Tenet's defense of himself

There's actually a spot in George Tenet's new book where he accepts blame for something: the flawed 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons programs, saying that it was “one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.” He says he regrets that every possible "validity indicator" - the "possibles and probables", the "we assess, we judge, we believe"'s that make reading intell so frustrating to those who want black-and-white summaries - were excised so that the NIE comes across as flatly certain, but then he spoils it. He adds that at the time he was that certain, himself, regardless of what the intell actually showed.

"In retrospect, we got it wrong partly because the truth was so implausible."

I don't want to get into it here, how many people for whom that truth was not "so implausible", how many people argued at the time that Iraq couldn't have, hadn't, reconstituted its WMD programs, didn't have WMDs. I want to ask how someone who prides himself on being an "intelligence analyst" could allow perceived plausibility to dictate how he reported the intelligence. Conclusions come from the observed facts - the actual intel - and not the other way around. Cherry-picking the intel to support a predetermined and desired conclusion is not what the top IA in the country should be doing.

That's the problem with Tenet and his book.

Well, that's the main problem. Here's another:

In it, he describes that December, 2000, meeting that led to "slam dunk." According to his version, Bush suggested that they could "add punch" to a proposed public presentation of "the facts" by bringing in lawyers trained to argue cases before a jury. Tenet writes:"

I told the president that strengthening the public presentation was a 'slam dunk,’ a phrase that was later taken completely out of context. If I had simply said, 'I’m sure we can do better,' I wouldn’t be writing this chapter — or maybe even this book."

Again: Tenet himself says that if he hadn't been quoted "out of context" five years ago, he wouldn't have written about the Iraq run-up - possibly not "even this book."

Tenet is not standing up for the truth: he's standing up for George Tenet.

He's not - and never was - an intelligence analyst. He has always been a staffer. It's pretty obvious that he loved his job, still loves the CIA, hates seeing it take hits, and is proud of the people who work there. But George Tenet didn't stand up for them when it counted. When he was asked by Tom Brokaw why he didn't bypass Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Advisor, and go straight to the president with his warnings about al Qaeda in 2000 and 2001, he offered up a lame

"I chose to do my job in a way where you stay inside the system, you do your best, you push, you push your objective analysis, you make people aware of what you believe to be true."

In other words, he was more interested in keeping the job he loved than he was in doing it properly, more interested in being the head of the Central Intelligence Agency that in actually passing intelligence on to the president so it could be acted on properly, and more interested in being an insider than in protecting the nation from those who - and remember, he admits this himself - were lying us into a war which he knew would be terrible in itself as well as a distraction from our real enemy.

If he really, truly thought that he couldn't skip over Condi and go straight to the president - if he really thought all his sage counsel was being ignored - if he really thought that his agency was being used as cover for lies and aggression, he had options. He could have told the truth to the press. He could have resigned and explained why. He could have - at the very least - resigned because he "could not support the administration any longer". But what he did was keep his mouth shut and thereby join the liars, accept a medal from the head liar, and get ticked off when he was misquoted.

And he expects that we'll see this as praiseworthy.

I was watching Countdown Monday. Keith Olbermann was covering Tenet and his book tour, and he had an interview with Phlip Giraldi, American Conservative columnist and former CIA intelligence agent. At the end of the the interview Giraldi said he believes that:

"[Tenet] wrote the book for money. He‘s trying to salvage his reputation. As far as I‘m concerned, his reputation cannot be salvaged, because he keeps referring to himself as a man of honor. There is no honor in what he did. He basically committed a war crime in enabling the administration to go—to start an aggressive war against a country that did not in any way threaten us."

No kidding. Tenet's basic premise seems to be that he knew that al Qaeda intended to attack us before 2001, and that he knew the war on Iraq was needless and founded on lies - yet he didn't tell anybody besides Condi. He claims that IAs stand up for the truth - six, seven years later, it looks like, eh? But how can he claim he is "stand[ing] up for the truth" when he waited this long to speak it? (Assuming that he is, of course.)

Out of his own mouth he is condemned.

He tells us now, on his book tour, that "slam dunk" didn't mean the intelligence was perfect, only that the president could create a compelling presentation. He didn't tell us that back when it mattered, of course; back then, he was enabling the war. He tells us now that he knew the oft-repeated Mohammad Atta story was "complete crap"; he never told us that back then, when it might of been of some use; no, he waits to tell us for six years, until he's got a book to sell. Now he says "it was an honor bestowed because of the work of the men and women of CIA in Afghanistan and our work against terrorism. And I believe that that work — I accepted the award on their behalf." But back then, althought Afghanistan and the Taliban were mentioned, so was Iraq - and so were "efforts [which] have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty", and the whole dog and pony show was about Bremer and Franks - the governors of that conquered country - and Tenet, and the administration's success in a war which Tenet now tells us he always knew was founded on lies.

In the current Truthdig Robert Scheer accuses Tenet of the "high crime" of treason:

Tenet’s high crime—and it is just that—was that he knew of this treachery from the start, yet never exposed it to Congress or the public.

Take Tenet’s description of the briefing, provided by Feith’s office throughout the higher reaches of government, entitled “Iraq and al-Qaa’ida—Making the Case.” As Tenet notes, Feith’s briefer, Tina Shelton, “started out by saying that there should be ‘no more debate’ on the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. ‘It is an open-and-shut case,’ she said. ‘No further analysis is required.’ This statement instantly got my attention. I knew we had trouble on our hands.”

Shelton ran through a series of fraudulent claims, including one that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, which the CIA had previously investigated but found to be fraudulent. Tenet then adds: “I listened for a few more minutes trying to be polite, before saying, ‘that’s very interesting.’ This was one of my rare moments of trying to be subtle. What I was really thinking was, this is complete crap, and I want this to end right now.”

But he didn’t say it. And the “complete crap” of Team Feith carried the day with the Bush administration, from Bush on down, not because they had facts or logic on their side, but because their intellectual bullying served the political agenda of the Karl Rove juggernaut. The bullying was effective only because Congress and the media were traumatized by 9/11 and because those who knew better, most prominently Tenet, failed to speak out. In the end, Tenet betrayed the bedrock freedom of representative democracy—the right of the people to be informed—and failed, when it mattered most, his sworn duty to honestly inform the government about issues of vital importance to its security.

Tenet has spent a lot of time on the talk-show circuit arguing passionately that the only people of honor in this whole mess were the intelligence analysts. But then he tries to throw himself in with those people - the people who "stand up for the facts".

It doesn't work, Mr. Tenet. You didn't stand up for the facts when it would have meant something. And you're not standing up for them now.