WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA Director David Petraeus resigned his post as head of the nation’s leading spy agency on Friday, saying he had engaged in an extramarital affair and acknowledging that he “showed extremely poor judgment.”

In a letter to the CIA workforce, Petraeus, 60, said that he met with President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday and asked “to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Army private facing court-martial for allegedly leaking secret documents to the WikiLeaks website has offered to plead guilty to less serious offenses than those with which he has been charged, his lawyer said.

In a blog post, David Coombs, attorney for accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, said late on Wednesday that Manning was not actually pleading guilty to charges filed against him by military prosecutors. The private faces life imprisonment if convicted of the charges.

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Just because the election is
over, that does not mean that U.S. President Barack Obama is
going to get an easy ride over his administration’s handling of
the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. missions in Benghazi, Libya.

While Republican attacks on Obama over the handling of the
assault, which killed four Americans including Ambassador
Christopher Stevens, became a major part of the campaign in
recent weeks, an investigator said on Wednesday the inquiry was
never related to the election.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A British businessman murdered in China in a high-profile case of political intrigue was an informal source of information for Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The sources confirmed the substance of a news report earlier Tuesday alleging that U.K. businessman Neil Heywood, who died under suspicious circumstances a year ago in the Chinese city of Chongqing, had been in contact with MI6 and had been a “willful and knowing informant.”

WASHINGTON Nov 2 (Reuters) – Authorities in Tunisia have
agreed to allow FBI investigators access to a detained Islamic
militant suspected of playing a role in the Sept. 11 attacks on
U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. officials
said on Friday.

Under an arrangement worked out between Tunisian and U.S.
officials, American investigators will be allowed to interview
Ali Ani al Harzi under the supervision of Tunisian officials.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA officials on the ground in Libya dispatched security forces to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi within 25 minutes and made other key decisions about how to respond to the waves of attacks on U.S. installations on September 11, a senior American intelligence official said on Thursday.

Officials in Washington monitored events through message traffic and a hovering U.S. military drone but did not interfere with or reject requests for help from officials in the line of fire, the official said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s total spending on intelligence activities fell in 2012, the second year in a row of declines after years of soaring security spending since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

The Office of Director of National Intelligence, the top U.S. intelligence authority, announced on Tuesday that total funding appropriated for the National Intelligence Program, covering activities of the CIA and high-tech spy agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office, was $53.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2012, which ended on September 30.

WASHINGTON Oct 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s total
spending on intelligence activities fell in 2012, the second
year in a row of declines after years of soaring security
spending since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

The Office of Director of National Intelligence, the top
U.S. intelligence authority, announced on Tuesday that total
funding appropriated for the National Intelligence Program,
covering activities of the CIA and high-tech spy agencies such
as the National Reconnaissance Office, was $53.9 billion in
Fiscal Year 2012, which ended on Sept. 30.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate intelligence committee on Thursday said it will hold hearings in November on security and intelligence issues raised by the September 11 attacks on American facilities in Libya.

In a statement, the committee said it first will hold a closed oversight hearing on November 15 on the Benghazi attacks, when lawmakers return after the November 6 presidential and congressional elections. The Democratic-controlled panel said additional hearings would follow.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday a Facebook post in which an Islamic militant group claimed credit for a recent attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya did not constitute hard evidence of who was responsible.

“Posting something on Facebook is not in and of itself evidence. I think it just underscores how fluid the reporting was at the time and continued for some time to be,” Clinton said during an appearance with the Brazilian foreign minister at the State Department.