Remember TENET?

[Octafish]

With the latest news angle, we seem to have forgotten some very important, very recent history.

So, whatever happened to George Tenet?

And who's side is he on?

Implications of Tenet's resignation

By Tariq Khosa
     
The timing of US CIA director George Tenet’s resignation on personal grounds is both surprising and intriguing. Why did the second longest serving director of lead intelligence agency leave just before, when the presidential elections are round the corner? Is the Bush camp in disarray? Has he been made a scapegoat to divert attention from faux paus of Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, who should have resigned after Abu Ghraib prison torture trauma and drama? Have the neo cons cleverly sacrificed a senior intelligence community official who was hired by President Clinton and allowed to be part of Bush administration?

The answers to the above questions may soon be known. However, it is important to assess George Tenet’s role and performance from a professional perspective. Obviously, there are lessons for Pakistan’s intelligence community and leadership who have dealt with him, especially since 9/11 tragedy which was obviously an intelligence fiasco.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, George Tenet, according to Bob Woodward’s book, “Bush at War” was vehemently expressing apprehensions about Osama Bin Laden on a breakfast meeting with another prominent person, in the context of possible acts of terrorism against the United States. 9/11 was a huge intelligence failure but no heads rolled in the top agencies like FEMA, NSC, FBI and CIA. The CIA director in recent Senate and 9/11 Commission hearings admitted his agency’s failure, especially in the context of lack of effective human intelligence.

George Tenet is reported to be a very popular chief of CIA and was widely respected in the US intelligence community. However, there were certain glaring problems and issues that require a mention here. First, there was a significant lack of communication and coordination between the CIA and FBI. Second, there were not enough translators and language experts in the US Intelligence Agency to decipher “chatter” or communication amongst terrorist networks. Third, the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction claim by Colin Powell in the United Nations was clearly an intelligence sources failure, rebutted by Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, and proved wrong after fall of Saddam’s regime in Baghdad. Fourth, intelligence gathering is not sophisticated guessing; it is solid information both from human and technological sources, which carries very serious consequences. CIA clearly botched up in going to war in Iraq on a false premise, just because the neo con agenda dictated that option. This was a case of intelligence being tailored to follow a policy. It should have been the other way round, policy formulation on the basis of correct and solid information.

CONTINUED...

Don't you just LOVE Pakistani journalism?! Now there's a free press that certainly knows how to cover an issue. That's an LTTE from the Deputy Chief of Police. Now here's what a few American writers are urging the U.S. Congress do now:



Frustrated intelligence reformers see window of opportunity

By Siobhan Gorman, National Journal

Advocates of intelligence reform saw their stock skyrocket on June 3 when George Tenet announced his resignation as director of central intelligence. Tenet's impending departure opens a long-awaited and potentially fleeting window of opportunity fora fundamental overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community's command structure. Frustrated for decades, the reformers want to ensure that the answer to "Who's in charge?" stops being "Nobody."

No fewer than 40 studies of the U.S. intelligence infrastructure -- some of them dating back almost to the CIA's birth in 1947 -- have lamented that no single person really runs the nation's intelligence efforts and have declared that the lack of clear leadership is a huge problem with enormous consequences.

Now, reform advocates can push for restructuring without seeming to register a vote of no confidence in Tenet. The status quo no longer seems frozen solid. As Ronald Marks, who spent 16 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, puts it, "The ice has broken; I can hear it all around."

The reform proposal quickly catching fire is the idea of creating a director of national intelligence, who would wield far more power -- including budgetary authority -- than directors of central intelligence have had. Many reformers envision that the new intelligence czar would be at the helm of the entire 15-agency U.S. intelligence apparatus. He or she would be charged with designing and implementing an overall strategy for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating U.S. intelligence about security threats, both foreign and domestic. And, the thinking goes, this new director would be held accountable in the event of a major intelligence failure.

There would still be a CIA director, but no director of central intelligence. And the new superchief would oversee the CIA's director.

CONTINUED...

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0604/061104nj1.htm

Oh. They'll use this opportunity to promote Tenet's successor? More power to the BFEE -- not!