Caution On Tenet

George Tenet is making headlines saying the administration misplayed the WMD evidence. But Tenet has held his tongue on this information for years now until he stands to gain fiscally. George Tenet is the CIA director who served at the time of the worst intelligence failure in U.S. history. He was part of the leadership team that led this country into a war that killed over 3,000 Americans. For this he was awarded the medal of freedom and he held his tongue.

Take what he says with a giant salt lick.

3 Responses to “Caution On Tenet”


  1. Gravatar Icon 1 Waveflux
  2. Gravatar Icon 2 Quaker in a Basement

    Tenet is telling the truth about the “slam dunk” thing. Go back and read Woodward’s description of it in Plan of Attack (p.248-249). Tenet, Andrew Card, Bush, and others discussed the case that would be presented to convince the American people that an invasion was justified. After running through it all:

    …there was a look on the President’s face of, What’s this? And then a brief moment of silence.

    “Nice try,” Bush said. “I don’t think this is quite–it’s not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from.

    Card was also underwhelmed. The presentation was a flop. In terms of marketing, the examples didn’t work, the charts didn’t work, the photos were not gripping, the intercepts were less than compelling.

    Bush turned to Tenet. “I’ve been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we’ve got?”

    From the end of one of the couches in the Oval Office, Tenet rose up, threw his arms in the air. “It’s a slam dunk case!” the DCI said.

    They’re not discussing the quality of the evidence. They’re discussing the quality of the presentation! The “slam dunk” was referring to whether or not people would buy it, not whether the evidence was clear cut.

  3. Gravatar Icon 3 Duros62

    Well, come on, now. Look how long it took for Robert McNamara to figure out viet Nam was a cluster fu*k.
    I’d say this is progress.

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