Report May Have Hastened Tenet's Resignation

NewsMax Wires ^ | 6/04/04

[kattracks]

George J. Tenet's resignation comes just as a critical, 400-page report from the Senate intelligence committee was readied for public release later this month in the form of an unclassified version.

Some Tenet associates disclosed that the imminent report was among the causes that led him to step down, according to a report in the NY Times.

According to the report, the classified version of the Senate report spells out a shopping list of failures:

• the failure of the C.I.A. to develop human sources of intelligence within Saddam Hussein's government before the war;

• the C.I.A.'s heavy reliance on foreign governments for intelligence about Iraq, including sources who were never directly interviewed by American intelligence agencies;

• “slipshod work" and "factual errors" by C.I.A. analysts and operations officials, including cases in which single sources of intelligence were identified as multiple sources;

• the ignoring of a warning that identified a source of intelligence as a fabricator.

  However, says the Times report, government officials who have read the Senate report said it includes many more mistakes -- and does so in abundant detail.

  "There are some things that are indefensible," said a recently retired intelligence official familiar with the report. "There are some real errors, of omission and commission, and it's not going to be a pretty picture."

  Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, said that he had not read the Senate report, but he believed it had been a factor in Mr. Tenet's decision to step down.

  "This has been a very rough go," Kerr said.

  The reports by the Senate committee and the Sept. 11 commission "are going to be very critical" of Tenet and his agency, Kerr added, "I think he was at a point where he thought maybe it was better that he was no longer the person up front on this."

  According to the Times report, a senior intelligence official said that the C.I.A. is in the process of reviewing how much of the report can be released in unclassified form. The review was expected to be completed soon.

[GrandMoM]

....he should have been gone a long time ago!!!!!!!

[kattracks]

Amen to that.

[meenie]

Tenet was a better schmoozer than intelligence operator. Sucking up to the right people is not the best qualification for intelligence officers.