with nuland on monday, september 17, the day after ambassador rice delivering those talking points had maintained that benghazi was the result of a protest gone awry and not a terrorist attack. >> simply on the basis of what ambassador rice has publicly disdisclosed, does the united states government regard what happened in benghazi as an act of terror? >> again, i'm not going to put labels on this until we have a complete investigation. okay? >> so you don't regard it as an act of terrorism? >> i don't think we know enough. i don't think we know enough. >> when she made that statement, nuland had already been informed by the central intelligence agency, quote: we do know that islamic extremists with ties to al qaeda participated in the attack. a conclusion that nuland fought strenuously to remove from the talking points. quote: the line about knowing there were extremists among the demonstrators will come back to us at podium. how far do we know who they are, et cetera. she wrote his or her colleagues three days