If he doesnt' quit, George W. Bush will fire George Tenet on November 3rd, the day after his landslide re-election.
He's been disloyal, and the Bushes don't brook disloyalty.
Tenet should be fired for gross incompetence, at the very least. Although many field agents have done excellent work in Afghanistan and Iraq, Tenet's CIA has compiled a stunning record of mistakes and misjudgements. Here's a few of the worst examples:
- The CIA was in charge of working with the Afghan Northern Alliance. They allowed the local warlord(s) and NA to do the cease-fire in Kandahar which enabled Mullah Omar to escape.
- Did they learn from this mistake? No. They allowed the exact same thing to occur at Tora Bora, thereby enabling Osama bin Laden to escape if CIA was even correct that he was ever there at all.
- President Bush accelerated the planned start of the Iraq invasion because George Tenet rushed over to the White House to say that he had credible evidence of the exact and immediate whereabouts of Saddam Hussein and many of the regime's leaders (including Hussein's sons). So the President ordered an unplanned, hastily arranged bombing run. Later, Tenet's CIA claimed they had evidence that Hussein was seen being carried out of that building on a stretcher. It was all bull crap, as we now know. And the premature start of the invasion could have cost American lives.
- A couple of weeks later, after it became obvious that Hussein and the regime leaders were still alive and kicking, Tenet again rushed over to the White House to inform the President the CIA had credible and immediate evidence of Hussein's wherebouts. Again, a bombing run was ordered, and again it turned out the CIA was wrong.
- Then there's the matter of WMD. We know for certain that Hussein had WMD prior to the 1991 Gulf War. George Tenet was Deputy Director of the CIA under Director John Deutch from July 3, 1995 to Dec. 16, 1996, when he became Acting Director. He rose to Director on July 11, 1997. So he's been either #1 or #2 at CIA going on nine years. How come he appears to have been totally fooled about whether or not Iraq disposed of its WMD during the 1990's? How come he didn't have a better handle on what happened to the WMD? (In addition to Deutch and Tenet, the other Clinton-appointed CIA Director was James Woolsey, who seems never to have met a TV camera he didn't want to jump in front of.)
Again, despite the fact that many CIA field agents have done a fine job in this post-9/11 era, Tenet and the senior management at CIA have much to answer for. If, as this article asserts, there is a "clandestine war" going on between the CIA and this White House, it would not be because the CIA feels it's being unjustly blamed for pre-9/11 intelligence failures. I believe it would be to cover the tracks of their common Clinton-era failing: monumental negligence. They would also want to direct focus and blame for their post-9/11 failures elsewhere. BTW, not only is Tenet a Clinton appointee, but so is the #2 man at CIA. John E. McLaughlin was appointed by Clinton during his lame-duck period, and took office on June 28, 2000. So, in all likelihood, there's also a Dem vs. Rep. ideological reason as well.
President George W. Bush was in office barely 7 1/2 months on 9/11/01. After a transition period shortened by the Florida fiasco, only his cabinet-secretary-level appointees were confirmed and on the job on that fateful day. The new FBI director had just taken office a few days prior. I suspect the President wanted continuity at CIA during some of the darkest days our country has ever known.
Hopefully you are right, Sinkspur, and that should he be reelected, Dubya will appoint both a new CIA director and deputy director. I suspect Tenet will, unfortunately, never be held to account for his failures as seems to be the case with the entire Clinton administration.