Posted on 07/09/2004 1:36:24 PM PDT by SmithPatterson
Collins Says Senate Report Proves Tenet Should Have Resigned As CIA Director Months Ago WASHINGTON, D.C. – Georgia Congressman Mac Collins, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said Friday that a Senate Intelligence Committee report showing the U.S. intelligence community overstated the threat that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein posed to America proves that CIA Director George Tenet should have resigned several months ago. “I could see through Tenet six months ago,” Collins said in a statement. “I didn’t have to have a Senate Committee report proving how inept Tenet was at CIA.”
“Based on his committee testimony, I knew that he was not the person for the job. He was not keeping up and paying attention to what was going on in the agency. He was not paying attention to what was happening in the Middle East. I am reluctant to say what he said in committee because such testimony is classified,” Collins said.
Friday’s Committee report, Collins said, “supports my call for his resignation back in February. Tenet had a lot of shortfalls and he should have gone a long time ago.”
Collins was the first and only House Republican to call for Tenet’s resignation. Tenet announced his resignation as agency head in June.
Tenet was appointed as CIA Director by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Collins would not comment on a successor to Tenet. “I will leave that decision up to President Bush,” Collins said.
Tenet should have been fired on Bush's inaugeration day.
Agreed...along with Richard Clarke.
Bush has appropriately and refreshingly been a "cowboy" in foreign affairs and national security -- someone who has little respect for the old, failed way of doing things and seeing the world. But when it comes to the intelligence community, Bush has seemed disturbingly willing to do things the old fashioned way. He hasn't shaken things up at the CIA the way a cowboy should. I fear this is because when it comes to the nation's intelligence community, he listens to "dad," and dad's buddies, like Scowcroft -- all of them a bit tired and old school in dealing with the intelligence bureaucracy.
And, then they would have blamed Bush for 9/11. If only he hadn't fired Tenet, Tenet would have seen it coming. Blah, blah, blah ad nausea!
The more these jerks point their finger the closer the facts have taken them to a mirror. If I were them I would think twice before singling out anyone in what amounts to a collective decade long failure.
He would undoubtedly tell his son to "stay the course" on matters of intelligence, because that was how he did things when he ran the CIA and when he was president.
Bush the son needs to bring in fresh people and innovative ideas. And he has to toss every Clintonoid still working where they can sabotage any real progress.
I would have fired Tenet because Tenet needed firing. And because no Clinton appointee can be trusted.
You're right!
They blame Bush anyway.
Wouldn't matter.
( And THANK YOU! for your service to our country! )
Anyone in the Senate or the House of Representatives who voted to cut CIA readiness ought to resign, or be voted out of office. The truth is that it's more the fault of Congress than it is of Tenet.
Hindsight hypocrisy.
I agree that firing Tenet would not have prevented 9/11. It just would have given the lefties one more reason to blame Bush -- that if he had kept the expert on bin Laden, Tenet could have prevented the attack. Tenet's expertise on bin Laden and his obsession with same was one of the reasons Bush kept him on as CIA head.
THAT is the key! It amazes me that people who work in the Administration, can actually work *against* Administration policy, and what is really amazing is that they never get shown the door.
I don't begrudge Bush of keeping Tenet on after 1/20/01, especially since they had a shortened run-up during the transition period. And Tenet, I've read, was more of a details guy than a partisan guy at CIA, as I recall. But considering the horrific failures of intelligence -- the topper being the inability to find Saddam's WMDs, especially after Tenet said finding them would be a "slam dunk" -- this should have encouraged Bush to lean a bit, at the very least, on Tenet to leave.
No doubt Leahy is planning a press conference to refute charges Bush 'lied' about WMDs.
These folks will forever try to live down service for Willie; they lied for him and covered for him. And, they still will because any boost for Willie, they think, helps remove some of their stain. GET RID OF THEM ALL!!!
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