President Barack Obama has deployed American military personnel and drone aircraft to the African country of Niger, where they could be used to support a French counterterrorism mission in neighboring Mali.

Defense Department officials told NBC News that a first wave will include two Raptor surveillance drones and 250 to 300 military personnel, including remote pilots and security and maintenance crews. They are expected to arrive soon.

The officials stressed that the drones are meant for surveillance only. The White House has faced criticism for a legal memo concluding that the U.S. government can use drones to kill American citizens overseas in certain cases.

Besides helping the French in Mali, the drones could be used to provide intelligence on a growing Islamic militant threat throughout North and East Africa.

The president notified Congress on Friday under the War Powers Act, which requires him to tell Congress when heavily armed U.S. military personnel are newly deployed to a region or nation.

Obama told Congress that the U.S. military presence was under the consent of the government of Niger, and that they would “facilitate intelligence-sharing” with the French. He said that the American military personnel were armed for their own protection and security.

Next door in Mali, Tuareg rebels overthrew the government last year. Islamists then pushed the rebels aside, taking control of important towns and pushing toward the capital.

France intervened last month — initially with airstrikes and later with about 4,000 ground troops. The United States has flown French troops and equipment into Mali and refueled French fighter jets there, the Pentagon has said. France plans to begin withdrawing troops from Mali next month, once African forces are in place to take over.

On Friday, five people were killed in a remote Malian town in car bomb attacks by Islamists on Tuareg fighters, a spokesman for the Tuareg fighters said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:19 AM EST

Updated 3:00 pm ET -- Former CIA Director David Petraeus testified Friday before congressional intelligence panels telling members that he had believed from the outset that the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was an act of terrorists.

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell reported that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said after hearing from Petraeus that Obama administration officials made a decision to hold back as classified information an explicit depiction of Benghazi incident as an act of terrorists -- therefore that description did not make it into the “talking points” that the administration prepared for officials when they went on TV talk shows and spoke to reporters.

Instead, the initial talking points focused on spontaneous reactions to an anti-Islamic video as a spark for the attack. Five days after attack, the administration dispatched U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to speak on the Sunday news shows to offer a preliminary explanation of the attack, which she attributed to an anti-Islamic video that was circulated on YouTube.

In the attack Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans – Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith – were killed.

Keeping as classified the determination that the Benghazi attack was the work of terrorists may have been done in order to help pursue those very same terrorists.

“There might have been two tracks happening all along: the public statements that were reflecting part of what they may have known” and the classified information that terrorists had been the ones attacking the consulate. “The real question is if they knew it was terrorism all along – was there too much suggestion that a video or demonstrations may have been involved?” said O’Donnell.

House Intelligence Committee member Peter King, R-N.Y., told reporters Friday after Petraeus testified that the initial “talking points” from the Obama administration to prepare officials for what they should say publicly in the first days after the attack had been changed to delete references to any al Qaida involvement in the event.

King said he and his colleagues now needed to hear testimony from officials in the State Department, the Defense Department “and also people at the White House – to see if anyone at the White House changed the talking points.”

King told reporters after Petraeus testified that “his testimony today was that from the start (immediately after Sept. 11) he had told us that this was a terrorist attack, that terrorism was involved from the start.”

But King said that he himself “had a very different recollection" of what Petraeus had told the panel in the initial aftermath of the attack. 

"The clear impression that we (members of the House Intelligence Committee) were given (in the initial days after the attack) was that the overwhelming amount of evidence was that it arose out of a spontaneous demonstration and it was not a terrorist attack,” King said. 

Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts after hearing from Petraeus that “I can’t agree that there was entirely an intelligence failure” in the days leading up to the attack.

He said, “The intelligence community did put people in the area of Benghazi and in Libya generally. It was a hot spot, it was an area where you had to be on high alert – they did not pick up the actual attack itself. So we’re evaluating whether or not it was or was not an intelligence failure.”

Another House Intelligence Committee member, Rep. Tom Rooney, R–Fla., told MSNBC’s Roberts that he’d learned from the Petraeus testimony how inadequate the protection at the consulate was on Sept 11.

“We had less than a handful of security there for the ambassador,” Rooney said. “First of all, I don’t know why the ambassador was there on 9/11 to begin with, but that’s a whole other story. Second we were relying really on local Libyan militia who – if there was anything coordinated about the two attacks, at the compound and at the annex, it is that there was a coordinated absence by the people who were supposed to be protecting us.” He said the Libyan militia “were nowhere to be found” when the assault occurred.   

Rooney added that President Barack Obama has said “he did everything he could” to protect the consulate. “He may have done everything he could, but it wasn’t enough because our people are dead.” 

The investigation into the Benghazi events has become a major focus for members of Congress returning to the Capitol after last week’s elections. The episode has political implications not only for Obama but for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who may run for president in 2016.

Petraeus resigned one week ago after the revelation of his adulterous affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.

Rice told NBC’s David Gregory on Meet the Press Sept. 16 that “putting together the best information that we have available to us today – our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was, in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo – almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video.”

She added that in Benghazi “opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons, which, unfortunately, are readily available in post-revolutionary Libya, and that escalated into a much more violent episode.”

Rice is said to be in the running to be Obama’s nominee to be secretary of state once Clinton departs.

Slideshow: Petraeus case: Cast of characters

ISAF via Reuters file

Meet the people who have been pulled into the scandal that caused Gen. David Petraeus to resign.

Launch slideshow

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other Republican senators have made clear they will use any means they can to block her nomination if Obama does select her.  

“I don’t trust her,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of Rice, calling her “more a political operative than she is anything else when it comes to Benghazi.”

Obama defended Rice Wednesday, saying she had “represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace… Should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity of the State Department, then I will nominate her.”

McCain on Wednesday introduced a resolution to create a special eight-member select Senate committee to examine the attack on the consulate. But McCain’s proposal got a mostly chilly reception Wednesday from Chambliss and other senators.

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Misha Japaridze / AP

The tombstone of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky at a cemetery in Moscow. U.S. lawmakers are expected to vote in a human rights legislation named after Magnitsky that would impose sanctions on Russian officials involved in human rights violations.

MOSCOW -- Russia increased pressure on U.S. Congress on Friday not to pass legislation that would punish Russian officials for human rights violations, warning Washington that it had prepared tough retaliatory measures.

Congress was due to vote on a bill named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky later Friday, the third anniversary of his death in detention. The bill is designed to deny visas for officials involved in his imprisonment, abuse or death.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had already prepared its response but gave no details other than a Foreign Ministry statement on Thursday warning of tough retaliation against "unfriendly and provocative" legislation.

"Of course there are (measures in place). We have discussed (them) at all stages of the debate over the so-called Magnitsky bill," Interfax news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. "I can confirm that our response will be tough."

Possible sanctions against US officials
He gave no details but Russian officials have indicated that Moscow would retaliate by imposing sanctions on U.S. officials it accused of violating Russian citizens' rights.

Russia tells US: We don't want your aid money

They would be likely to include officials involved in refusing a Russian request for the extradition of a convicted arms trader, Viktor Bout, serving a 25-year prison term in the United States.

The rhetoric became more heated this week as the vote neared. Adoption of the bill -- and any reprisal -- could damage efforts to improve relations between the former Cold War enemies at the start of President Barack Obama's new term, and a few months after Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin.

Four generations of struggle: Family's story illustrates revival of Russia's Jewish culture

During his first term in office, Obama initiated a "reset" in relations after bilateral ties sank to a low after a 2008 war between Russia and pro-Western Georgia. But recent months have seen both successes and strains in U.S.-Russian relations.

Analysis: For US president, is Russia friend or foe?

The House of Representatives voted Thursday to include the legislation in a broader package to extend "permanent normal trade relations," or PNTR, to Russia following its entry to the World Trade Organization in August.

'Horrendous and unacceptable'
Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, charges which colleagues say were fabricated by police investigators he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax refunds.

The Magnitsky case has become a symbol of corruption and the abuse of citizens who challenge the authorities in Russia, where the Kremlin's own human rights council has said he was probably beaten to death.

Complete Politics coverage on NBCNews.com

Rep. David Dreier, the Republican chairman of the House Rules Committee, said on Thursday that such action in a country "that claims to be a democracy ... is horrendous and it is unacceptable."

Congress must approve PNTR to ensure that American companies receive all the market-opening benefits of Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization in August.

Russia warns Obama's 'reset' in relations 'cannot last forever'

U.S. business backs the combined trade and human rights bill out of a belief that the benefits from approval of PNTR will outweigh negative fallout from the Magnitsky portion of the legislation.

Russia's entry into the WTO after 18 years of negotiations and strong support from Obama obliges the United States to lift a Soviet-era amendment that linked favorable U.S. tariffs on Russian goods to the rights of Soviet Jews.

The amendment is outdated, but U.S. lawmakers are reluctant to remove it without passing legislation to keep pressure on Moscow over their human rights concerns, which have deepened since Putin returned to the presidency in May.

Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

If the House approves the bill, it will then go the Senate, where supporters are optimistic it will be approved. Obama is expected to sign the bill, even though the White House preferred legislation without the human rights sanctions provisions.

The two countries negotiated a simplified visa process earlier this year. But Moscow's closure of a U.S. international aid agency office and accusations that Washington was meddling in Russian politics undermined prospects for better relations.

View striking images from Russia on NBC's PhotoBlog

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Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images

Chinese President Hu Jintao is seen speaking at the opening of the 18th Communist Party Congress on a television in a subway train in Shanghai on Nov. 8.

BEIJING -- I arrived in Beijing for what the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, described as “one of the biggest political events in history.”

“Are you watching?” I asked my driver on the way in from the airport. He looked at me and laughed. “Why would I watch that?” he replied.

A little later I settled down in my hotel bar over a glass of Great Wall cabernet sauvignon.  “Are you watching the Congress?” I asked my server. Again that quizzical look. “Oh, I don’t care about that,” she replied, before slipping behind the bar and resuming whatever she was doing on her mobile phone, which judging by her concentration she did care about very much.

The 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has begun with great pomp and ceremony in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. It is important -- a once-in-a-decade leadership change at a time when the country is facing enormous challenges, from a faltering economy to rampant corruption that goes to the core of the party.

China launches once-in-a-decade changing of guard

But among many Chinese, away from the stuffy heart of this city (from which carrier pigeons have been banned, incidentally, as a security precaution), the meeting might as well be taking place on the moon, among green aliens with spiky heads.

That's how relevant it seems to them.

The official media has given it blanket coverage, while at the same time trying to limit discussion in China's vibrant social media -- slowing internet speeds and even blocking the Chinese translation for the 18th Congress from search engines.

Aside from the pigeon ban, taxis are required to keep their back windows locked, presumably to prevent the distribution of subversive pamphlets, and tiny remote-controlled aircraft have been outlawed.

Still, the party “will continue to inject vigor to national politics,” declared the Global Times at the weekend.

“Vigor” isn’t the first world that comes to mind when you see the line up of gray men (you’ll be hard pressed to find many woman near the top of the CPC) in gray suites, gathering mostly to dutifully endorse decisions already made.

Throwback: China's ex-president flexes power broker muscle in Beijing

Much of the proceedings are behind closed doors and the main qualification for advancement in the party is to not the rock the boat. Opinions are dangerous; flamboyance can be fatal to a career in the CPC.

Diego Azubel / EPA

The party is expected to use the highly orchestrated event to persuade the nation's 1.3 billion people that it can provide another 10 years of economic growth and social stability while curbing corruption and nepotism.

The report from the retiring party boss and head of state, Hu Jintao, which kicked off the Congress, hailed as a masterpiece by Chinese newspapers, was of such length and mind-boggling tedium that initially it left analysts struggling to figure what precisely whether it was reformist, reactionary, liberal or conservative.

Probably all of the above.

Just ahead of Congress, I had embarked on a journey across the Beijing to test opinion. It was hardly scientific, but I figured I'd at least get a sense of what ordinary Chinese were thinking.

I started by bike in the narrow alleyways around the surviving hutongs in an older part of the city.

Here the residents are older too, and a question from a foreigner about the Communist Party, produces an embarrassed wave of the hand, or provokes a speedy retreat behind closed doors. Ordinary Chinese of a certain age have seen how capricious and brutal the party can be and know better than to openly discuss politics with a foreigner.

Despite deadly week, Communist Party says Tibetans 'feel very happy'

An exception was an elderly man who stood bold upright and recited how China's new leaders would build a strong and prosperous country. But what of Xi Jinping, the man soon to be anointed leader. What does he stand for, how exactly will he do that, I asked. The door swung open and he too was gone.

I approached a man barbecuing some skewered lamb. He claimed not to understand my interpreter, though did I detect an extra touch of aggression with those skewers at the mention of the party?

I then took a taxi figuring that cabbies everywhere have an opinion. But not this one, shaking his head, waving his hand, and probably wishing his wheezing vehicle had an ejector seat. I pressed on. I know what President Obama listens to on his iPod, I explained, and what Mitt Romney has for breakfast. Did he think Xi Jinping has an iPod?

At that he just burst out laughing, and laughed, and laughed, until he dropped me at a Beijing university, where my luck changed.

Here almost all the youngsters I met had heard of Xi, but professed to know hardly anything about him. What does he stand for? Two young women looked blankly at each other. "We don’t know," they said in unison, as if this was the most stupid question they'd ever heard. Does Xi have kids? I asked another couple. "I don't know," said one. "And I don't care." said the other.

Another young man looked puzzled. "But we don't vote," he said, which I guess goes to the heart of the matter. Why should we care, he seemed to be saying, what's this process got to do with us?

Perhaps out of desperation, I did what a lot of Beijingers are doing these days and went to a fortune teller. He rumbled me immediately, and declared that he didn’t do politics, and that his crystal ball certainly didn't stretch to the Communist Party. "I don't know and I don’t care," he declared.

The party, at least its more perceptive members, do seem to recognize the challenges they -- and China -- face. But the prescription for these ills appears to be more of the same. Its still a brave and lonely voice that will call for greater openness, transparency and accountability.

The congress will end with the unveiling of the new leadership. Yet in spite of acres of fevered analysis from China-watchers, the reality is that we know virtually nothing about what Xi Jinping thinks about anything, let alone the secretive process by which he was selected.

Is he another grey and cautious techocrat or a closet reformer? Take your pick. We can all be experts in the face of the party's secrecy.

Embassy ballots give Chinese a taste of democracy ahead of power transfer

On paper at least the Communist Party has 82 million members, but only a tiny clique make the real decisions, and there is an enormous gulf -- vast and growing -- between them and the people it is supposed to represent, a gulf filled increasingly with cynicism and distrust.

Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images

President Hu Jintao, seen on a television in a motorcycle repair shop in Shanghai, called for stepped-up political reform and a revamped economic model as the Communist Party opened a historic congress to usher in a new slate of leaders.

China has changed dramatically since the party last changed its leaders a decade ago -- from the economy to the thriving social media that's such a thorn in the side of the leadership, and where the timing of the leadership change, so soon after the raucous U.S. election has provoked many an uncomfortable (for the party) comparison.

The dynamism elsewhere in China is in stark contrast with the ossified spectacle on display this week in the Great Hall. Those carrier pigeons are the least of the party’s problems.

Natacha Pisarenko / AP

Government supporters celebrate outside the Congress in Buenos Aires on May 3, 2012 after Argentina's takeover of its formerly state-owned energy company won approval from legislators.

Ivan Fernandez / EPA

Deputies and spectators attending the session of Congress celebrate the final approval of the proposal of creating a bill to expropriate the oil company.

Reuters reports — Argentina's Congress nationalized the country's biggest oil company, YPF, by an overwhelming lower house vote on Thursday that underscored broad popular support for a measure that threatens to scare off foreign investment. 

"It's a good move for the country because if the government does not control strategic resources such as oil, it loses power," said financial analyst Leonardo Rodriguez, 32, as he sipped a latté in the well-heeled Buenos Aires neighborhood of Puerto Madero.

"But the approach used in taking over the company, without negotiating, was too jarring and authoritarian," Rodriguez said. "There could be serious consequences. I mean, who wants to invest in a country where the government expropriates private property from one day to the next?" Read the full story.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

With President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta not ruling out military action against Iran and Syria, Congress is once again trying to figure out its role in war making.

The House last June found itself in the paradoxical position of voting to defeat a resolution authorizing Obama to use force in Libya -- but also defeating a proposal to cut off funding for the operation. In effect, the House said it would keep paying for a war it did not authorize.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday March 7, 2012, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the crisis in Syria and the risks for U.S. involvement.

Although Obama has warned Congress and the Republican presidential contenders against talk of a precipitous war against Iran, he hasn’t ruled out ordering military action to stop the Tehran regime from developing nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., called this week for air strikes on Syria. And Panetta said Wednesday “potential military options, if necessary” are being considered by the Obama administration against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Sometimes, as in the case of Libya, Congress votes too late on a resolution authorizing the president to use force. By the time the House voted on a resolution authorizing Obama to use force against Libya, he’d already ordered U.S. forces, as part of a NATO mission, to attack targets in that nation three months earlier.

Sometimes as in the case of invading Iraq in 2003, Congress votes to authorize an action the president made clear he was going to take anyway, no matter what Congress did.

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This week Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell came up with a new approach to the congressional role in war making. In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, McConnell said that if U.S. intelligence agencies presented Congress with an assessment that Iran had begun to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, “or has taken a decision to develop a nuclear weapon” he would consult with Obama and then introduce an authorization for the use of military force.

He said passage of an authorization would ensure that “we have a coherent, unified policy toward Iran and that we not take on another military action without bipartisan support.”

But even with the kind of vote McConnell envisions, no Congress can force a president to launch a military strike he does not choose to launch.

Instead of being too late, as in Libya, would McConnell’s idea be a case of Congress moving too soon?

“I think the Israelis have avoided drawing lines so he probably should not draw red lines at this time either,” said Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich. Thursday. “I think it’s better to kind of keep them guessing. That’s what the Israelis are doing. The prime minster of Israel specifically said he’s not specifying what they may do under what conditions, so I think that McConnell would be wise not to specify at this time either” – other than reiterating that “all options are on the table.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R- Maine, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said, “I think he (McConnell) was trying to send a signal to the Iranians that there is a red line here and if the Iranians cross it, there would be support in Congress for strong action. I think he was trying to send a signal to the administration that it needs to be tougher in its approach with the Iranians.”

But, she added, “I think it’s a long way from actually authorizing the use of force.”

Collins thinks presidents should get authorization from Congress in order to launch military actions.

In Libya, she said, Obama “should have received congressional authorization and I felt the president violated the War Powers Act in not doing so.” Collins said it isn’t simply a matter of congressional authorization ensuring that a war will have public backing: “It’s a matter of following the law and respecting the Constitution.”

As for Syria, McCain said Thursday a congressional authorization to use force “would be useful, but I think right now you’d have to have the president ask for it” and there would need to be more public support. “But, believe me; momentum is building in our direction: look at the lead editorial in the Washington Post this morning.” That editorial called for Obama to build an international consensus to use force against Assad’s regime.

Related: Senate rejects GOP environment, energy proposals

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., a believer in robust presidential war-making powers, said, “I think the president could deploy military force in this situation without an authorization from Congress.”

Graham said he wants Obama to lead an international coalition which would provide humanitarian aid to Syrians under attack from the Assad regime and which might impose a no-fly zone “to give breathing space to the people about to be slaughtered and create a sanctuary where they re-group, organize and be trained.” He emphasized that he did not want the United States to act unilaterally.

But even if there were a congressional resolution to use force in Syria, unintended consequences might follow.

Louis Fisher, a war powers scholar at the Constitution Project, a Washington think tank said that a congressional resolution is not in itself an insurance policy against misguided presidential action.

“My first thought is the disaster of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution” by which authorized use of force against North Vietnam in 1964, he said. “Yes, it featured Congress ‘authorizing’ a war but the resolution was carelessly drafted and permitted (President Lyndon) Johnson to escalate the war the next year. The Iraq Resolution of 2002 is another example of a misconceived effort to authorize war. Congress is supposed to make the decision. Instead the resolution left the question of military action to (President) Bush.”

As for McConnell’s idea, Fisher said “This legislation seems to give the intelligence community a trigger to authorize military action against Iran.” Based on how the intelligence agencies performed in the run-up to the Iraq war, he said, that might be a grave error.

Even though Graham doesn’t think Obama needs a vote by Congress to act against Syria, he did say that a congressional authorization “always bolsters your case, it’s always good to have the country behind military action.”

But in fast-moving situations the president cannot and should not wait: “When the president hits these guys in Somalia, go get ‘em. We’ve given the authorization to use force against al Qaida (in the 2001 congressional vote).”

Yet, 11 years after the congressional vote to give Bush the power to fight al Qaida and allied groups, Graham said there are murky post-9/11 cases in which it is not clear how far congressional authorization reaches: “What about these spin-off groups, al-Shabaab (in Somalia) and these other groups that are just beginning to spin off? AQIM (an Algerian-based jihadist group), what about them? So we need to think this thing through.”

He said, “These are really good questions; I don’t know the answers to them all.”