on anything, anthony bowurdane is here. joining me is barbara starr and intelligence correspondent, suzanne kelly. welcome back to you both. every night i say right off the top, can any of us get our heads round this and how much more ridiculous can it get, and lo and behold, it gets more ridiculous. barbara starr, let's try and get to what we believe to be the facts behind all the kind of lurid, titillating headlines. a second general today, petraeus' successor in afghanistan, general john allen, a marine corps four star general, current nominee to be the new nato supreme allied commander, so a very big fish indeed in the military. he is apparently at the center of a scandal involving 30,000 documents, all pages or e-mails or whatever that he exchanged with this second woman, the other other woman, jill kelley. what do we know about the content of this? because it's not as simple as simply 30,000 e-mails, right? >> well, that's the real question. what's really involved here. the spin machine is in full cycle on this one. the pentagon says it's about 30,000 pages of documents. they

until after the election. i'll turn to barbara starr, if i may. >> piers, i think this is the key question in front of everybody. how extraordinary would it be that you have this type of fbi investigation into the cia director and the president is not informed about it? this seems to really beg disbelief at the moment. the word is circulating that the president was not aware, that only once petraeus came to him, but it really seems to beg belief that someone in the white house didn't know that the fbi didn't inform the white house in some fashion. and the other question is, of course, capitol hill is to be informed immediately when there is something of this stature that would affect them. however it comes out at the end of the day, the cia director and the president doesn't know -- maybe not. >> it almost begs belief that we all simply woke up this morning that the white house was told yesterday, and david petraeus who had been investigated by the fbi for a length of time that we don't quite know yet how long that was, this all just happened yesterday. it doesn't ring true, does

hearing on the benghazi consulate attack. cnn's barbara starr is following that story from the pentagon. good morning. >> good morning, soledad. well, look, at least at this point, there's no indication publicly of a national security breach. but that doesn't mean the questions aren't growing. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are questioning the timing behind the revelation. house majority leader eric cantor said an fbi employee told him in october about the petraeus affair. by that time an fbi investigation was already under way. the fbi told the director of national intelligence james clapper on election night, according to a senior u.s. intelligence official. the white house says it was notified the day after the election, and the president the following day. that doesn't make sense to house homeland security chairman peter king. >> this seems to have been going on for several months yet now it appears they're saying that the fbi didn't realize until election day that general petraeus was involved. it just doesn't add up. >> "the new york times" reports the fbi actually started i

pentagon correspondent barbara starr. i'm candy crowley, and this is "state of the union." >>> good morning from washington. with all the intrigue of a bond film, i stealthy general david petraeus arrive and left capitol hill. behind closed doors they heard him. >> his testimony today was that from the start he had told us that this was a terrorist attack. >> it was testimony that seemed to challenge white house explanations of who knew what when about the attack on the u.s. consulate in libya that killed four americans. joining me is missouri senator roy blunt and mare marry congressman doug coopersburger. thank you for joining us. let's start off with the last point, and that is when you all listened to general petraeus, was he saying something different than the white house was saying in the days after benghazi about what it was, what the attack was about? sfoo well, when he came before our committee, he said really the same thing that he said september the 14th. i think on september the 14th, though, when you walked away from that hearing, you felt there was more based on a prot

video. let's get right to the breaking report right now. barbara starr is at the pentagon. you've been breaking this. tell us what you're learning tonight about david petraeus' testimony on benghazi. >> i've spoken to a source close to petraeus, directly familiar with petraeus' thinking on this matter. petraeus, we are told, wants to go to the hill, set the record straight and tell everything he knows. he will start by saying indeed that he knew almost immediately after that it was ansar al sharia, but there was also confusion. he had about 20 intelligence reports linking the attacks to that video, that anti-islamic video. those reports were disproven, but not until after he had briefed capitol hill. all of this took some time to sort out. that's what he wants to lay out tomorrow. >> and barbara, if he knew, and i know you're saying there were conflicting reports, which we have heard before, but if he knew and he's going to say he knew almost immediately it was the work of an al quaid linked militia, can he explain why susan right went on five talk shows and was very clear? >> the

talking points. he's going stick to what he knew. >> barbara starr, thank you. pretty incredible reporting there from barbara starr tonight. this comes on the same day that members of congress watched videos of the attack on the u.s. consulate. one of those videos showed chris stevens being dragged out of the building. the briefing today was the most comprehensive account yet and it also included a details timeline of how the attack unfolded. now, there was also and this is obviously very important, that closed circuit video from the consulate. accord tog one senator who watched that video, it's clear it was not a demonstration that spontaneously turned into an attack, which as we have said, that's what the administration officials said in the days following the incident and david petraeus will testify tomorrow, raising more questions about how the administration handling the situation. senator dan coates of indiana is on the intelligence committee. he saw the video. he'll be at the hearing tomorrow. he's "outfront." senator coates, really appreciate you're talk taking the time.

correspondent and barbara starr at the pentagon. a lot of angles to get to. bob, let me begin with you. first of all, are you surprised that this man is sending his resignation to the president because of cheating on his wife? what do you make of that in. >> i'm surprised of two things. i was hearing rumors he was going to leave over benghazi that cia was going to take the fall for that fight down there and he was supposed to go to princeton, as i understood, as president. secondly, i'm surprised is cia directors rarely leave under a marital scandal like this. it just doesn't happen. the scandals like this do happen at the cia but they are kept quiet. people leave for family reasons or whatever to move on. i'm completely surprised this -- the whole thing is -- there's a big story behind it. >> okay. you sound perplexed. you sound like there could be more there but we don't yet yet as the fewee details are eking out. if you were surprised he would be stepping down because of simply an extramarital affair. wolf blitzer brought up the point whoever he is having an extra marital affair wit

washington is doing. let's go to cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr in washington. barbara? >> the big concern here in washington is a ground war in gaza. there is growing concern that israeli troops and tank forces might cross the border and move into gaza. that is the major escalation that the u.s. does not want to see. so, the calculation now is, what does it take to make hamas stop its rocket attacks into israel and israel feel comfortable enough with that to pull back on the air strikes and pull back on any ground forces that it is assembling near the gaza border. there has been a lot of diplomacy going on. defense secretary leon panetta traveling in asia, calling the israeli defense minister barack. secretary of state hillary clinton firing up the diplomatic phone lines calling israel, turkey and jordan. randi? >> barbara starr in washington, thank you. as you can see, cnn has every angle covered on this story. >>> much more ahead this hour. here's a look at what we have coming up. >>> on the brink of war. as fighting escalates between israel and hamas, experts say th

barbara starr did some excellent reporting talking to a source close to petraeus. they said he really plans to tell lawmakers he knew almost immediately that a radical islamist group was involved. at the same time, he got a stream of intelligence, including about 20 distinct reports, also emerging, indicating that it was all based on fear over anti-islamic video, which we heard initially from the administration. now, i can tell you i spoke to lawmakers on the intelligence committee yesterday who are still frankly annoyed as what one described as petraeus' weak presentation. >> so could these differences explain the inconsistencies in the administration's response? i guess the question is, it seems pretty contentious on the hill, based on what i've been seeing you report. will this satisfy the critics? >> you know, unclear. one thing that became clear, especially after talking to lawmakers after yesterday's intelligence briefings, which went on all day long, is it's sort of a political test. republicans came out saying that they believe that what they heard makes clear that the adminis

director was involved. >> cnn's barbara starr is following this developing story, she's live at the pentagon for us. good morning. tell us, what is the status of the investigation right now? >> well, good morning, alina. "the new york times" is now reporting this morning that the investigation actually began some months ago. but, again, the questions continue to mount. it wasn't until election night that the director of national intelligence, james clapper, was informed that this was all going on. the white house informed the next day, and the president the day after that. so how you have an fbi investigation, which whatever went on did involve looking into the matters of general david petraeus, your cia director, and the president isn't informed. this is one of the key questions congress, the congressional committee's concerned, they weren't informed. so expect to see a lot more about this for the next many days. >> barbara, let's talk a little bit more about that. as you mentioned the white house wasn't notified until 5:00 p.m. on election night. the president wasn't told until th

. cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr has been talking to her sources to find out what the former cia director will say tomorrow. she joins me now. barbara, you have new information on what members can expect to hear tomorrow from petraeus as he talks to members about the attacks. what do you know? >> reporter: well, good evening, anderson. that's right, i've spoken to a source who is directly familiar with petraeus' thinking, what he's planning to try and say on capitol hill tomorrow. he wants to testify, he wants to clear up any, what he believes are misrepresentations of what he has said in the past and what he thinks really happened in benghazi. first up, this source says that petraeus will acknowledge that he knew quite quickly immediately afterwards that it was sharia, that libya al qaeda sympathizer group, that was responsible for it. but they had some conflicting information. he also had some 20 reports that it might have been related to that riot that broke out in cairo just before the attack regarding that anti-islamic film. there had been rioting in egypt and of course,

, barbara starr. she has more on this developing story, breaking headline after headline today. barbara, where is general allen right now? what is his reaction to these allegations of potentially inappropriate e-mails? >> reporter: well, erin, general allen is said to be here in washington. in fact, he flew here from afghanistan, because on thursday he was supposed to have that senate confirmation hearing to become the military head of nato, all of that now on hold. sources close to general allen have told our own nick paton walsh that allen says he did not have an affair with jill kelley, a pentagon official has also said directly that general allen denies any affair, any extra marital involvement with jill kelley. but look, erin. the reality here is, defense secretary leon panetta ordered up a full-blown inspector general investigation, and a lot of people around the pentagon say leon panetta wouldn't have done that unless there was something that needed to be looked into. >> and barbara, what's your understanding about general allen and if he's heading back to afghanistan, a

. this year's september 11th. dana bash is live now from capitol hill. barbara starr is live at the piers morgan and, dana, i want to begin with you. we heard from one of the lawmakers in the house committee at one of those stakeouts when the first round of questioning began and the suggestion was that it was tough. can you enlighten us? >> that's right. we were told by democrats and republicans coming out and of course this is a classified briefing so there is only so much they can say, but they it talking and they talked about the fact that, yes, there were tough questions asked of david petraeus and the most important question or most important issue and barbara starr reported this yesterday going in that a source close to petraeus was saying that he really wanted to try to clear up the fact that he was here and he, petraeus was here, in the days after the attack and apparently according to some lawmakers seemed to suggest much more that it was the result of a demonstration after this anti-muslim video ran in the middle east and he wanted to clear up the fact that, no, it is not

for that attack. also former cia officer bob baer joins us, also barbara starr, pentagon correspondent. in terms of seeing weapons being used here and increasingly sophisticated rockets that are being used, where are they coming from? where are they being smuggled in from? >> they are coming from egypt through tunnels under the desert. most of the components for the rockets are from iran. iran has been building up hamas' capabilities for two decades now. they're getting more and more sophisticated. some of the smaller weapons are being smuggled the same way but they're coming from places like libya. so there's multiple sources. i think what we're seeing with the weaponry from hamas, it's getting better and better. >> ben, you have spent a lot of time here. you've been to rocket making factories as we discussed at the top of the program. but the technology of how the rockets are being fired has changed. >> yes. before, what they were doing was these quick launches, they had three minutes just to set up the rocket, light it and leave, aiming really didn't come into it. now

bigger and more bizarre, cnn's pentagon correspondent barbara starr and intelligence correspondent, suzanne kelly. welcome back to you both. >> thank you. >> when we talked on friday night, it was all just breaking and it seemed a relatively straightforward scandal but none of us thought it would stay that way, and sure enough, tonight, a really bizarre twist. it's not john kerry possibly becoming defense secretary, nothing bizarre about that at all. what is bizarre is this revelation in the "wall street journal" and it's reported there, we haven't independently corroborated this, that apparently the fbi agent originally detailed to investigate this scandal ended up sending shirtless pictures of himself to this other woman, the other other woman. suzanne kelly, where do we even start with this? >> i don't know. you know, after doing this story like pretty much nonstop for four days, i keep thinking that we might be finding out the last sort of crazy detail and another one crops up. i have a feeling that's going to continue to happen for a couple more days. but i don't even know wha