the c.i.a. reporter mark mazzetti wrote on that in today's "new york times." he also documented the evolution of american warfare in the post- 9/11 era in his recent book, "the way of the knife." well, mark, welcome to you. just to set the context a bit, take us back briefly. how and why did both the c.i.a. and the military come to have their own drone programs? and what are the differences? >> well, both the c.i.a. and the military were working on predator drones before 9/11 and shortly after the september 11 attacks president bush gave the c.i.a. this wide authority to go capture and kill around the globe. the c.i.a. started using drones in ahaistanthere wa a drone strike in yemen and then starting in 2004 began using drone strikes in pakistan. and from there what started as a real trickle of drone strikes really went into sort of -- escalated dramatically around 2008 to the point where there's been hundreds of drone strikes in pakistan carried out by the c.i.a. the military has also done a pa

>> well, both the c.i.a. and the military were working on predator drones before 9/11 and shortly after the september 11 attacks president bush gave the c.i.a. this wide authority to go capture and kill around the globe the c.i.a. strted usng drones in afghanistan, there was a drone strike in yemen and then starting in 2004 began using drone strikes in pakistan. and from there what started as a real trickle of drone strikes really went into sort of -- escalated dramatically around 2008 to the point where there's been hundreds of drone strikes in pakistan carried out by the c.i.a. the military has also done a parallel -- had a parallel drone program in iraq and afghanistan and what we've seen in recent years, both the c.i.a. and the peagon have both had programs yemen. so tre's been a certain redundancy in these operations and what we've -- what we heard both the president say yesterday and other aides to the president talk about on background was this need to sort of shift more of the resources to the pentago

c.i.a. prepared the day before. >> i respect that the people who spoke up in the course of these hearings. you know, they were there. they felt the horror of that terrorist attack. and obviously it's emotional, but i hate to see it turned into a pure prolonged, political process that really doesn't tell us anything new about the facts. >> reporter: separately, abc news jonathan carl reports having obtained 12 versions of the benghazi talking points. according to that report, an early c.i.a. draft listed inferences about warnings about deteriorating situation in benghazi. victoria newland emailed her colleagues. early draft could be abused by members of congress to beat up the state department. why would we want to feed that either? when the revived document still included references to the culpability 6 a group, they sent another email, we don't want to prejudice the f.b.i. investigation. at that point, abc said that national security council official pushed back telling newland the f.b.i. d

the c.i.a.se department each runs its own drone department with different levels of transparency. the president made clear that america's use of drones would be reigned in. >> the same progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to con train that power. >> between 2004 and 2013, the total estimated number of strikes at 428, with 49 under president bush and 379 under president obama. that's almost eight times as many strikes under the obama administration. they estimate the number of militants killed to be between 1,982 and 3,251. the number of civilians between 276 and 368. and unknown casualties, between 200 and 330. the new york times says national security correspondent says to understand the program today, you have to start at the beginning. >> after 9/11, you see a big change that takes place at the c.i.a.? >> after 9/11, about a week after 9/11, president bush gives the cia authority to basically go around the world and capture and kill al

it says the c.i.a. talking points used by susan rice were revised by the state department to remove any references to terrorism. carnie discusses the acknowledge by the i.r.s. that they unfairly audited groups for their tax status. his briefing is about an hour. >> good friday afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. thank you for being here. i appreciate your patience. before i take your questions i want to note because it has been reported we did as many of you know, have a background briefing here earlier at the white house. i think 14 news organization were represented from online, print and the like. we do those periodically. we hope that the participants find them helpful. no one here thinks that is a substitute for this briefing that is why i'm here to take questions and with that i will go to the associated press. >> thanks, jay. two subjects starting out with the i.r.s. issue. i.r.s. says they flag conservative name -- groups. [unintelligible] when did the white house become aware that the i.r.s. engag

. >> let's talk c.i.a. what a mess in russia. we bring on a c.i.a.nt to bring us some perspective. next on "the young turks." >> a c.i.a. officer pinched by the russians as he begins to recruit for the u.s.? it sounds clumsy and crazy but that's what happened. it gets columnsier and crazy eyer. he has not declared persona non grata and will have to leave russia and makes positive relations between russia and the u.s. more difficult. according to a russian security agency ryan fogle is not in fact the third political secretary at the u.s. embassy in moscow. he is in fact according to them a c.i.a. agent. they caught him trying to recruit a russian special agent they say a counter terrorism agent working in the north caucuses to work for the c.i.a. >> we're back with our panel. it's a crazy story. ana kasparian ben mankiewicz, dorothy lucey, lindsay moran. what about this story it sounds so crazy and klumsily done. >> there's three possibilities. either he really worth for the c.i.a. and is the most incompetent spy ever, or he's a rogue diplomat spy wa

they were c.i.a. edited. they were c.i.a. finalized. so the ultimate result of this was the best estimate of the time of the intel community. again to go back to the bottom-line point here, these were c.i.a. points of the intel assessment at the time. they made the decision about what the final points were going to include. they did include information at the end that we later learned was inaccurate. >> frank, i, i like jen sake. >> was it -- whose fault was it? >> she just could have had a giant foam finger pointing to look to the c.i.a. holler at langley. that seems -- let's talk about benghazi. because richard cohen writes today in the "washington post," benghazi syndrome is a grave malady of the noggin. the symptoms of which are a compulsion to grossly exaggerate matters and to compare almost anything to watergate. fudging a press release is not a crime. compromising on wording is not a crime. making a decision, even if wrong, that there was no time to call in the cavalry, is not a crime and having inadequate security is not only no

drafted and c.i.a. finalized talking points. >> state department insisted 94 pages of emails released by the obama administration show it was c.i.a. that drove the editing of the ultimately false talking points on benghazi, but the emails reveal victoria newland and david adams were major players in the process demanding the deletions of references to sharia and extremeists. >> they were in part because of ongoing f.b.i. investigation, those were concerns that we now know and we've known that the c.i.a. also shared. >> reporter: it's true that general counsel claimed early on that the f.b.i. had given, quote express instructions not to issue any statements identifying attackers but the bureau never issued such instructions or swiftly abandoned them. he emailed his colleagues on 9:15 p.m. to say, quote the state department had major reservations with most of documents. we revised the document with their concerns in mind. indeed, when newland cited the investigation as deleting terrorist references, f.b.i

a c.i.a.icial emailed his colleagues at 9:15 on that friday september 14 to say, quoting the state department had major reservations for most of the documents. we revised the document with that concerns in mind. indeed, when newland cited it as the reason for deleting terrorism references, c.i.a. official said the f.b.i. didn't have major concerns and offered a couple suggestions. even after the references to al-qaeda and off shoot had been scrubbed, a c.i.a. official noted to his agency colleagues that, f.b.i. said not al-qaeda not al-qaeda there but that was theory. >> but the efforts were stylistic and non-substantive. they corrected the description of the building or the facility in benghazi from conflict to diplomatic facility and the like. >> reporter: in fact national security counsel spokesman said that john brennan then a white house counterterrorism aide, quote, will have ed it's. he opted to delete the assessments that they hailed across many sectors of libyan society. >> only thing

to back off its claims. >> that's manipulating the c.i.a. >> john: because the c.i.a.so easy to push around. on friday presidential press secretary jay carney insisted the white house role had been small. >> the only edit made by the white house or the state department to those talking points generated by the c.i.a. was a change from referring to the facility that was attacked in benghazi from consulate because it was not a consulate to diplomatic post. >> john: but arizona senator john mccain wouldn't buy it. >> for the president's smoke man to say that, well, there was only words or technical changes made in those e-mails is a flat-out untruth. i'd call it a cover-up. i would call it a coverup in the extent that there was willful removal of information which was obvious. >> john: for more, i'm very honored to welcome back to "viewpoint" thomas pickering ambassador what a pleasure it is to have you on the show. >> thank you john, it is nice to be back with you. >> thank you, and we enjoyed watching you with chairman issa. you corrected him on air letting us know that

second thing is what we were witnessing and you referenced the c.i.a. here, what we were witnessing was essentially a struggle between the state department and the c.i.a. because what we didn't know at the time was that benghazi was a c.i.a. operation. not a state -- the state department was providing the cover for the c.i.a. these talking points are there. and they're saying we knew this. we knew this. we knew this. and the people at the state department are saying this makes it look like we were asleep at the switch. and it's your people. gwen: why is this -- why is this stuck? why is this a story that never went away? >> it never went away because house republicans believed there was always something more. and now that they have these emails, the fact that we're talking about it at all to them is a victory. they continue to believe that they haven't heard necessarily everything they could from secretary of state hillary clinton. the fact that this internal review at the state at the present time didn't involve talking to her about what she knew -- at

the c.i.a. did draft it and the c.i.a. did change it. the thing is, the c.i.a., the administration, here are the talking points. the admiration, in particular hillary clinton state department, and the white house said, wait a minute, we can't talk about this. go back and fix it. so the c.i.a. did change it. the c.i.a. did come up with it. but clearly the white house and the state department saw the political peril and said, go back to your room. fix this. >> brian: i don't know why the c.i.a. gave in. but listen what general petraeus on his e-mail. this is what he said. so for those of you who think it's the c.i.a.'s idea and were fine with the final product. here is his quote, frankly, i just as soon not use this. and he goes on to say, why is all this changed? no word. you don't have listed in here that we gave you warning about a hit on 9-11 in cairo as well as benghazi. >> gretchen: he also changed his story later on, which raises even more questions. why did he tell members of congress and the media that it actually was the islamic videotape? that is a huge

we can't know how the c.i.a. does that because we can't acknowledge the c.i.a. does the operations. >> rose: how significant in your judgment-- because owe wrote this big piece-- is the reaction around the world against drone strikes? >> this administration has made the point over and over again that they are having an normative influence on how other countries will use unmanned aerial vehicles and that'm laive the effect is -- has weighed on their mind because where the strikes occur, they're hated. where the strikes don't occur, they're also hated. so, for example, in turkey 90% of the population, in greece 85%. japan is over 80%. i spent time with people at the e.u. missions here and in washington. to country agrees with our definition of the war on terrorism and who can be lawfully targeted. they don't agree with us and if we want to have a normative influence on others we have to align our legal principles and justifications with our practice on the ground. >> rose: anybody add to that? >> i agree with everything micah said. this is in the category of somet

plus, why would the c.i.a. revise its own talking points it had sent over before which completely changed the facts to the original talking points they had sent on the friday afternoon? i think there are a lot more questions they are going to have answer. the reason they had background briefings for reporters, usually if you do anything like that, it's to help educate reporters on the facts of the matters beforehand. since most of the reporters weren't covering benghazi maybe they need the background briefing. >> eric: very importantly, you rolled, jay carney, we change one point. i can hold this up. consulate to diplomatic facilities but importantly he said the white house and state department made one change. this is what they said they did. this is what we found out they did. not one word but a 147 words is what they eliminated. it wasn't one thing they changed. it was quite a bit. >> kimberly: that is not an edit it's a massacre. >> eric: but jay carney doubled down. he said the white house made the change,

and any mention of the c.i.a. having previously warned of -- of previous attacks that suggested that somebody should have known better about security. >> and did -- jay carney in that rather contentious white house briefing today explain why there were these changes or in some cases those omissions? >> what carney said is they wanted to make sure they only put out the information they knew to be true and didn't want to be speculative and put out information that would turn out to be wrong after more investigation. what he didn't really explain, though, is why he said or originally that the white house and state department actually only asked for one word to be changed. and in fact, we learned today the white house presided over an interagency process in which a lot of these changes were made eventually rewritten by the c.i.a. but after white house and state department input. so i think there's a lot of questions about how much was political on the part of the republicans. that's what jay carney was talking about a

top c.i.a. officials told us morrell's changes coincidentally reflected those expressed by top state department officials. senior u.s. intelligence officials told us that c.i.a. did not want to compromise the f.b.i. investigation by suggesting, even by implication, who might have been involved. and, scott, senior u.s. intelligence officials also tell us that they wanted to protect classified information already developed on possible culprits. >> pelley: more on this tomorrow. major, thank you very much. how much would someone pay for a perfect diamond? we'll show you. america's future warplane makes a historic flight. and at the vatican, it's a bird in hand. when the cbs evening news continues. with my friends, we'll do almost anything. out for drinks, eats. i have very well fitting dentures. i like to eat a lot of fruits. love them all. the seal i get with the super poligrip free keeps the seeds from getting up underneath. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc

so the c.i.a.talking points and talked about the real dangers and talked about terrorists and stuff like that. next thing you know, the state department goes in there and they go, this is bad, essentially for hillary clinton. so you got to change all that. that flies in the face of what hillary said. she said the talking points was an intelligence product, but -- and that the intelligence community was the chief decider about what went into the talking points. and yet, that's not true. the intelligence community prepared stuff and then the state department is going, oh, no, you can't put that out there because that's going to make us look bad. so then they wound up changing everything. >> gretchen: but they did go along, the c.i.a. did go along with the changes. that's a big question for me this morning is two things: why would the c.i.a. go along with these obvious changes, changing the whole line of thinking, number one. number two, who is actually ultimately in charge of making these changes? in

and i think that's the tbd here. >> and in fact, turning the ship around at the c.i.a., the c.i.a. has now since 9/11 been a paramilitary organization. as much as it is a spy-gathering, let's find secrets. it needs to be shifted very dramatically. and you've got john brennan there, who has the president's complete alliance and trust. but this is a big deal. >> it is. the c.i.a., pre-9/11 was about strategic intelligence, targets like china and russia. and post 9/11 became a paramilitary force. and we have to say, an incredibly effective one. it is largely the c.i.a. that disrupted al qaeda overseas in places like pakistan. john brennan is an incredibly strong leader. he has the president's trust in the c.i.a., he knows that. john is going to reduce that effort towards counterterrorism to some extent and move it back towards the traditional intelligence roles that it really does need. >> agencies don't give back money. if we're not going to be involved in as big a drone war, is the c.i.a. going to say, here's my black budget, which we can't even tell the american people about. only

should have said that we recognize that it doesn't make sense for the c.i.a. and intelligence-gathering organization to have its own fleet of lethal weapons and so we are, as of now or as of next month or some date set taking the drones out of the hands of the c.i.a. >> john: medea i hate to interrupt you but are you at all heartened by the fact the new director of the c.i.a., mr. brennan, intends to move the drone program out of the c.i.a. into the pentagon? is that a cause for separation on your part? >> when is it gonna happen? is it going to include pakistan? what is the -- what are the specifics behind those intentions? we've heard good intentions now for five years including the intention to close guantanamo but we need to see it done. in the meantime, brennan is the same person that told us in 2011 there has been no civilians killed by droabs and then changed it to maybe a handful. from our estimates, there are thousands of people who have been killed by drones. there was no recognition of that in the president's speech. no sense of we are going to give

their story of the c.i.a. analysts and officers who'd tracked down the al qaeda chief is told in the documentary hbo film "manhunt", debuting tonight. it's based on the book by cnn's peter bergen. >> in 1997 osama bin laden had declared war on the united states and no one was paying attention. >> there was just warning after warning. we knew something huge was going to happen. >> warner: but long before that september day, their chase began in a near-total information vacuum. >> well we certainly didn't know that al qaeda existed. we didn't know there was a terrorist organization. we knew there was a very wealthy >> warner: the group tracking the elusive saudi militant was known as alec station, and was novel in its approach. >> the unique thing about alec station was the fusion of analysis and operations. we pushed the analysts and the >> warner: the analytical team at c.i.a. was comprised mostly of women; before 9/11 it was not a prime assignment. cindy storer was an analyst, part of what was called "the sis

memo from the c.i.a. station chief to top intelligence official on the ground in libya on september 12 saying in effect, this was an attack by islamic extremists. so you have this from different streams of intelligence, different ways of getting it, different sourcing and it all corroborates the same point. this was a terrorist attack conducted by extremists with links to al-qaeda. >> bret: it was read, the e-mail was read at the hearing, an e-mail from miss jones to hicks, to the state department counsel for secretary clinton saying that she spoke to the libyan ambassador, emphasized the libyan officials making strong statements, and when he said -- i told him it was affiliated with terrorists and she goes on to point the finger at them. i do want to say, charles, it seems like that it had a different feel today than the previous hearing. your sense overall of how republicans did in their questioning, how democrats reacted, the overall atmospherics? >> the republicans knew their stuff and they acted in a

we take you a of that up tonight with former c.i.a. operative michael sawyer who led the bin laden unit and thomas mcnerney and congressman robert lotta on the losing war on tracking and the crush the keystone pipeline. someone inside the obama white house is issuing threats and intimidating employees of the state departmental that wishes to share critical information. fox news chief washington correspondent james rosen has our report. >> state department pushed back against charges first aired on fox news alleging that benghazi whistleblowers have faced threats and intimidation. >> we do have to look at the issue and de-politicize it. american people deserve answers. i'm determined there will be an accountable and open state department. >> the state department would never tolerate sanction retaliation against whistleblowers on any issue. that is an obligation we take very seriously. >> president obama professed to be aware of loaning standing efforts to question survivors of the benghazi attack in which terrorists killed the u.s. amba

i understand that you're dealing with the c.i.a., you're dealing with defense intelligence, okay.there were the deaths involved,y i think the media has the responsibility to go hard at this story, to be an absolute pit bull. you talk about a watchdog, be a pit bull because you know what? i disagree with my colleagues here. i don't think there is anybody prven to be involved in lies and conspiracies. but the media, wow. why aren't you out there pursuing the damn story? >> weigh. >> wait a minute, if you just said why wouldn't they pursue the lies lies and conspiracy? >> if you show it to me, if you. show me evidence, great. but there is no evidence. >> how can you say that? there is so much evidence. >> i don't see any. >> what about thee edit? >> blaming the video. >> that's not a lie. >> it absolutely is a lie to stand there in front of the casket and blame a l video. that's a cover for obama. hiding who gave the stand down order is a cover for hillary clinton. can i just point out something? your full screen. you put cbs and nbc on our side. i don't buy that. maybe on this one i

versus c.i.a.fact that everything that we've been told that resulted because of water boarding. that's not true. >> only three terrorists with american blood on their hands were ever water boarded. >> in many cases, it was just a few days. in these cases, it was just a few weeks. >> this program evolved. some of the stuff that they tried to do is not working. and during the evolution process, i realize that i shouldn't be part of this. i shouldn't be a witness to this. i reported it to headquarters and headquarters pulled us out. >> so you have to try to provide a lens of history that doesn't exist yet. i understand people are uncomfortable with this. but the options we had were not very good. >> you can flirt with the idea that i can cross the line and go into the dark side and then i can come back because i'm going to the dark side for a good purpose. and there were times when that may be appropriate, but it is dangerous. it's easier next time to cross. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower

they took out any mention of al qaeda and removed all the c.i.a. warnings of imminent threat. bottom line. susan rice went on the sunday shows and, for political reasons, was not completely accurate about something in the middle east. you would never see a republican do something like that. folks, benghazi isn't even the best. i mean, worst scandal to hit the administration today. >> the white house also had to respond today to another fire storm. the admission by the i.r.s. that it gave extra scrutiny to organizations with the words, quote, tea party or, quote, patriot in their titles when they were applying for tax-exempt status. >> as early as march 2010 the cincinatti field office which was put in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status began searching for groups with politically identifiable names. according to the "washington post" of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny 72 had the words "tea party" in their title >> stephen: the i.r.s. owes an apology to every tea party group in america including suzy johnson and her eight stuffed animals. folks,

memo from the c.i.a.tion chief to top intelligence official on the ground in libya on september 12 saying in effect, this was an attack by islamic extremists. so you have this from different streams of intelligence, different ways of getting it, different sourcing and it all corroborates the same point. this was a terrorist attack conducted by extremists with links to al-qaeda. >> bret: it was read, the e-mail was read at the hearing, an e-mail from miss jones to hicks, to the state department counsel for secretary clinton saying that she spoke to the libyan ambassador, emphasized the libyan officials making strong statements, and when he said -- i told him it was affiliated with terrorists and she goes on to point the finger at them. i do want to say, charles, it seems like that it had a different feel today than the previous hearing. your sense overall of how republicans did in their questioning, how democrats reacted, the overall atmospherics? >> the republicans knew their stuff and they acted in a way

the c.i.a.ot. that's why there is tension between the f.b.i. and nypd. he went on to sarks the guardian database is available for anyone to see. but if you don't know to look for somebody, why would you randomly plug in a name and look to cross check it? >> steve: just because there is a keyboard right this and the data is in there, that's one thing. but if you have somebody from your town, goes to russia, disappears for six months, there is an inclination he may become radicalized and you don't tell the local cop. what happened yesterday, they looked like they were pointing fingers. but ultimately if this gets everybody on the same page where they change things going forward, it will have been a good day. >> gretchen: it will. but people should still be upset because that was the whole point of creating all these agencies in the communication after 9-11. 12 years ago. i think people will still be frustrated to find out they still weren't doing it and by the way, the cops didn't know the names o