CIA Report Blames Tenet for 9/ll Failure

CIA Report Blames Tenet for 9/ll Failure

Brian Ross Reports:

Former CIA director George Tenet "bears ultimate responsibility" for failing to create a strategic plan to stop al Qaeda prior to 9/ll, according to a review by the CIA's inspector general that was made public today, more than two years after it was written.

The report says that while Tenet wrote he wanted "no resources or people spared" in going after al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, neither he, nor his deputy, "followed up these warnings and admonitions by creating a documented, comprehensive plan to guide the counterterrorism effort."

"I know now why Tenet worked so hard to kill this report," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant.

In a written statement, Tenet, who received the Medal of Freedom from President Bush, said the report was "flat wrong." Tenet said the inspector general failed to interview him. "He fails to understand how intensely I pushed the counterterrorism issue," Tenet said.

The current CIA director, Gen. Mike Hayden, said the report was being made public "against his wishes" but as required by law. Hayden said he, like his predecessor Porter Goss, had no plans to punish CIA officials cited in the report.

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In recounting intelligence failures prior to 9/ll, the inspector general said there was neither "a single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have enabled the CIA to predict or prevent the 9/ll attacks.

But the report concludes there were "failures to implement and manage important processes, to follow through with operations, and to properly share and analyze critical data."

The report says Tenet "did not use all his authorities in leading the IC's (intelligence community's) strategic effort" against bin Laden.

"That's not fair," said ABC News consultant Clarke. "Of course there was a strategic effort, and he did raise the issue at the highest levels of government."

Vote: Do you think Tenet is to blame for failing to stop al Qaeda before 9/11?

And the report provides new details of the CIA's failure to alert the FBI that two al Qaeda operatives, who would be among the 9/ll hijackers, had entered the United States.

According to the report, "some 50 to 60" inside the CIA read "one or more of six Agency cables" that reported the two men had flown through Bangkok to Los Angeles.

The cables "were read by overseas officers and Headquarters personnel, operations officers and analysts, managers and junior employees," the report says, but over the course of 18 months, no one from the CIA shared the information with the FBI or sought to put the names on the State Department's terror watch list.

"That so many individuals failed to act in this case reflects a systemic breakdown," the report concludes. "Basically, there was no coherent, functioning watch listing program," it says.

Watch the full report on "World News Tonight With Charles Gibson."

Why George Tenet makes me want to puke

Arianna Huffington
Bio

04.29.2007
Why Didn't George Tenet Just Resign?

Does this sound familiar? A senior Bush administration official plays a key role in selling the Iraq war debacle to the American public, resigns a few years later, and then tries to distance himself from Bush and the war by writing a book or talking to Bob Woodward, portraying himself as a poor, hapless victim who knew the truth at the time and really, really wanted to tell it, but, somehow, just had no choice but to go along.

What else could he do?

Each story shares the same fatal flaw. It requires that the remedy that was readily available -- resignation -- did not exist.

The latest in this tawdry lineup is George Tenet.

Poor George Tenet. Flogging his book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, on 60 Minutes, Tenet tells Scott Pelley about how his phrase "slam dunk" was misused by the Bush administration. Tenet, you see, didn't mean that Hussein had WMD, he only meant it was a "slam dunk" that a public case could be made that Hussein had WMD.

I can't really see that the distinction matters, but Tenet apparently does. "I became campaign talk," Tenet tells Pelley, "I was a talking point. 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth."

Great -- except he's about four years too late. Tenet seems to believe there's a major distinction between lying and standing by silently while others lie, and then proudly receiving a Medal of Freedom from the liars.

He could have simply resigned and freed himself to "tell the truth." Tenet acts as if resignation were not an option. But it was. And the passion and anger he displays now in the service of book sales could have been used then in the service of his country.

"It's the most despicable thing I've ever heard in my life," Tenet tells Pelley. "You don't do this... You're gonna throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection? Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me."

The problem is, the honorable train left the station a long time ago, and Tenet wasn't on board.
But others were. Like John Brady Kiesling, a career U.S. diplomat, who resigned from the State Department. And wrote in his resignation letter to Colin Powell:

"I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."

That, Mr. Tenet, is how it's done.

It's now too late for George Tenet. But can someone please remind Paul Wolfowitz and Alberto Gonzales, as they are pathetically fighting tooth and nail to cling to their jobs, that there is another option.

And how long do you think it's going to be after the end of the Bush administration before we are treated to General Petraeus' memoir explaining how the surge would have worked "if only he had been given the troops he needed to implement it properly."

So here is a plea to all Bush administration officials: Now is the time. If, like John Brady Kiesling, you're finding it hard to reconcile what you see going on around you with what you know to be the truth, do the right thing and resign. While it matters.

As Tenet says on 60 Minutes: "At the end of the day, the only thing you have is trust and honor in this world. It's all you have. All you have is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor. And when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go."

George Tenet and I are both Greek and there is a great word for it: filotimo.
There are still lives to be saved if a few administration officials have the guts to do what they know is right now -- instead of five years from now while flogging their books.

Any takers?