Former CIA Director Tenet Threatens Disclosures?

Regarding keeping Tenet: George Bush is a trusting soul, and he believes that the pit vipers of Washington who have clawed their way to the top will respond to kindness.

So did he perjure himself testifying to Congress?

Let ALL the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out!

Sunday, March 28, 2004 1:04 p.m. EST
Condi: Bush Met Tenet Every Day (Clinton Didn't)

President Bush met with CIA Director George Tenet every single day during the eight months he was president before the 9/11 attacks, National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice revealed on Friday, noting that the practice was a shift from the previous administration's policy.

Appearing for an exclusive interview with nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity, Dr. Rice addressed a finding by the 9/11 Commission that President Clinton had ordered the CIA to capture but not kill Osama bin Laden.

"There may have been some confusion [in the Clinton administration]," Dr. Rice told Hannity. "I do know that on our watch George Tenet never felt that he lacked the authority that he needed to do his job."

The top national security official explained why no such confusion plagued Tenet after Bush took over.

"George Tenet met with the president every morning," she told Hannity. "And so if he needed any more authority from us he would have been right there to ask the president. I know he wouldn't have been shy about it."

Rice noted that the daily meetings between Bush and Tenet represented a policy change from the Clinton years.

"That's a practice the president re-instituted," she said. "I don't believe President Clinton met with the DCI every morning. George Tenet met with [this] president every morning."

Dr. Rice also gave new details about a terrorist threat spike in the summer of 2001 that critics have erroneously suggested gave warning of the coming attack against America.

"In the period leading up to September 11, we did have a lot of threat reporting, particularly in June and July," she told Hannity. "Really, all of it pointed to an attack that might come in the Persian Gulf, or that might come against Israel or that might come against the G-8 leaders meeting in Genoa, Italy, that year."

Still, despite the fact that the warnings suggested coming attacks on other nations, Rice said the Bush administration took them seriously.

"We responded to those threats in a very active and aggressive way," she insisted. "I had Dick Clarke call together the domestic agencies so that the FAA could issue warnings, so that the FBI could issue warnings. We did everything that we knew how to do to prepare the country."

He is also someone, according to Bob Woodward (certainly no conservative) who said about Iraq's WMD: "It's a slam-dunk!)

Tell it ALL.
AMEN

What's the over/under on a boating accident?

Roberts writes, "George Tenet is not going to let himself become the fall guy for the September 11th intelligence failures, according to a former intelligence officer and a source friendly to Mr. Tenet.”

Why should George Tenet become the fall guy for the September 11th intelligence failures? Geez, just because Tenet was the head of the CIA for years prior to 9/11 people have the nerve to think he may be responsible for the 9/11 intelligence failures. What is the world coming too? SARCASM OFF

blame on President Bush.

How original !!!

The CIA is the enemy of the UNITED STATES.
They are the best tool Al-Qaeda has.

Bunk. Clinton had 8 years' warning.
Time for this puke to show his cards.

I imagine if Tenet wants to tackle Bush, then Porter Goss may have a few cards to play.

#1. Tenet no longer has his top lieutenants (!! Zarqawi types) in the CIA. Porter Goss fired them all.
#2. Porter Goss knows how to data mine the CIA.
#3. Loss of Pensions and criminal prosecution are possible to those involved in dispersions when they themselves are culpable.

As a famous president said, "Bring it on!"

How many months were Tenet and Clinton in office before 9/11???

And how many times were we attacked during that period.

Let him go there :)

The only mistake Bush made pre-911 was keeping a Clinton incompetent like Tenent around. Any book pointing the finger at Bush will automatically lack credibility if it claims 8 months of failing to act against Al Qaeda is somehow worse or more damaging than the 8 years Clinton did nothing against Al Qaeda, including letting Bin Laden get away up to a dozen times according to 2 books published in the last few years, including "Why America Slept" by liberal Gerald Posner.

This article also claims that Tenent may back up Richard Clarke's claims that Bush did nothing about Al Qaeda prior to 9-11. But Clarke's claims have already been proven to be a lie, or at the very least contradictory, to what he said while still serving as terrorism czar. If Tenent wants to back up those claims, then he'll only be diminishing his credibility and his claims will have to be seen as little more than an axe grinding vendetta and an attempt to sell a book, both of which motivated Dickey Clarke when he didn't get the Homeland Security position.

Take a look at this transcript of a 2002 media sit-down with Clarke where he totally contradicted what he claimed in his election year "tell all":

Transcript: Clarke Praises Bush Team in '02
Wednesday, March 24, 2004

WASHINGTON — The following transcript documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of reporters, including Fox News' Jim Angle. In the conversation, cleared by the White House on Wednesday for distribution, Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003.

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

QUESTION: When was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: Well, the president was briefed throughout this process.

QUESTION: But when was the final September 4 document? (interrupted) Was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: The document went to the president on September 10, I think.

QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the — general animus against the foreign policy?

CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me.

JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

CLARKE: All of that's correct.

ANGLE: OK.

QUESTION: Are you saying now that there was not only a plan per se, presented by the transition team, but that it was nothing proactive that they had suggested?

CLARKE: Well, what I'm saying is, there are two things presented. One, what the existing strategy had been. And two, a series of issues — like aiding the Northern Alliance, changing Pakistan policy, changing Uzbek policy — that they had been unable to come to um, any new conclusions, um, from '98 on.

QUESTION: Was all of that from '98 on or was some of it ...

CLARKE: All of those issues were on the table from '98 on.

ANGLE: When in '98 were those presented?

CLARKE: In October of '98.

QUESTION: In response to the Embassy bombing?

CLARKE: Right, which was in September.

QUESTION: Were all of those issues part of alleged plan that was late December and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to ...

CLARKE: There was never a plan, Andrea. What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table.

QUESTION: So there was nothing that developed, no documents or no new plan of any sort?

CLARKE: There was no new plan.

QUESTION: No new strategy — I mean, I don't want to get into a semantics ...

CLARKE: Plan, strategy — there was no, nothing new.

QUESTION: 'Til late December, developing ...

CLARKE: What happened at the end of December was that the Clinton administration NSC principals committee met and once again looked at the strategy, and once again looked at the issues that they had brought, decided in the past to add to the strategy. But they did not at that point make any recommendations.

QUESTIONS: Had those issues evolved at all from October of '98 'til December of 2000?

CLARKE: Had they evolved? Um, not appreciably.

ANGLE: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues?

CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. You know, take, for example, aiding the Northern Alliance. Um, people in the Northern Alliance had a, sort of bad track record. There were questions about the government, there were questions about drug-running, there was questions about whether or not in fact they would use the additional aid to go after Al Qaeda or not. Uh, and how would you stage a major new push in Uzbekistan or somebody else or Pakistan to cooperate?

One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. And so, this would put, if we started aiding the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, this would have put us directly in opposition to the Pakistani government. These are not easy decisions.

ANGLE: And none of that really changed until we were attacked and then it was ...

CLARKE: No, that's not true. In the spring, the Bush administration changed — began to change Pakistani policy, um, by a dialogue that said we would be willing to lift sanctions. So we began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis, I think, to begin to realize that they could go down another path, which was to join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started.

QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration in any of its work on this issue, in any of the findings or anything else, prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way? What did the Bush administration do with that if they had?

CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points in the Clinton administration to think about it. Um, and they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that.

(Break in briefing details as reporters and Clarke go back and forth on how to source quotes from this backgrounder.)

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That's right.

QUESTION: It was not put into an action plan until September 4, signed off by the principals?

CLARKE: That's right.

QUESTION: I want to add though, that NSPD — the actual work on it began in early April.

CLARKE: There was a lot of in the first three NSPDs that were being worked in parallel.

ANGLE: Now the five-fold increase for the money in covert operations against Al Qaeda — did that actually go into effect when it was decided or was that a decision that happened in the next budget year or something?

CLARKE: Well, it was gonna go into effect in October, which was the next budget year, so it was a month away.

QUESTION: That actually got into the intelligence budget?

CLARKE: Yes it did.

QUESTION: Just to clarify, did that come up in April or later?

CLARKE: No, it came up in April and it was approved in principle and then went through the summer. And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD from one of rollback to one of elimination.

QUESTION: Well can you clarify something? I've been told that he gave that direction at the end of May. Is that not correct?

CLARKE: No, it was March.

QUESTION: The elimination of Al Qaeda, get back to ground troops — now we haven't completely done that even with a substantial number of ground troops in Afghanistan. Was there, was the Bush administration contemplating without the provocation of September 11th moving troops into Afghanistan prior to that to go after Al Qaeda?

CLARKE: I can not try to speculate on that point. I don't know what we would have done.

QUESTION: In your judgment, is it possible to eliminate Al Qaeda without putting troops on the ground?

CLARKE: Uh, yeah, I think it was. I think it was. If we'd had Pakistani, Uzbek and Northern Alliance assistance.

I say BRING IT ON Tenet. He was part and parcel of any supposed cover up and no matter what he says he was the Director of the CIA well before George Bush took office.

Socialism in never acceptable - my wife is from Paris and grew up a socialist, after 10 years in the US she says she would never go back to that system; they have basically told her generation they can forget the retirement their parents have. She has two spinster aunts that want to give us their apartments but taxes on the transfer would be 90%.

Let's get it all out on the table. Time to end this cover-up that extends back for many years. If we, as a free nation, are to choose our leaders we need the facts so we can make wise decisions. Bush has nothing to fear from the truth if his hands are clean.

If I were Tenet I would hardly sit still for being made the fall guy if I had done everything I felt I should have done. I think this is only part of the overall puzzle with "Able Danger" surfacing. Let it all hang out and be done with it.

Considering that Tenet is a grossly incompitent, overstuffed, self-important, pompous liar, I wouldn't be too concerned about anything he might have to say.

The way he and Sandy Berger connived to lay 9/11 at the Bush administration's doorstep is simply disgusting, and I still hold that he should have been shot for gross dereliction and treason. Berger and that other Clarke should have gotten the chair.

Jamie Gorelick (and is this really her name or a description of what she did in the Clinton Admin?) should be crushed by heavy stones on Pay per View. The proceeds could go the 9/11 victims.

Janet Reno should be made to look at her own reflection in the mirror for eternity as her punishment. Then when she manages to turn herself to stone, we could lock her in a church in Waco, Texas and set it alight.

Billyboy should be hung by his privates and everyone who lost a father, brother, son, mother, sister, aunt or uncle in New York on 9/11 should be allowed to play pinata with him, utilizing a board with rusty nails driven through it. The carcasse could be unceremoniously cremated and sold to the highest bidder as an additive to kitty litter.