[Enchante]

Feith points out some severe deficiencies in Tenet’s self-serving account. Feith and others in the DoD have had to put up with an immense amount of abuse from others; it’s nice to see someone fighting back!

fwiw, I am reading Tenet’s book now and there are some useful chunks of info, whatever the deficiencies might be when he is busy savaging some of his bureaucratic rivals as neo-cons, etc. Of course, it’s hard to know what’s reliable given the conflicts of Tenet’s memories with Feith, Perle, et al, but the item below I suspect will stand up:

Tenet completely eviscerates Tyler Drumheller’s account of supposed pre-war distrust of the Iraqi exile code-named “Curveball” who gave info on supposed mobile bio-weapons labs, etc. (Dumbheller became a media darling for his claim that HE was brilliant enough to warn that “Curveball” was completely unreliable, etc.] Tenet describes how not only did Drumheller NEVER indicate the slightest concern about “Curveball” despite TWENTY-TWO face-to-face meetings with Tenet, but how in May 2003 AFTER the Iraq invasion Tenet received a set of “talking points” from Dumbheller and his assistant asking Tenet to THANK a high-level German security official for all the great access and info from “Curveball”...... in other words, even weeks AFTER the shooting war started, Dumbheller was not questioning “Curveball” on bona fides, quality of info, etc. The whole media campaign conducted by Dumbheller, gratefully swallowed by liberal dupes and enablers in the MSM, was concocted long AFTER Dumbheller had a chance to do a Joe Wilson style flip flop about “Curveball”....

[nana4bush]

I am reading this book now too, and so far I am just not impressed with Tenet at all. I’m having trouble making sense out of what he is saying. Why was he in charge of the CIA in the first place? Thanks for pointing out that there is some useful info here, because I was about to quit reading.

[Tut]

A story on newsmax also talked about this at CIA Veteran Accuses Tenet of 'Lie'

One of the things that strikes me with stories like this is, they usually want to make claims with no one to back them up. Example:

"In the fall of 2002, Drumheller chatted with his German counterpart about Curveball over lunch in the nation’s capital."

I would find it easier to accept if there were some kind of documentation or/and others were around at that lunch that backs that story.

I'm not saying I believe one way or the other but a lot is said that no one can go back and prove or disapprove. Or in cased like Dan Rather used, where he was making claims what a dead guy said and felt and totally ignored the guys family's views on that.

I've noticed how smart everyone got after the Iraqi invasion where they seem to come out of the woodwork with their "I told you so". But what I'd like to know is, what did Tyler Drumheller write before the invasion?

He was also a part of that fake document deal which I find interesting.

See October 9, 2002: Italian Journalist Gives US Embassy in Rome Copies of Niger Documents

Well, he's someone's darling anyway.

[LS]

Good work. Thanks for reading a book that I don’t care to read, because I don’t want to give this slime a cent.

[ChessExpert]

Thanks for your post. I never knew much about “curveball.� But what I was getting seemed like politics - blaming the administration. The accusation that our main or only source of information was completely unreliable struck me as being the kind of exaggeration that suits some in politics and the press, but did not seem credible to me.