel realizes the situation in the Middle East has changed, with Israel in a dramatically more endangered position than it was even five years ago. His views are genuine, and reflect this new reality.

“On issues related to female and LGBT service members, Senator Hagel provided key assurances as well. He said he is committed to implementing the Shaheen amendment to improve the reproductive health of military women. He also supports the full repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

“In general, I believe any President deserves latitude in selecting his own advisors. While the Senate confirmation process must be allowed to run its course, it is my hope that Senator Hagel’s thorough explanations will remove any lingering controversy regarding his nomination.”

Solar chief argues for natural gas exports

Thursday, January 10, 2013 by:Carolyn Lochhead
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With a huge fight heating up over whether to allow exports of U.S. natural gas, California solar executive Arno Harris argued that allowing exports would help the solar industry and reduce global carbon emissions.

The U.S. shale-gas boom (fracking) has up-ended global energy markets, lowering energy costs in the U.S. and promising to make the U.S. a net energy exporter, instead of a dependent on Middle East oil.

Cheap natural gas “is wiping coal off the map,” said Harris, CEO of San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, which builds large-scale solar plants that sell electricity to utilities.

That’s a big plus for climate change, because natural gas has about half the carbon emissions of coal. But cheap natural gas also threatens to undercut green energy.

But Harris argued in an interview that solar costs are plummeting too, and that the industry can remain competitive.
“Everybody knows we’re in this cheap gas environment,” Harris said. “Gas-fired electricity today is probably five cents or six cents per kilowatt hour, wholesale.” But new solar plants that Recurrent Energy is building will sell power to utilities as low as seven cents a kilowatt hour, he said.

“There’s no longer this giant gap like there used to be a few years ago,” Harris said. “What Americans aren’t aware of is in fact how narrow that gap gotten, just as gas is at historically low prices, wind and solar are at historically low prices as well.”

Gas exports are a rare case where Republicans and the Obama administration agree. The Dept. of Energy set off a ruckus with a study saying gas exports would provide a “net economic benefit” to the United States. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, called foul. Democrats want to keep gas prices low. Environmentalists oppose exports because they oppose the fracking that allows the gas to be reached; they also fear that low gas prices will undercut cleaner energy.

Harris favors gas exports because they could help boost the price of gas, making solar and wind more competitive.

“I’m making the argument to my friends in the environmental and climate community that they shouldn’t make this knee jerk reaction about exported gas,” Harris said. “In fact export of gas is the best step we can take to bring order back to energy markets and raise the price a little bit.” Gas has gotten so cheap that utilities are under intense pressure to build gas turbines and decrease their use of renewables.

U.S. natural gas exports could also reduce U.S. exports of coal to Europe, Harris argued.

Paradoxically, the U.S. gas boom has encouraged coal exports to Europe, where U.S. coal is cheaper than natural gas from Russia, which controls most of the gas supply to Europe. The price shift has made it more difficult for European countries to meet their carbon emissions targets.

“That coal is still coming out of the ground, it’s just all going to Europe,” Harris said. “They are switching from Russian gas to American coal, so overall, even though we’re keeping the natural gas here, it is still resulting in a big uptick in carbon emissions because we’re still pulling all that coal out of the ground. We’re just not burning it here.”

Harris is on the board of a new trade group, AEE, or Advanced Energy Economy, which wants to add a pro-business voice to counteract forces who argue that alternative energy is not viable without subsidies. (Harris argued that fossil fuels are “all permanently subsidized in the permanent tax code” as opposed to temporary breaks for renewables.)

There’s a lot at stake in the coming fight over corporate tax reform, although more may be happening in state legislatures. California’s incentives, including its renewable portfolio standard that requires utilities to use green power, drew the solar industry to the state, and the AB 32 climate change law is being closely watched worldwide.

(National Journal argued that with AB 32 Arnold Schwarzenegger has done more to combat climate change than Al Gore or President Obama.)

New utility additions

11 ill-starred presidential picks, from Abe Fortas to Susan Rice

Thursday, December 13, 2012 by:richard.dunham@chron.com (Richard Dunham)
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Susan Rice at the United Nations. (AP photo)

Most presidential nominations to key government posts sail through the Senate with little debate and (occasionally these days) little delay.

Not so with Susan Rice, President Obama’s first choice to serve as Secretary of State in the president’s second term. Republicans had put Obama on notice that they would do everything they can — that means threatened filibuster — to block the United Nations ambassador from becoming the nation’s top diplomat. The proximate cause of their anger: Rice’s comments on Sunday TV shows about the Sept. 11 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Democratic loyalists have been outraged at what they consider the unfair attacks on an African American woman with impressive academic credentials.

That debate will continue, but Rice won’t be Secretary of State. She withdrew her name from consideration this afternoon.

Rice joins a list of ill-starred presidential picks over the past half century. Some, like Rice, were never nominated. Some withdrew before Senate consideration. Others were rejected by the Senate.

Rice joins this list of ten presidential choices who didn’t end up with the job:

Abe Fortas

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s choice to replace Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was blocked by Republicans led by South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. Before the battle was over, Fortas had resigned his own court seat and the GOP ran out the clock on the Johnson administration, leaving new President Richard Nixon with a chance to shift the court to the right.

G. Harrold Carswell and Clement Haynsworth.

Nixon’s choice for Chief Justice, Warren Burger, won easy confirmation in 1969. But the Senate rejected two Nixon choices for the second high court vacancy: Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina and G. Harrold Carswell of Florida. Haynsworth was tarnished by accusations of being an unreconstructed segregationist and Carswell was accused of being both extreme and underqualified. Nebraska Republican Roman Hruska may have hammered the nail in Carswell’s political coffin when he defended him this way:

“Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”

After the rejection of Haynsworth and Carswell, Nixon picked Minnesota judge Harry Blackmun, who was confirmed.

Mildred Lillie

The California appeals court judge might have become the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nixon in 1971 announced his intention to choose her to fill one of the vacancies created by the retirements of John Marshall Harlan and Hugo Black. But the American Bar Association deemed her “unqualified.” Nixon relented and nominated William Rehnquist (whom he once referred to as “Renchberg”) and Lewis Powell instead. Lillie, a Democrat, served as an appellate judge for 44 years until her death at age 87 in 2002.

Robert Bork

The federal appeals court judge became a verb (to be “borked”) when President Reagan chose him for the Supreme Court in 1987. Liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy led the opposition, roaring these incendiary words:

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.”

Bork was rejected by the Senate, 58-42.

Douglas Ginsburg

Reagan’s first choice to follow Bork was federal appellate Judge Anthony Kennedy of California, but Republican Sen. Jesse Helms threatened a filibuster to prevent the “liberal” Republican from reaching the Supreme Court. Not eager for a fight with the prominent conservative lawmaker, Reagan opted instead for former Harvard law professor and then-judge Douglas Ginsburg, saying Ginsburg’s confirmation was ”vitally important to the fight against crime.” Nine days later, Ginsburg asked Reagan to withdraw after admitting that he had violated the law by smoking pot. ”I have today asked President Reagan not to forward my nomination to the Supreme Court,” a shell-shocked Ginsburg told reporters. Reagan then chose Kennedy for the high court.

Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood

Bill Clinton’s first choice for Attorney General was withdrawn after Baird acknowledged she had failed to pay federal withholding taxes for a nanny who was in the U.S. illegally. The new president’s next pick, New York federal judge Kimba Wood, paid the required taxes on her nanny and broke no law — but the controversy over her employment of an illegal immigrant led to her withdrawal. “Nannygate” changed the vetting process for a generation of presidential nominees. Clinton eventually chose Janet Reno, a Florida prosecutor who never married and had no children.

John Bolton

The fight over the feisty neo-conservative’s nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations was messy and prolonged. Bush picked Bolton, one of the architects of the Iraq War, in the spring of 2005, but Senate Democrats blocked his confirmation. Bush refused to back down and gave Bolton the job temporarily as a “recess” appointee. Bolton’s confirmation hopes were dashed by the 2006 midterm election setbacks suffered by Republicans. He eventually withdrew as a nominee.

Harriet Miers

George W. Bush’s White House counsel, his former personal lawyer and a close friend, was the victim of friendly fire. While Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid hailed her nomination, conservative Republicans said she was unqualified for the high court. Under heavy pressure from his party’s right, Bush withdrew the Texas lawyer’s’ nomination. Her replacement was Samuel Alito, who has become a reliable conservative vote on the high court.

Dianne Feinstein torture report may conflict with Bin Laden movie

Tuesday, December 11, 2012 by:Carolyn Lochhead
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Sen. Dianne Feinstein

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will hold a a committee vote Thursday on a comprehensive report on U.S. torture (“enhanced interrogation techniques”) since 9/11, but anti-torture advocates said its findings could be swamped by a hot new movie that glorifies torture.

Zero Dark Thirty, set for release Dec. 19 in New York and Los Angeles and nationally Jan. 11, is getting rave reviews, as well as criticism for suggesting that torture is okay and works. The Intelligence Committee report is expected to rebut that view but the public will not get to see its findings.

Sen. Feinstein said last year that none of the information that led to the killing of arch terrorist Osama bin Laden came from torture or harsh detention policies practiced under the George W. Bush administration. She and Senate Armed Services chair Carl Levin, D-Mich. released a statement last April rebutting recent claims by a former CIA official that torture was effective in locating Bin Laden. They said the claims were “inconsistent with CIA records.”

The committee report was three years in the making, runs nearly 6,000 pages and reviews six million pages of documents from the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency — virtually everything the agencies had on the subject. Committee Republicans boycotted the investigation, and a party-line vote is expected in closed-door session.

Feinstein said the report “is comprehensive, it is strictly factual, and it is the most definitive review of this CIA program to be conducted. Any decision on declassification and release of any portion of the report will be decided by committee members at a later time.”

In a conference call sponsored by Human Rights First, retired Brigadeer General David Irvine said he and two other retired generals, Ed Soyster, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Bill Nash, commander of troops in Bosnia met with Feinstein last summer to encourage her to release the report with as few redactions as possible.

“I don’t think I have seen her looking quite so burdened as she appeared last June when we had that meeting,” Irvine said. “She was very supportive of the request we made, I believe. I think she appreciated it’s important for people to understand what happened….The rest of world knows what we did; it’s the American people who are who are in the dark.”

Irvine belongs to a group of about 60 retired generals and admirals who have publicly condemned what he listed as “waterboardings, stress positions, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, beatings, drenching with cold water in cold temperatures, sleep deprivation for days at a time, sensory deprivation.” Irvine, who taught interrogation in the Army and served four terms as a Republican in the Utah House of Representatives, said the Senate report “won’t be made into a Hollywood movie, but the next generation “needs to understand at the very highest level that democracy and torture cannot exist in the same body politic.”

“We are confident the findings will show that all of the waterboarding and all of the brutality and everything else that trashed the Geneva Conventions produced nothing but a national tragedy” and no valuable intelligence.

Others, including former President Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, have claimed that torture did provide good information. The CIA inspector general also released a 2009 report critical of the techniques.

Melina Milazzo, a fellow at Human Rights First, said the Senate report is important because it will be “the official government narrative of what happened.” Curt Goering, executive director of the Center for Victims of Torture, a St. Paul, MN-based torture survivor rehabilitation center, said he is “very afraid that the power of the movie and the broad swathes of society that will see it will come away with..an absolutely false impression” that torture works.

House passes bill to increase visas for highly educated immigrants

Friday, November 30, 2012 by:summer.ballentine@chron.com (Summer Ballentine)
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A bill to increase the number of visas available to highly educated immigrants and allow their families to stay in the United States while their visas are processed won House approval today by a vote of 245-139.

U.S. Representative Lamar Smith, R-Texas, holds a press conference at his office. JERRY LARA/glara@express-news.net

The STEM Jobs Act, sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, would increase the number of visas available for students who graduated from American universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees by up to 55,000 a year.

“In a global economy, we cannot afford to educate these foreign graduates in the United States and then send them back home to work for our competitors,” Smith said. “This legislation will help us create jobs, increase our competitiveness, and spur our innovation.”

The bill originally was pushed through for a suspension of the rules in September but fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority by 20 votes.

Although both parties support increasing visas for educated foreign graduates, Democrats contested the bill because the additional visas would be taken from the diversity visa lottery.

The lottery first was introduced in 1990 to increase opportunities for immigrants in underrepresented countries. The new legislation would end the program.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., has been an opponent of the bill since its inception and sponsored a bill earlier this year to increase visas for educated immigrants without cutting other programs. She said Smith’s bill was a “colossal diversion” and doesn’t expect the bill to be taken up by the Senate.

“This looks like a ‘double-down’ on the Grover Norquist-style ‘no new immigration’ pledge that they have been following for too long,” Lofgren said in a statement. “Republicans need to move past these kinds of gimmicks and work with Democrats to reform our immigration system so it works for businesses, our economy and families.”

After the STEM Jobs Act first flopped, Smith tacked on a provision that would allow spouses and children of permanent residents to wait in the United States for visas to become available after they have spent one year on the waiting list, a move immigration reform advocates have shown interest in.

The legislation now will move to the Senate, where Democratic leaders already have drafted similar legislation that includes the diversity lottery.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, introduced the Benefits to Research and American Innovation through Nationality Statutes, or BRAINS Act, earlier this year. The Senate bill also does not expand programs to allow immigrant families to wait in the United States for visas.

President-elect of Mexico to visit White House

Monday, November 19, 2012 by:alex.yap@chron.com (Alex Yap)
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President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico will visit President Obama at the White House on Tuesday, Nov. 27, the White House announced Monday.

They plan to discuss a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues during their Oval Office meeting, according to the White House announcement.

“The United States remains committed to work in partnership with Mexico to increase economic competitiveness in both countries, promote regional development, advance bilateral efforts to develop a secure and efficient 21st Century Border, and address our common security challenges,’’ the U.S. announcement said.

Last week, Peña Nieto wrote on his Twitter page that he was looking forward to working with Obama:

“I spoke with the President @BarackObama to congratulate him on his recent election victory.”
“We agree on the importance of building a close relationship, both institutional and personal, for both countries.”
“We agreed to work to expand the bilateral agenda and treat it during my next visit to the United States of America.”

The two leaders will likely discuss the implications for the Mexican battle against drug cartels of the voter-approved measures in Colorado and Washington that would decriminalize marijuana use.

Shortly after the U.S. election on Nov. 6, Peña Nieto’s top adviser Luis Videgaray told the Washington Post that legalizing pot “changes the rules of the game in the relationship with the United States.”

Videgaray expressed concerns over controlling a product that had different legal statuses between the two countries.

Peña Nieto will replace Mexico’s outgoing president, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa. Peña Nieto’s ascent to presidency marks the resurgence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) after 12 years under the National Action Party. When he takes office Dec. 1, Peña Nieto will succeed Mexico’s outgoing president, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.

Peña Nieto and the PRI have already begun proposing reforms, including a proposal to reduce the number of ministries in the Mexican government. He has also proposed the creation of a new anti-corruption agency to replce the Public Function Ministry and a new ministry for urban and agricultural development.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, Republicans turn attention to immigration reform

Friday, November 16, 2012 by:summer.ballentine@chron.com (Summer Ballentine)
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It’s immigration, stupid.

GOP members are turning to immigration reform to upgrade a party image tainted by negative rhetoric toward Latinos this election.

Mitt Romney reopened fresh wounds when he said President Barack Obama was reelected because he bribed minority groups with “extraordinary gifts from the government.”

Comments like Romney’s get in the way of the conservative message and turn Latinos off to the GOP, said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the new chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, during CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

“Republican candidates this year did a lot of damage to the brand,” Jindal said. ”As a party, we need to stop talking down to voters.”

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 08: Latinos and immigrants participate in a rally on immigration reform in front of the White House on November 8, 2012 in Washington, DC. Immigrant rights organizations called on President Barack Obama to fulfill his promise of passing comprehensive immigration reform. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

So Jindal and other Republicans are taking a new look at immigration, and it’s nothing like the “self-deportation” approach that might have cost Romney the presidency.

Texas, home to 1,254 miles of the 1,900-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border and a staunch Republican state, is shedding GOP stereotypes and moving toward  immigration reform in an attempt to ward off a potential Democratic takeover as the Latino population grows.

The movement is being spearheaded by Brad Bailey, a restaurant owner and political activist from Houston (who also uses E-Verify to check the citizenship status of his employees). His proposed immigration solution includes a temporary guest worker program, securing the border and reforming Social Security cards to prevent counterfeiting.

Bailey said a guest worker program would help employers find workers willing to take the jobs American won’t and help boost the economy. That’s something that gets Republicans to listen, and they did.

The Republican Party of Texas adopted the temporary worker program in its platform in June. The national party followed in August during the convention in Tampa.

Bailey said he’s watched as disbelieving Tea Partiers and GOP women’s groups come around to the reforms. Skeptics slowly uncross their arms when he talks them through the nuts and bolts.

“It’s resonated with people,” Bailey said. “A lot of people want to see solutions. They don’t want to see government gridlock.”

Bailey said it’s an issue that needs to be solved across the aisle but has divided the parties as they battle for the Latino vote. There’s also a chance it might loose momentum as Congress deals with the impeding fiscal cliff.

But especially now, there still might be a chance Republicans can work with Democrats to help fix the broken immigration system, said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S.

“The time is ripe not only because of the lessons being…derived from what happened a week ago in the United States, but because this new lay of land and the political muscle of Latino vote,” Sarukhan said.

Dianne Feinstein defends Susan Rice, says Iraq intel bad too

Friday, November 16, 2012 by:Carolyn Lochhead
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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee, defended U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice Friday, saying “We have seen wrong intelligence before, and it all surrounded our going into Iraq, and a lot of people were killed based on bad intelligence. And I don’t think that’s fair game. I think mistakes get made– you don’t pillory the person.”

Feinstein spoke to reporters after a closed hearing with testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, who submitted his resignation from the Central Intelligence Agency after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair. Rice has been under heavy attack from Republicans led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., claiming she misled the public in comments to Sunday news talk shows in December about the terrorist attacks that killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stephens and three other Americans.

President Obama angrily defended Rice in a news conference earlier this week. Rice is considered a top contender to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. McCain and Graham have made clear they would object to the nomination. The issue flared up in the presidential race, with Republican nominee Mitt Romney accusing Obama in a debate of misrepresenting the attacks and deliberately downplaying the idea that terrorism was involved.

Feinstein said based on what she has learned, “What Susan Rice did was use talking points originally put out by the CIA, signed off by the intelligence community, and those talking points, as I understand it, were requested by the House Committee, and all the intelligence community signed off on them.”

“The way it keeps going, it’s almost as if the intent is to assassinate her character, and I really object to that,” Feinstein said. She said the talking points “subsequently became available to anybody I guess who asked for talking points, which the ambassador did.”

McCain was also at the briefing but did not address the Rice controversy. He praised Petraeus for providing thorough testimony and conceded that there had been “clearly a failure of intelligence.”

Feinstein said the original talking points given to Rice said: “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the United States Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the United States diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

Again from the talking points: “This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and as currently available information continues to be evaluated.”

Feinstein said, “That’s clearly what happened.”

Feinstein said Petraeus “was both eager and willing to give us his views on this and his experience on it. And that’s very much appreciated, particularly because of the situation.” Referring to the closed briefing, she said “We didn’t want to make it any more difficult for him, and you know, you people aren’t always the easiest.”

Asked about security lapses at the Libyan consulate, Feinstein said she has her own views on that but will hold off until the final committee report.

Feinstein is scheduled to appear on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday at 10:30 EST.

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