The Scapegoat?
Gandalf Grey
The scapegoat?
George Tenet, the CIA chief, departs in the wake of intelligence failings
that led to war in Iraq. Of course, no politicians have quit...
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
04 June 2004
George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned
yesterday, the Bush administration's de facto scapegoat for the fiasco of
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the heavy loss of US credibility that
followed.
The timing of his departure, described as being "for personal reasons",
stunned Washington. Mr Tenet, 51, is known to have wanted to step down
before the presidential inauguration in January.
But his going - amid continuing violence in Iraq and new official warnings
about possible terrorist attacks - represents the first big shake-up in
President George Bush's once-vaunted national security team.
Mr Tenet will formally step down in mid-July, and his deputy John McLaughlin
will take charge, almost certainly at least until early next year. The
outgoing CIA director, who has held the post since 1997, told Mr Bush of his
decision during an hour-long meeting at the White House on Wednesday
evening.
Yesterday, as Mr Bush left for his four-day trip to Europe, he heaped praise
on Mr Tenet, calling him a "strong and able leader," who had done "a superb
job" for the American people. "I told him I'm sorry he's leaving," the
President said.
Mr Tenet, once a senior aide at the Senate Intelligence Committee, was much
liked on Capitol Hill. But for all yesterday's warm words, from Democrats as
well as Republicans, the truth about his departure is almost certainly more
complicated. Last night, it was not clear whether Mr Tenet was gently
pushed, or whether he is going of his own volition. No warning appears to
have been given to members of the Senate and House intelligence committees.
In an address to staff at CIA headquarters, Mr Tenet insisted he made his
decision solely for family reasons; "nothing more and nothing less," he
said, his voice choking with emotion. But apart from the WMD embarrassment,
the Agency is also likely to be strongly criticised in the forthcoming
report by the bipartisan commission investigating the 11 September attacks
and why they were not prevented. That too may have contributed to his going.
"This is too important a decision at too important a time for this to be a
personal decision," Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, said. "He
wouldn't pull the plug on the President in the middle of an election cycle
without being asked by the President to do it. He's being pushed out; it's
likely he's the scapegoat."
Within minutes of the news, senior Democrats were already pointing the
finger at Mr Bush. The Massachusetts senator John Kerry praised Mr Tenet for
his "extremely hard work" on behalf of the country. But the US had suffered
"significant" intelligence failures, the Democratic challenger for the White
House added. "The administration has to accept responsibility for those
failures."
Mr Tenet, among the few holdovers from the Clinton administrations, was the
second-longest serving director in the CIA's 57-year history, and served at
a particularly gruelling time, as terrorism replaced the Soviet Union as the
main threat to US national security. He is widely credited with restoring
the morale and cohesion of the agency, and giving new teeth to the
operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine arm. Mr Tenet also had a
strong personal relationship with Mr Bush, whom he saw almost every day.
But, despite the changes he initiated, he has presided over several massive
intelligence failures. The CIA did not predict Pakistani and Indian nuclear
tests in 1998, could not forestall the September 2001 attacks, and never
managed to gather effective human intelligence in Iraq. Mr Tenet was also
handicapped by long-standing jealousy and lack of co-operation between the
CIA and the FBI.
But the coup de grāce was the WMD fiasco. Mr Tenet did not succeed in
keeping already discredited allegations about Saddam Hussein's efforts to
buy uranium ore in Africa out of Mr Bush's State of the Union address in
2003. In Plan of Attack, the journalist Bob Woodward's book on the run-up to
the Iraq war, in 2002 Mr Tenet assured an allegedly unconvinced Mr Bush that
the evidence Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons was "a slam-dunk".
Colin Powell the Secretary of State, made a case to the UN Security Council
that proved totally false. General Powell demanded a full explanation from
the CIA.Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, now
accused of working for Iranian intelligence and pushing America into
invading Iraq, revelled in the departure of the man he accused of being the
source of his troubles. Mr Tenet "provided erroneous information about
weapons of mass destruction to President Bush which caused his government
massive embarrassment in the United Nations and his own country", Mr Chalabi
said.
Mr McLaughlin is a highly esteemed career intelligence official with wide
support within the agency, and is respected by Republicans and Democrats
alike on Capitol Hill.
* The head of the agency's clandestine service, James Pavitt, plans to
announce his retirement today ? a decision the 31-year CIA veteran made
several weeks ago before he knew of Mr Tenet's decision, a CIA official
said.
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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt
"For us to get bogged down in the quagmire
of an Iraqi civil war would be the height of foolishness."
---Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, 1991