Informer Without Results

[struggle4progress]

The soft-headed wars of Bush and Tenet

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The war on terror, however, seems to be judged by a different standard. In his farewell message to CIA colleagues today, Tenet extolled the agency's warm fuzzies and noble purposes. "We have thrown our hearts into rebuilding our Intelligence Community," he effused. He lauded "our enduring efforts to build what we call ourselves—what I believe us to be—a true community." He concluded that he was leaving "with my head held very, very high, as yours should always be, because what you do is critical to everything our nation stands for: its goodness, its decency, and its courage."

Can the CIA's progress be measured by more than goodness, decency, and community? Why, yes, said Tenet. "American Intelligence has, after the drought of the post-Cold War years, begun to receive the investments in people and dollars and attention that we need. ... And I believe the American people will continue to demand that this great community of patriots receive the funding and support that you so richly deserve."
Measuring the value of programs by the amount of money spent on them? Isn't this what Bush criticized in the war on poverty? Perhaps, but money isn't the only thing Bush has given the agency. "He spends time with us almost every day," Tenet told his colleagues, evidently referring to briefings such as the one Bush disastrously failed to pursue on Aug. 6, 2001. "He has shown great care for our officers. He is a great champion for the men and women of US Intelligence and a constant source of support."
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What has the CIA accomplished with all this expansion, empowerment, restructuring, streamlining, technology acquisition, and sharpened instruction? Tenet can't say. It's secret. "What you have achieved in this fight against a clever, fanatical enemy, around the world—the cells destroyed, the conspiracies defeated, the innocent lives saved—will for most Americans be forever unknown and uncounted," he told his colleagues. "But for those privileged to observe these often hidden successes, they will be an unforgettable testament to your dedication and your valor."

Well, perhaps in time we'll hear all about the CIA's "hidden successes" under Bush and Tenet. In the meantime, here's a partial list of its glaring failures: The agency knew long before 9/11 that men who had attended an al-Qaida meeting in Malaysia were coming to the United States, but it didn't put their names on a terrorist watch list until August 2001. That month, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested, and Tenet received an internal memo headlined, "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," but he didn't brief Bush about it or mention the information at a Cabinet meeting a week before 9/11. In January 2003, Tenet failed to read—and Bush failed to provide him with—the final draft of the State of the Union address, in which Bush embraced reports, found spurious by a CIA investigator a year earlier, that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. In December 2002, according to Bob Woodward, Tenet told Bush that Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction was a "slam-dunk" certainty. And in February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the United Nations with "evidence" of Iraqi WMD, given to him by the CIA, that has since been discredited.
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http://slate.msn.com/id/2101707/

[acmavm]

1. And now the "it's all the CIAs fault" begins. Tenet is such an asshole.

He sold all his men and women out. Granted, he should have resigned before now, but he should at least have gone out telling the truth.

[struggle4progress]

2. Well, a lot of people seem to regard the CIA ...

as the President's personal source for off-the-shelf dirty tricks and propaganda. So I guess it's no surprise that Tenet plays the same game.

[struggle4progress]

3. You're right: "it's the CIA's fault" is the cry of the moment

Finally, a Wise Move from Tenet

CIA Director George J. Tenet got a lot wrong during his seven years heading up the world's most expensive intelligence agency. He greatly exaggerated Iraq's military capabilities, particularly its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. He failed to anticipate the September 11 plot by al Qaeda to crash hijacked airplanes into buildings in Washington and New York. He missed Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons. But one thing he got right was the timing of his resignation.

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Consider how unpleasant the hot seat would have been for Tenet: It was the CIA's best guess under Tenet that post-war administration of Iraq would be relatively calm and painless, since Iraqis would greet U.S. forces as liberators rather than conquerors. He would have been pulled into the growing feud between Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge over who is responsible for warnings on terrorism.

Tenet might even have been drawn into the soon-to-conclude investigation of who at the White House leaked to the press that Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson, was a covert CIA officer -- this in an effort to discredit Wilson. Wilson, after all, blew the whistle on the fact that Iraq had not tried to buy uranium from Niger, as Bush had claimed in his 2003 State of the Union message.

Tenet might even have been called upon to explain the latest intelligence blunder: the initial deification, then abrupt turnabout on Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi, who had the ear of the CIA and the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, persuaded gullible intelligence officials that the Iraqi army had the capability of deploying chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an attack. Chalabi went from being a trusted intelligence source to a betrayer of secrets -- and a CIA pariah -- almost overnight when, according to U.S. intelligence leaks, he told Iranian government officials that the U.S. had cracked the Iranian diplomatic code.
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http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2004/nf2004064_0776_db016.htm