Pentagon accused of ignoring CIA evidence of Chalabi's link to Iran

[struggle4progress]

<snip>
Mr Baer said that before George Bush won the 2000 election he had told Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, two prominent INC backers, about Mr Chalabi's unreliability and his ties to Iran.

"I told Feith and Perle this, but it did not make any difference," he said. "They're like Jesuits. They believed and they didn't check around."

Mr Feith later became under-secretary of defence for policy while Mr Perle was made chairman of the defence policy board in the Bush administration. Both played a leading role in assuring the administration's support for Mr Chalabi and for the Iraq invasion. Mr Perle has maintained his support for Mr Chalabi and has dismissed the CIA's charges against him as diverting attention from the agency's mistakes. Mr Feith has since played down his links with the INC leader.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA's counterterrorism unit, said George Tenet, the agency's chief who resigned on Thursday, had arranged for the Pentagon to be informed about Mr Chalabi in 2002 but the CIA had been "blown off" by the Pentagon.
<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1232022,00.html

[burythehatchet]

1. Its just a matter of time

[FreakinDJ]

2. It will be interesting to hear Tenet when he starts speaking

It is only a matter of time before he has a book coming out and starts to make the speaking rounds.

I am sure we are going to hear who the NeoCons set up shop in the CIA to filter the bogus Intel and ignore any thing contrary to their needs. The CIA, NSA, and FBI need to be purely non-political servant to the people of this country and the current mis-administration is seeking to use them for their own political gain

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. I don't think we'll be hearing about this stuff

in Tenet's next book if he writes one. We are going to be hearing about it from his testimony to the numerous grand juries and congressional investigations that are beginning to get underway.

I think this is the main reason why he resigned. If he was still in charge of the CIA, he wouldn't be able to talk about most of the stuff he knows. Now that he is once again a private citizen, he can be much more forthcoming.

[Justice]

3. I Think Tenet Resigned Over Chalabi and Plame

I think Tenet knew Chalabi was bad news, but kept his mouth shut, and went along, went along, went along with Bush, Feith etc hoping against hope and believing Chalabi could not hurt us too much.

When Tenet learned Chalabi told Iran we broke their codes, and then Tenet learned Bush might have known about the outing of Plame and did nothing to stop it, I think Tenet knew he had made a deal with the devil. He made sure news was made public and then resigned.

I should add that Tenet was way too emotional when he spoke about his resignation - that emotion is guilt. He is deeply conflicted about his role, the CIA's future and the Bush administration. If Tenet had a clear conscience, he would have resigned without tears.

[FreakinDJ]

5. I think Bush asked him to take the fall one time too many

Tenet had it with taking the blame for the rest of the administration. Now we are talking serious jail time for the Plame outing

Just like Tenet said he owes some much needed time to his son. He couldn't very well provide that from sitting behind bars