On the telephone that night, a senior intelligence officer warned then-CIA Director George J. Tenet that he lacked confidence in the principal source of the assertion that Saddam Hussein’s scientists were developing deadly agents in mobile laboratories.
Former CIA director George J. Tenet, left, did not pass on to former secretary of state Colin L. Powell doubts relayed to him by a senior intelligence officer.
“Mr. Tenet replied with words to the effect of ‘yeah, yeah’ and that he was ‘exhausted,’ ” according to testimony quoted yesterday in the report of President Bush’s commission on the intelligence failures leading up to his decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.
Tenet told the commission he did not recall that part of the conversation. He relayed no such concerns to Powell, who made the germ- warfare charge a centerpiece of his presentation the next day.
That was one among many examples — cited over 692 pages in the report — of fruitless dissent on the accuracy of claims against Iraq. Up until the days before U.S. troops entered Iraqi territory that March, the intelligence community was inundated with evidence that undermined virtually all charges it had made against Iraq, the report said.
I’m going to sleep. Post snarky outrage of the (duh) variety below.
well, I for one am shocked. Shocked!
I am shocked. But I’m also skeptical. Could Tenet’s exhaustion have been that he knew it was utterly futile?
Tenet exhausted? I’m exhausted.
They’re all complicit. Frog-march the lot of them.
So Tenet got a presidential medal. And Powell got, what? The door. In keeping with the Peter Principle method of management of this misadministration.
Well, you know, that’s what bothers me about this little vignette (and I’ll confess I haven’t read the rest of the article yet)…. that Powell and the CIA advisers come across as pure as the driven snow, while Tenet gets the “Boos!” for his horrible performance in this scene of the play known as … I can’t think of the best title … anyway.
Given how these stories get to the press, someone is whispering bad stories about George while painting one’s self as the hapless victim (Powell) or the wise one (CIA adviser) whose sage advice was ignored.
And we do know that Powell has a history of communicating his side of the story. See Bob Woodward.
My hunch is that Powell is as complicit in this evil mess as the rest of them.
Agreed, on Powell’s complicity. And, yes, I suspect he has the WaPo ear closer than do some of the others. In this crowd, he comes off as slightly less slimy, which is a dubious distinction.
On the other hand, I tend to be extremely skeptical of instant history as written by Bob Woodward, who long ago sold whatever soul he had for the gratification of high-level access and big royalty statements.
Is this any different than any other changing of the guard? Golly gee, yes, 9/11 happened. Like most people I tend to forget the mood of the country prior to the twin towers. This serves as a reminder.
I suspect Tenet had one foot out the door preparing for a leisurely walk-away. The new administration had already begun to target Iraq, using Clinton’s “regime change” as a springboard for the PNAC agenda. Cheney’s energy task force was meeting, big oil had taken over the WH, the progressive movement (such as it was) was aimless – dazed and confused.
The INS, ATF/DEA, and Coast Guard were separate agencies; the FBI was in the middle of their tech “upgrade”; we had limited intelligence ties with most of the world; and the CIA, State Dept, and DoD intel people were all claiming they had the best information going forward. No one on first.
Not much of shock here. More like two little kids in the crib with droopy drawers blaming each other for the spilt milk. There never have been any adults in the room with this administration.
I guess I should clarify here…I think if one was paying attention, it was clear that the Administration was “stove-piping” intelligence to achieve the results it wanted (and outright lying to boot). Powell is no dummy. If he wasn’t questioning the quality of the intelligence, I’d be shocked. He took what he needed to get the necessary political cover.