Free Republic

Three former CIA directors have privately told their successor he had his facts wrong when he revealed an illegal assassination program, reports Joseph Finder, and his spies will suffer for it. according to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up....

The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program. It's unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday. President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program,...

In his memoir, former CIA Director George J. Tenet described the agency's first course of action in a crisis. "Despite what Hollywood might have you believe," Tenet wrote, "you don't call in the tough guys; you call in the lawyers." For more than three decades, that almost always has meant making a call to John A. Rizzo. The acting general counsel at the CIA, Rizzo has guided generations of agency leaders on the legal contours of clandestine operations and the often-ensuing investigations. At CIA headquarters, he is known for his eye-watering wardrobe -- with ties, cuff links and suspenders colored...

Four former CIA directors opposed releasing classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed release of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to detail internal government discussions. President Barack Obama ultimately overruled those concerns after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks after the former directors intervened. The...

The State Department investigation into how and why the passport files of three presidential candidates were breached is scrutinizing an employee at a Virginia-based company, which is headed by an adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign. The Washington Times, which broke the news Thursday that Obama’s files were improperly accessed, reported Saturday that the State Department inspector general’s internal probe will include polygraph tests of supervisors to determine whether there was a political motive behind the breaches. The article said a focal point of the probe will be an employee who works for The Analysis Corporation and is still with the...

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

There is much confusion in the Western world over the basic tenants of Buddhism. Many Westerners believe that Buddhism is -- a) a religion circulating around the worship of a portly Asian sage (often gilded or bronzed and meditating near the door of your favorite Chinese restaurant holding the mints and toothpicks), b) involving a lot of sitting in uncomfortable positions, and c) coldly atheistic or fancifully pantheistic (depending on which section of Wikipedia you consult) Of course, when inspected closer, these stereotypes and inadequate attempts of pigeonholing a religion that has neither formal creed nor “divine” teachings is absolutely...

The new report from the CIA's inspector general about the spy agency's pre-9/11 failings could be titled, "What We Did During Our Holiday From History." The stretch between the end of the Cold War and the Sept. 11 attacks was supposed to be a shiny new era of globalized peace and prosperity, to which an intelligence service was considered quaintly irrelevant. The CIA conformed to the zeitgeist by remaining quaintly irrelevant. George Tenet presided over the agency, failing his way to the second-longest tenure of any director of central intelligence, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a $4 million book...

CIA: Asleep At The Switch August 23, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, how many times did we hear some terrorism expert say: If only the CIA had known al-Qaida operatives were in the United States, this tragedy might never have happened? Well, now it turns out they did know — but did nothing about it. In an explosive report, the inspector general of the United States concludes that CIA agents had tracked two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, from a terrorist summit in Malaysia to the United States. CIA officials...

Intelligence: A highly critical CIA report details the spy agency's failings during the 1990s in preventing the 9/11 attacks. But as the report makes clear, the Clinton administration also deserves a big piece of the blame. The scathing look into the CIA's many failures before 9/11 makes for some depressing reading. The CIA at various times knew information that it didn't pass along to others, or ignored things it should have paid closer attention to. The headlines tell it all. "CIA missed chances to tackle al-Qaida." "Head of CIA 'failed to stop' al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks on America." "C.I.A. Lays Out...

WASHINGTON: George Tenet, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, recognized the danger posed by Al Qaeda well before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but failed to adequately prepare the CIA to meet the threat, according to an internal agency report that was released in summary form Tuesday.

The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found. "They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," *snip* Yet the...

Though Tenet disingenuously omits mentioning this in his memoirs, in October 2002, six months before the American invasion of Iraq, he wrote a letter to Bob Graham (D -FL),the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It stated (emphasis added throughout: "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade. Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression. Since Operation Enduring freedom [the military operations that commenced shortly after 9/11] we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including...

One of the biggest mistakes President George W. Bush made when first taking office was that he didn't clean house. He didn't clean house at the Department of State where Clinton's mouthpiece, Nicholas Burns, is still implementing President Clinton's flawed policies in pushing for an independent Kosovo and the creation of another jihadist state in the heart of Europe. (See: American Council for Kosovo ) And above all, President Bush should have replaced George John Tenet who was appointed Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) in July, 1997, by President Bill Clinton. Since I didn't want to buy Tenet's book, "At...

George Tenet sets the stage in his memoir by recalling a conversation he claims to have had with me on Sept. 12, 2001: "As I walked beneath the awning that leads to the West Wing[, I] saw Richard Perle exiting the building just as I was about to enter. . . . Perle turned to me and said, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.' I looked back at Perle and thought: Who has [he] been meeting with in the White House so early in the morning on today of all days?" But I...

I watched George Tenent’s interview with Tim Russert on “Meet the Press� Sunday. Tenent’s new book gives his version of history leading up to September 11. It’s almost obligatory nowadays; after you have been in the inner circles of an administration, you write a “tell all� book, including private conversations with even the President himself. I haven’t read the book, but I have followed the media accounts. My attention was drawn to Tenent’s statements that al Qaeda is here and waiting and that they wish nothing more than to be able to see a mushroom cloud above the United States....

SORRY TO take a week before writing on former CIA director George Tenet's book, "At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA." My bad: I actually took the time to read the book. So while I should be opining about what those inside the Beltway think is important -- Tenet feuding with Bushies -- I am more concerned with the book's compelling information on the likelihood of another industrial-strength terrorist attack within American borders. As Tenet noted, al Qaeda biggie Ayman al-Zawahiri called off a planned attack against the New York City subway system planned for the...

WASHINGTON - George Tenet has a very mixed legacy. On the one hand, he presided over the two biggest intelligence failures of this era -- 9/11 and the WMD debacle in Iraq. On the other hand, his CIA did devise and carry out brilliantly an astonishingly bold plan to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Tenet might have just left it at that, gone home with his Presidential Medal of Freedom and let history judge him. Instead, he's decided to do some judging of his own. In his just-released book and in hawking it on television, Tenet presents himself as a...

George Tenet has a very mixed legacy. On the one hand, he presided over the two biggest intelligence failures of this era - 9/11 and the WMD debacle in Iraq. On the other hand, his CIA did devise and carry out brilliantly an astonishingly bold plan to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Tenet might have just left it at that, gone home with his Presidential Medal of Freedom and let history judge him. Instead, he's decided to do some judging of his own. In his just-released book and in hawking it on television, Tenet presents himself as a pathetic victim...

Mr. Tenet's account of all this gives the reader no idea of the substance of our critique, which was that the CIA's analysts were suppressing information. They were not showing policy makers reports that justified concern about ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. Mr. Tenet does tell us that the CIA briefed Mr. Cheney on Iraq and al Qaeda in September 2002 and that the "briefing was a disaster" because "Libby and the vice president arrived with such detailed knowledge on people, sources, and timelines that the senior CIA analytic manager doing the briefing that day simply could not compete."...

Time for some Pop Culture with a touch of politics for gravitas. Hillary goes to Rutgers while collecting money from contributors who make Imus look like a Piker. How about lib Alec Baldwin-father of the year? Some upcoming shows of intrigue, the NBC controversey and the real truth about Larry Birkhead. Lots of Blind items, asked and guessed, to round it out.

WHEN someone described Herbert Morrison, a minister in Britain's 1945-51 Labour government, as his own worst enemy, his fellow-minister, Ernest Bevin, growled: “Not while I'm alive he ain't.” You might have thought that George Tenet, a former head of the CIA, is his own worst enemy for producing a whingethon of a book, “At the Centre of the Storm” (HarperCollins). But it turns out that there are legions of Bevins around to prove you wrong. The book has been thoroughly slammed and dunked since its publication on April 30th. And Mr Tenet's book tour is turning into a nightmare; every...

There is no reason why George Tenet shouldn’t promote his book, At the Center of the Storm. And every reason why those who have now heard him in action should wonder: How did such a man, so vain, so emotional, so unreasoning, become head of the CIA? Scott Pelley of CBS did fine work in attempting to explore Tenet’s theses, but found himself at the outset of the interview dealing with a melodramatist unsuited for the role of historian. Self-pity ruled: “People don’t understand us, you know,” Tenet started in. “They think we’re a bunch of faceless bureaucrats with no...

In his new book At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA George Tenet depicts President Bush's decision to invade Iraq as a foregone conclusion, but he seemed to have a different version of events when I interviewed him just after the invasion. Strongly implying that he was against the war from the beginning, the former director of Central Intelligence writes that, as far as he knows, the Bush administration never had a "serious debate" about the "imminence of the Iraqi threat" or even seriously considered the implications of an invasion or the possible consequences. Moreover, Tenet...

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background....

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background....

It always amazes when the MSM congeals an entire presidential administration into a form that posits that every member of that administration is the president. Like when they claim that "Bush Lied" about the faulty intelligence that led to the presentation to the UN to garner support for the action in Iraq given by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yet, when the MSM wants to exonerate a single member of any particular administration, suddenly the President is forgotten as a part of the discussion and the individual administration official the press is currently in love with is held as...

In its lead editorial on Sunday, "Still Waiting for Answers," the New York Times expressed the hope that Rep. Henry Waxman will enforce the subpoena of Condoleezza Rice -- and that she be held in contempt of Congress if she refuses to testify -- in order to force her to discuss: prewar claims about Saddam Hussein's long-gone weapons programs. . . . including a false report about the purchase of aluminum tubes for bomb building, talk of mushroom clouds and fairy tales about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Saddam's "long-gone weapons programs," a "false report about the purchase of...

GEORGE TENET'S JUST released book, At the Center of the Storm, has created quite a stir. Over the past few days, a myriad of news accounts have referenced various snippets of the former director of Central Intelligence's self-serving collection of remembrances. But here is something you probably have not heard or read about Tenet's book: it confirms that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. And, according to Tenet, "there was more than enough evidence to give us real concern" about it too. Tenet devotes an entire chapter to the question of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda...

Poor George Tenet. Everyone has been quoting his infamous comment in the Oval Office that the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction programs was a “slam dunk.” As he has made clear in his book, At the Center of the Storm, and Sunday night’s 60 Minutes segment, Tenet considers this very unfair — “despicable,” even — since his comment supposedly wasn’t about the intelligence itself but about the ease with which the public presentation of the intelligence could be strengthened. This is a distinction without a difference. If the underlying intelligence wasn’t reliable, why was Tenet so slam-dunk certain that the presentation...

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own set of facts." That cardinal rule of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan comes in for mention in George Tenet's memoir "At the Center of the Storm." An unusual kind of irony, then, that Mr. Tenet is now attempting to rehabilitate himself in official Washington, and so he must paint himself as a dissenter, a truth-teller, a man railroaded by the Bush administration. The memoirist's natural tendency to recount the most favorable train of events thus takes on its own momentum. In Mr. Tenet's case, this puts the man at...

GEORGE TENET'S JUST released book, At the Center of the Storm, has created quite a stir. Over the past few days, a myriad of news accounts have referenced various snippets of the former director of Central Intelligence's self-serving collection of remembrances. But here is something you probably have not heard or read about Tenet's book: it confirms that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. And, according to Tenet, "there was more than enough evidence to give us real concern" about it too.

The long reach of al-Qaida Tenet book details chilling plots to kill Gore, acquire nuclear weapons NEW YORK - Former CIA Director George Tenet’s defense of his agency’s performance in the lead-up to the war in Iraq will echo from now through Election Day next year, but other disclosures in his new book are equally sobering and, in laying out the scope of al-Qaida’s ambitions, sometimes far more frightening. The book, “At the Center of the Storm,” which is being published Monday, reveals that al-Qaida or groups affiliated with it have undertaken several other operations aimed at equaling or even...

Now that former CIA Director George Tenet has begun his pile-on of the beleaguered Bush administration on the very issue (WMD) he helped the administration formulate, be prepared for a new round of "Bush lied, people died" propaganda. Since Democrats are forcing us to deal with this issue, yet again, couldn't we just once put them on the ropes? The entire WMD issue has been a Democratic diversion from the get-go. It has allowed Democrats immeasurable cover for their irresponsible absence of policy on Iraq and has provided endless fodder for their libelous claims against the administration. The Democrats' behavior...

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background....

From what he's said about it, former CIA director George Tenet’s memoir sounds like a country song minus the good music. His "Sixty Minutes" interview made me think of that sorrowful line in one of Toby Keith’s songs: “Yeah, I wish somehow I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” Tenet’s book -- “At the Center of the Storm” -- says that the CIA predicted in August 2002 that anarchy would result in Iraq from an American invasion to topple Saddam. And Tenet apparently paints Vice President Cheney as the principal villain, intent on war with Iraq even before...

April 28, 2007, 1:21 a.m. “...Find Caches of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Absolutely.�Tenet on Zarqawi. By Victor Davis Hanson Like most Americans, I am confused about the recent public announcements of George Tenet — not the usual Beltway “he said/she said� sort of accusations and meae culpae that we are accustomed from former officials plugging “inside story� memoirs, but how exactly we are now to digest past statements in light of present behavior. Surely Tenet had some free will, and when he testified under oath to congressional committees in February 2003 are we now to think such statements were...

The Bush administration: a bigger threat to national security than a foreign spy. That was Tom Brokaw's implicit assumption in his interview with former CIA Director George Tenet on this morning's "Today." Along the way, Brokaw accused former Defense Secretay Donald Rumsfeld of running a "rogue" intelligence operation. BROKAW: In the opening passage you describe conversations in the Clinton administration between the Palestinians and the Israelis attempting to get some sort of a new peace arrangement. But the Israelis were demanding the release of Jonathan Pollard, a United States military intelligence analyst who had been selling them secrets, who's...

Hawking his new book, At the Eye of the Storm, former CIA Director George Tenet bared his soul Sunday night to Scott Pelley of the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes. Some preliminary thoughts about his jaw-dropping performance are in order. 1. Tenet met every morning with President Bush. Indeed, he was the point person at the national-security briefing — the daily session Bush, from the beginning of his presidency, has made a point of taking more seriously than his predecessor did. Tenet now claims that in the summer of 2001, he was convinced al Qaeda was on the verge of...

NEW YORK In his much publicized "60 Minutes" interview tonight, tied to his new book, former CIA director George Tenet flatly called the outing of one of his employees, Valerie Plame, "big time wrong." "She's one of my officers," Tenet said. "That's wrong. Big time wrong, you don't get to do that. And the chilling effect that you have inside my work force is, 'Whoa, now officers names are being thrown out the door. Hold it. Not right.'" Asked how much damage that did, Tenet said: "That's not the point. Just because there's a Washington bloodletting game going on here...

SCOTT SHANE REPORTED in Saturday's New York Times that former CIA chief George Tenet's dramatic description in his book, At the Center of the Storm, of an August 2002 presentation at the CIA by defense undersecretary Douglas Feith and his staff, is at the very least misleading. In order to suggest that Feith's staff was utterly out of its depth, Tenet characterized the main briefer, Tina Shelton, as a "naval reservist." In fact, she had been a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst for almost two decades. Tenet also claimed that Shelton said in her presentation of Iraq-al Qaeda contacts, "It is...

SCOTT SHANE REPORTED in Saturday's New York Times that former CIA chief George Tenet's dramatic description in his book, At the Center of the Storm, of an August 2002 presentation at the CIA by defense undersecretary Douglas Feith and his staff, is at the very least misleading. In order to suggest that Feith's staff was utterly out of its depth, Tenet characterized the main briefer, Tina Shelton, as a "naval reservist." In fact, she had been a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst for almost two decades. Tenet also claimed that Shelton said in her presentation of Iraq-al Qaeda contacts, "It is...

NEW YORK - The backlash has built up even before the official release of former CIA Director George Tenet's memoir, with criticism about his version of the run-up to the Iraq war, interrogation techniques and other events. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday disputed Tenet's claim that the Bush administration, before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, never had a serious debate about whether Iraq posed an imminent threat or whether to tighten existing sanctions. "The president started a discussion practically on the day that he took power about how to enhance sanctions against Iraq," she said. "You may...

It's a familiar scene: A Clinton holdover writes a book attacking the Bush administration and is paraded around through the network newsrooms for partisan fun and his own profit. I'm talking about George Tenet's soon-to-be released book attacking Cheney and Rice, absolving himself of all error and making a puzzling claim about what he meant when he said the Iraqi WMD program was a "slam dunk" basis for justifying war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

War on Terror: Whatever ex-CIA chief George Tenet's book says he meant by "slam dunk" regarding pre-Iraq War intelligence, there always were lots of good reasons to oust Saddam Hussein — and to finish the job today. In the nearly 550 pages of Tenet's "At the Center of the Storm," there's no shortage of bitter complaints from the intelligence chief on whose watch 9/11 took place. He says the Washington Post's Bob Woodward distorted and took out of context the phrase that has come to define Tenet. While conceding the CIA believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before...

The CIA has been fighting the Bush administration since 9/11. 9/11 proved the monumental incompetence of the CIA, and its weakness in the post Cold War era. What the CIA is doing right now, by giving false "leaks" to help the Democrats rewriting history, is to erase this shameful period. Edward J. Epstain raised questions about the reliability of the CIA about the WTC 1993 case : "BY EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Last week Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) admitted to having been responsible for planning no fewer than 28 acts of terrorism, including the...

Like most Americans, I am confused about the recent public announcements of George Tenet — not the usual Beltway “he said/she said� sort of accusations and meae culpae that we are accustomed from former officials plugging “inside story� memoirs, but how exactly we are now to digest past statements in light of present behavior. Surely Tenet had some free will, and when he testified under oath to congressional committees in February 2003 are we now to think such statements were misleading, untrue, or coerced by Dick Cheney — or do some remain absolutely accurate to this day? Among the many...

WASHINGTON, April 27 — In January 2002, George J. Tenet, the man who oversaw all American spy agencies, was asked by a visiting Italian intelligence official what he knew about United States officials making contact with exiled Iranian opposition figures. “I shot a look at other members of my staff in the meeting,” Mr. Tenet writes in his newly published memoir. “It was clear that none of us knew what he was talking about. The Italian quickly changed the subject.” The embarrassed Mr. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, had stumbled upon a quixotic effort by a few Pentagon officials...

After people attacked the Bush Administration for invading Iraq, because of a lack of WMDs, saying "Bush lied," it was pointed out that his position on WMDs was the same as that of the CIA and most other intelligence agencies, and that CIA head George Tenet had called it a "slam dunk" case. Now Tenet admits he said that, but he is also claiming that people put the whole onus of the war on his shoulders, despite the fact that there were 23 casus belli. Contrary to Tenet, no one in the Bush camp has claimed or implied that Tenet...

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision...