George Tenet on the staircase with the neocons
In his book and on TV, former CIA Director George Tenet remembers all the things he should've said before we invaded Iraq but didn't.
By Juan Cole
Apr. 30, 2007 | The French call it "the spirit of the staircase" (l'esprit d'escalier), the clever reply to someone that comes to you on your way up to the bedroom after a cocktail party. In his new book, released Monday, former CIA Director George Tenet has delivered himself of hundreds of pages on the staircase, imagining what he should have said or could have said to Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the other neoconservatives who marched the country to war in Iraq using the pretext of Sept. 11. In his April 29 interview with "60 Minutes" touting the book, Tenet came across as a spectacularly tragic Walter Mitty, daydreaming about how things would have been different if only he had spoken up, if he'd only been a James Bond-style spymaster instead of a timid, fawning bureaucrat. But of course, when it really mattered, at the critical juncture of his seven-year tenure as CIA chief, Tenet said nothing.
Tenet has revealed for the first time that he encountered Pentagon advisor Richard Perle on the day after the Sept. 11 attacks. As Tenet recounted the story on "60 Minutes," Perle "said to me, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday; they bear responsibility.'" Tenet told interviewer Scott Pelley that he was startled at the allegation. "It's September the 12th," said Tenet. "I've got the manifest with me that tells me al-Qaida did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way, shape or form, and I remember thinking to myself, as I'm about to go brief the president, 'What the hell is he talking about?'"
Is that really what Tenet should have been thinking to himself? Just, "What the hell is he talking about?" Perle was then the chairman of the civilian Defense Policy Board, which had great influence over Pentagon policy, and he was intimately linked to Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the No. 2 and 3 men at the Department of Defense. He was also close to Cheney and to the latter's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Perle had coauthored with Feith and others a 1996 white paper for Israeli politician Bibi Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud Party, advocating a war against Iraq. Perle believed that the Saddam Hussein regime posed a dire threat to Israel and that overthrowing it would enhance Israel's security. If Tenet had been as street savvy as he likes to pretend -- what with being a Greek from Queens and all -- he should have been thinking, "Aha! So that is how the neoconservatives are going to play this thing. How can I head them off at the pass?"
Tenet's experience was nearly identical to that of former terrorism czar Richard Clarke. In his own "60 Minutes" interview three years ago, and in his 2004 book, "Against All Enemies," Clarke said that he met Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 12, 2001, and Rumsfeld was pushing for an attack on Iraq in response: "We have to bomb Iraq," he is alleged to have said. Clarke was so surprised that he said he at first thought Rumsfeld was joking.
Tenet encountered the same skepticism or unconcern about al-Qaida in high Bush administration officials as had Clarke. He confirmed that the CIA had ongoing covert operations in Afghanistan from 1999, but that he could not get the go-ahead from either President Clinton or President Bush to attempt to overthrow the Taliban and kill or capture Osama bin Laden. He maintains that in the summer of 2001, he sought a meeting with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at which he presented a briefing. As he recalled to "60 Minutes," "Essentially, the briefing says, there are gonna be multiple spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent. Mass casualties are a likelihood." He told "60 Minutes" that his message to her was: "We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive." Rice has denied that she received any such specific information or suggestions from Tenet.
In his interview on April 29, Tenet alleged that Rice delegated the issue of immediate action in Afghanistan to "third-tier officials." When pressed as to why he did not go straight to the president, Tenet implied that he did not have the ability to put things on Bush's agenda, while Rice did. In the cliquish Bush White House, he was perhaps not the insider he had thought he was. Or perhaps he did not want to risk Bush's ire and was pressing Rice to take the heat for urging on the lackadaisical Bush a covert operation he had already once refused to consider...[Open in new window]
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In his book and on TV, former CIA Director George Tenet remembers all the things he should've said before we invaded Iraq but didn't.
By Juan Cole
Apr. 30, 2007 | The French call it "the spirit of the staircase" (l'esprit d'escalier), the clever reply to someone that comes to you on your way up to the bedroom after a cocktail party. In his new book, released Monday, former CIA Director George Tenet has delivered himself of hundreds of pages on the staircase, imagining what he should have said or could have said to Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the other neoconservatives who marched the country to war in Iraq using the pretext of Sept. 11. In his April 29 interview with "60 Minutes" touting the book, Tenet came across as a spectacularly tragic Walter Mitty, daydreaming about how things would have been different if only he had spoken up, if he'd only been a James Bond-style spymaster instead of a timid, fawning bureaucrat. But of course, when it really mattered, at the critical juncture of his seven-year tenure as CIA chief, Tenet said nothing.
Tenet has revealed for the first time that he encountered Pentagon advisor Richard Perle on the day after the Sept. 11 attacks. As Tenet recounted the story on "60 Minutes," Perle "said to me, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday; they bear responsibility.'" Tenet told interviewer Scott Pelley that he was startled at the allegation. "It's September the 12th," said Tenet. "I've got the manifest with me that tells me al-Qaida did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way, shape or form, and I remember thinking to myself, as I'm about to go brief the president, 'What the hell is he talking about?'"
Is that really what Tenet should have been thinking to himself? Just, "What the hell is he talking about?" Perle was then the chairman of the civilian Defense Policy Board, which had great influence over Pentagon policy, and he was intimately linked to Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the No. 2 and 3 men at the Department of Defense. He was also close to Cheney and to the latter's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Perle had coauthored with Feith and others a 1996 white paper for Israeli politician Bibi Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud Party, advocating a war against Iraq. Perle believed that the Saddam Hussein regime posed a dire threat to Israel and that overthrowing it would enhance Israel's security. If Tenet had been as street savvy as he likes to pretend -- what with being a Greek from Queens and all -- he should have been thinking, "Aha! So that is how the neoconservatives are going to play this thing. How can I head them off at the pass?"
Tenet's experience was nearly identical to that of former terrorism czar Richard Clarke. In his own "60 Minutes" interview three years ago, and in his 2004 book, "Against All Enemies," Clarke said that he met Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 12, 2001, and Rumsfeld was pushing for an attack on Iraq in response: "We have to bomb Iraq," he is alleged to have said. Clarke was so surprised that he said he at first thought Rumsfeld was joking.
Tenet encountered the same skepticism or unconcern about al-Qaida in high Bush administration officials as had Clarke. He confirmed that the CIA had ongoing covert operations in Afghanistan from 1999, but that he could not get the go-ahead from either President Clinton or President Bush to attempt to overthrow the Taliban and kill or capture Osama bin Laden. He maintains that in the summer of 2001, he sought a meeting with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at which he presented a briefing. As he recalled to "60 Minutes," "Essentially, the briefing says, there are gonna be multiple spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent. Mass casualties are a likelihood." He told "60 Minutes" that his message to her was: "We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive." Rice has denied that she received any such specific information or suggestions from Tenet.
In his interview on April 29, Tenet alleged that Rice delegated the issue of immediate action in Afghanistan to "third-tier officials." When pressed as to why he did not go straight to the president, Tenet implied that he did not have the ability to put things on Bush's agenda, while Rice did. In the cliquish Bush White House, he was perhaps not the insider he had thought he was. Or perhaps he did not want to risk Bush's ire and was pressing Rice to take the heat for urging on the lackadaisical Bush a covert operation he had already once refused to consider...[Open in new window]
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posted by Dan at 10:46 PM
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