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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...