CIA Disputes Broadwell Theory on Libya Attacks

A rationale advanced by author Paula Broadwell behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya to free militants being held there by the Central Intelligence Agency was disputed on Monday by the agency itself.

Broadwell, the woman linked to the extramarital affair that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus on Friday, discussed her reasoning during a speech at the University of Denver on Oct. 26, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"I don't know if a lot of you had heard this, but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think the attack on the consulate was an attempt to get these prisoners back," she said, according to the Journal. "It's still being vetted."

But a CIA spokesman told the Journal on Monday that no insurgent prisoners were being held there because President Barack Obama barred the agency from holding detainees there in 2009.

"Any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless," the spokesperson told the Journal.

Some critics said Broadwell might have passed on classified information with that Denver comment, suggesting that Petraeus might have been the source.

But U.S. officials said the extramarital relationship had ended by then, the Journal reports.