"THE NATIONAL PRESS"

George Tenet was a convenient fall guy

by Joel Weinberg

George Tenet is a registered Democrat. That he was allowed stay on at a senior post when George W. Bush took office is curious. The decision supposedly came from George H.W. Bush, the old CIA chief, who advised his son to preserve continuity in the intelligence community. Also, he liked the guy. Everyone did.

A product of public schools in Queens, Tenet graduated from Georgetown University and thoroughly became a creature of Washington. His first gig was as an aide to a solar power lobby. From there, he worked his way up the ladder until, in 1997, he found himself the Director of Central Intelligence under President Bill Clinton. Tenet did not have any special expertise in intelligence and covert operations. What he did have was a large personality. His outgoing warmth was a magnet for large egos that needed soothing.

The CIA had gone through a period of high turnover and declining budgets. It was an agency that was struggling with its image, much like Gene Simmons after KISS took off their make-up. The CIA was trying to define its role in the post-Cold War world. Tenet knew that the focus must be on independent terrorist networks, instead of enemy governments. He was credited with almost immediately boosting the morale of the downtrodden agents.

Tenet also developed a pleasant relationship with George W. Bush, despite their differing party affiliations. They had similar straight-talking styles sprinkled with sports metaphors that created a favorable environment for communication. The Bushies, however, were more circumspect in their dealings with Tenet. His close relationships with Colin Powell and Richard Armitage surely did not help Tenet in gaining access to the inner circle.

In 1998, two U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed. In 1999, Tenet had CIA operatives on the ground in Afghanistan. They were closing in on a plan to take out the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Bill Clinton did not give the go ahead to the mission. Politically, it could be viewed as a cynical distraction from Clinton's embarrassing liasions. Legally, there were qualms about targeted assassinations.

In 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was attacked. When Bush took office, Tenet again asked for increased authority in chasing and catching the bad guys. Bush refused, needing more time to develop his administration's attitude toward engaging terrorists. Tenet did go ahead and order the development of the Strategic Assessments Branch of the Counter-Terrorism Center. After much delay, the Branch went into action September 10, 2001.

Tenet was likely one of only a handful of people in the United States who immediately identified the culprits of the 9/11 attacks. He had considered Bin Laden his most formidable adversary for years, and now he knew that Bush would let the gloves come off, and he would be given the permission to crush our enemies. In the weeks following the attacks, the CIA fielded a lot of criticism for failing to prevent the bloodshed. Tenet claimed that he told Condoleezza Rice in the summer of 2001 that immediate action was needed to be taken inside Afghanistan. Rice disputes the urgency of Tenet's message.

When Bush was debating how to enter Afghanistan to take out the Taliban and destroy Al Qaeda, the Pentagon did not have much of a plan. Despite the considerable brow-beating abilities of Donald Rumsfeld, the lumbering Defense Department was in the developing stages of a plan of attack.

The CIA was ready. The Worldwide Attack Matrix drawn up under Tenet provided the first marching orders of the War on Terror. The CIA took the lead in an armed conflict for the first time. CIA spooks and assassins would end up fighting alongside military special operations. The Taliban was crushed. Al Qaeda was scattered, but the big fish swam away through the vortex of Tora Bora.

The CIA had been effective in funding and arming the normally dysfunctional Northern Alliance, which greatly helped defeating the Taliban. The inability to find warlords suitable enough to be on the payroll in the Eastern and Southern parts of Afghanistan was the major reason that Bin Laden was able to escape.

When the Bush administration abruptly turned its' attention to Iraq, the glory days for George Tenet and the CIA were over. The Pentagon took the lead in this build-up for war. Tenet could not find the Al Qaeda-Saddam links that Dick Cheney kept pressuring the CIA to unearth.
This was the time of the infamous "Slam Dunk" comment. It was not about going to Iraq being a Slam Dunk. It was not that the intelligence provided made invading Iraq a Slam Dunk. The real reason behind Dunkgate was more cynical. Tenet agreed that presenting Saddam's stockpile of WMD's as the public rationale for invading Iraq would be a Slam Dunk. It is deplorable that Dick Cheney and the former president himself later framed Dunkgate as the trigger that set the Iraq invasion in motion.

Tenet did believe that Saddam possessed a considerable stockpile of dangerous weapons. Although he had no hard evidence of this, he did not think that France would steer us in the wrong direction, no matter how many Freedom Fries. Tenet sat behind Colin Powell as the Secretary of State delivered the speech to the U.N. that would end both of their political careers.

Dick Cheney kept insisting that Saddam attempted to purchase uranium in Africa. The CIA had already debunked this claim, and Tenet repeatedly tried to get Cheney to tone down the rhetoric, but he did not try hard enough. The rarity, in this case, is that Tenet admits to this fact. He knows that if he felt strongly enough in opposition to all the administrations's claims and strategies regarding Iraq, he should have confronted Bush, Cheney, and Rice.

Tenet resigned in 2004, when the Iraq War was approaching its nadir and shortly before Powell and Armitage made their exits. George Bush then awarded George Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The old knife in one side and a medal on the other.
George Tenet still lies awake at night, feeling guilty about not preventing the 9/11 attacks. He is a passionate, emotional man. Stakes were high, and fatal mistakes were made. Unfortunately, Tenet approached his job in the fashion of a hard-working, loyal bureaucrat. This was not good enough in the face of Neo-Cons wearing rose-colored glasses and executives with biblical notions of Good vs. Evil.