Tenet Is Out

CIA Director George Tenet has resigned, reports USA Today, citing the standard "personal reasons."

Comments

[joe]

Personal Reasons = Desire to take up canoeing

It takes a stout heart to stand by the Czech intel story, and the uranium story.

[Gary Gunnels]

Xlrg,

There is a difference between opposing a particular war, and war in general. If you have evidence on the matter of “yellowcake affair” that is contrary to the general opinion on the matter, then please provide it.

To be blunt, for those who opposed the war and those who favored it, evidence is used in a slippery manner, and it appears to be more of a prop for particular ideologies or statements of faith that they may hold. Much of it – though mythical in nature – takes on a veneer of “truth,” like most historical memory. Thus, only when the rubber meets the road are the complicated nature of such “truths,” be this a matter of their validity or not, comes to light. An example of this sort of thing is the Patriot Missile in GWI, that is its initial reception, then re-assessment.

[thoreau]

I’ll be very curious to read the tell-all book.

Or maybe he’ll be paid for his silence with a nice phat, cushy job at a well-connected company.

[Rick Barton]

Xrig,

From:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3056626.stm

On Tuesday, the White House for the first time officially acknowledged that the Niger claim was wrong and suggested it should not have been used in the president’s State of the Union speech in January.

In his keynote speech to Congress in January, the President said: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

But the documents alleging a transaction were found to have been forged.

Mr Blair defended the assessment…(saying the) evidence did not come from these documents, they came from separate intelligence,”

However, Mr Blair did not specify what that separate intelligence was.

” Separate intelligence”,”Yeah that’s what I really meant”. “Separate intelligence, Yeah that’s the ticket”

Ha!
Only a politician can get away with this kind of BS!

So Xrig, you’re believing Blair’s obvious duplicity, instead of Bush then?

Also See: http://www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565,463779,00.htmlhttp://www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565,463779,00.html

[JDM]

Rick,

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

“But the documents alleging a transaction were found to have been forged.”

Do you not see what I see?

[Rick Barton]

R C Dean, Matthew Cromer, Xrig

The lies that went into the push for this war is just another example of the truth that libertarians and conservatives have been telling us for years; that you can’t and shouldn’t trust government!

In our country, this wisdom goes back to the founders of our Republic.

[Dan Spencer, California Yankee]

Tenet?s resignation may have been prompted by the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee?s report on pre-war intelligence failures. ABCNews reports the findings in the not yet released report on pre-war intelligence failures are ?devastating? for Tenet.

[Dan Spencer, California Yankee]

Tenet?s resignation may have been prompted by the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee?s report on pre-war intelligence failures. ABCNews reports the findings in the not yet released report on pre-war intelligence failures are ?devastating? for Tenet.

[anon]

RC Dean:

“the Iraqi archives are examined”

make that the Iraqi archives that Chalabi manufactures.

[Les]

What Rick said. Thanks, Rick.

[Dan]

It was actually fairly cleverly done. The furor over Tenet had faded a bit, so the administration doesn’t appear to be responding to criticism or, heaven forbid, admitting that mistakes were made.

Tenet was a Clinton appointee, wasn’t he? Why would sacking him have required that *Bush* admit he made a mistake? The only mistake Bush made, with regard to Tenet, was not firing him years ago. That’s the kind of mistake it’s easy to admit to. 🙂

Bush just doesn’t seem to like firing people. How else can you explain the careers of people like Tenet and Mineta?

[Ken Shultz]

Wilson verified that the Niger yellowcake story was bogus. Although Tenet claimed that the CIA had previously warned the White House that the yellowcake story was false, he also took personal responsibility for failing to strike the infamous 16 words from the State of the Union Address.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A11208-2003Sep27&notFound=true

Trying to justify the invasion of Iraq on the basis of this evidence isn’t just clutching at loose straws, it’s defying gravity.

[G. W. Bush]

I wish Tenet had done as good a job of checking as all you hit n’ run posters!

P.S. Just got my issue with 1600 right on the cover. Laura couldn’t believe her eyes when I showed her!

[tomhynes]

Tradesports had a betting line on whether Tenet was going to go by the end of June 04. It traded for months at about 20%,and did not move at all in the last week. In other words, nobody saw this coming, or at least no insider trading. You would think someone in the know would want to make a few bucks.

[Dan]

Trying to justify the invasion of Iraq on the basis of this evidence isn’t just clutching at loose straws, it’s defying gravity.

The British claim that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake from Africa; Bush cited this as one of many reasons for invading Iraq. The British still stand by this story.

The evidence does, indeed, suggest that Iraq did not try to buy yellowcake from Niger. Now if only Niger was synonymous with “Africa”, the rest of your argument would actually hold water. 🙂

[DanNAlabama]

According to accounts in both The Times of India and India Today, former ISI chief Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmad instructed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta.
Dennis M. Lormel, director of FBI’s financial crimes unit, confirmed the transaction. Not long after, J-e-M’s accounts were frozen.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26249
Czech connection mostly rumor. Pakistani connection documented.

[Gary Gunnels]

Dan,

Then where in “Africa” were they trying to buy “yellowcake” from? Surely you can be more specific.

DannAlabama,

“Pakistani connection documented.”

Its claimed; there is no documentation alluded to in the article itself. As to what this has to do with Iraq, I can’t say – since Iraq is not mentioned in the article.

[OL]

What? Less than three years after he oversaw the single largest intelligence failure in the history of the United States?

[just wondering]

And who’s in?

[just answering]

current CIA deputy director, John E. McLaughlin. Temporary. As of July.

[Jason Ligon]

I can’t figure out the length of this guy’s career, either, and I usually pooh pooh on the idea that Someone’s Head Must Roll every time something happens. What I judge is recovery after a surprising event, and the CIA has responded poorly since 9/11, too.

[Xrlq]

Does “personal reasons” mean a general reason, like “because I suck,” or does it mean something more specific, like “I suck at predicting massive terror attacks and determining how much WMD our enemies have stockpiled?”

[Neil Lindsey]

Actually, “personal reasons” means “I’m doing this now so that my name doesn’t come up during the home stretch of the election season”.

It was actually fairly cleverly done. The furor over Tenet had faded a bit, so the administration doesn’t appear to be responding to criticism or, heaven forbid, admitting that mistakes were made.

[You Didn't Know]

Personal Reasons = Dick Cheney.

[Rick Barton]

This is disquieting. Tenet actually had some sympathy for the truth.

From:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=1996

It was Tenet who fought an unsuccessful battle to keep claims of an Iraqi nuclear program not far from success out of the President’s 2003 State of the Union.

It was Tenet whose Agency was sidelined by the Office of Special Plans (OSP), a division of the Defense Department set up especially to propagandize for war and “stovepipe” cherry-picked (and unverified) intelligence directly to the White House via the office of the Vice President.

When Perle and his cohorts were concocting tall tales of Al Qaeda’s “links” to the Iraqi government, and Saddam’s mythical quest for Niger “yellowcake,” CIA analysts were outspokenly (if anonymously) debunking these fanciful effusions.

Even as the CIA was denying it, Perle was busy spreading the fable about an alleged meeting of Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague that turned out never to have happened.

While Perle was confidently concurring with fellow Defense Policy Board member Ken Adelman’s prediction that the conquest and occupation of Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” a State Department study (shelved by the neocons) accurately foretold the mess we find ourselves in today.

The neoconservative guru and former chairman of the Defense Policy Board (Perle) says:

“George Tenet has been at the CIA long enough to assume responsibility for its performance. There’s a record of failure and it should be addressed in some serious way.”

[Neb Okla]

…I wonder if the CIA saw it coming. 😛

[R C Dean]

Except, Rick, that the Czechs have always stuck by their story that Atta met with the Iraqis, and more and more instances of Saddamite support for terror generally and AQ affiliates in particular come to light as time passes and the Iraqi archives are examined.

[Matthew Cromer]

Rick will never admit that Saddam had anything to do with Al Qaeda. Ever.

[Xrlq]

And except that the yellowcake bit was never “debunked.” And except that the Brits still stand by the story about attempting to purchase uranium in Niger (which now even Bush basher Joseph Wilson acknowledges). And, and….

Reasoning with a peacenik is a fool’s errand.

[Rick Barton]

Matthew Cromer,

I’ll “admit” what the evidence permits. Also, it’s not “anything” that’s the question here. It’s a working relationship that threatens the US. There is just no evidence.

[Rick Barton]

R C Dean:

The Atta-Czech story has ever increasing big problems:

http://www.gacerny.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_gacerny_archive.html#108610295513976530

From the June 1st thread, ?Atta Boy?, which I notice that you didn?t post on. 😉

[Les]

R.C., it seems to me that if there was anything at all to the “Czech connection,” the administration would be crowing about it every chance it got. The last time Cheney brought it up, Bush made sure to state that there was no evidence of a working Iraqi/Al Quaeda connection.

Xrlg,

There are a lot of military and ex-military folks (NOT peaceniks, by any stretch) who disagreed with this war, the way it was sold, and the way it’s been conducted.

[John Hensley]

Tenet has never been shy about going before congressional committees and declaring his incompetence for all to hear. What the heck took so long?

and yes, Bush should take heat for keeping him around for so long.

[joe]

Has anyone else noticed that that hawkish discussion of, for example, the African yellowcake story has morphed from “this is a reason we must go to war right now” to “it wasn’t a lie, exactly?”