Posted on 04/26/2007 6:24:24 PM PDT by FreedomPoster
(CBS) Ex-CIA Director George Tenet says the way the Bush administration has used his now famous "slam dunk" comment — which he admits saying in reference to making the public case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — is both disingenuous and dishonorable.
It also ruined his reputation and his career, he tells 60 Minutes Scott Pelley in his first network television interview. Pelley's report will be broadcast Sunday, April 29, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
The phrase "slam dunk" didn't refer to whether Saddam Hussein actually had WMDs, says Tenet; the CIA thought he did. He says he was talking about what information could be used to make that case when he uttered those words. "We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," explains Tenet.
Months later, when no WMDs were found in Iraq, someone leaked the story to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, who then wrote about a Dec. 21, 2002, White House meeting in which the CIA director reportedly "rose up, threw his arms in the air [and said,] 'It's a slam dunk case.' " Tenet says it was a passing comment, made well after major decisions had already been made to mobilize the nation for war.
The leak effectively made him a scapegoat for the invasion and ended his career.
"At the end of the day, the only thing you have … is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor and when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go," Tenet tells Pelley.
He says he doesn't know who leaked it but says there were only a handful of people in the room.
"It's the most despicable thing that ever happened to me," Tenet says. "You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me."
Tenet says to have the president base his entire decision to go to war on such a remark is unbelievable.
"So a whole decision to go to war, when all of these other things have happened in the run-up to war? You make mobilization decisions, you've looked at war plans," says Tenet. "I'll never believe that what happened that day informed the president's view or belief of the legitimacy or the timing of this war. Never!"
Tenet says what bothers him most is that senior administration officials like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continue using "slam dunk" as a talking point.
"And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on 'Meet the Press' on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq," he tells Pelley. "And you listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot [who] told us and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous … Let's everybody just get up and tell the truth. Tell the American people what really happened."
In the broadcast, Tenet says the intelligence extracted from terror suspects in the agency's "High Value Detainee" program, which includes so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," was more valuable than all the other terror intelligence gathered by the FBI, the National Security Agency and the CIA.
The nation's former top spy denies that any torture took place, but tells Pelley that the program saved lives and allowed the government to foil terror plots.
The High Value Detainee program uses "enhanced" techniques said to include sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, and water boarding, in which suspects reportedly are restrained as a steady stream of water is poured over their faces, causing a severe gag reflex and a terrifying fear of drowning.
In Sunday's interview, Pelley challenges Tenet on the "enhanced interrogations," a topic that gets little play in his much-anticipated book, "At the Center of the Storm."
"Here's what I would say to you, to the Congress, to the American people, to the president of the United States: I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," he tells Pelley. "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together, have been able to tell us."
The new program for interrogation came after the 9/11 attacks. When pressed by Pelley about whether interrogations included water boarding, Tenet insists he does not talk about techniques, and that what he means by "enhanced interrogation" is not torture. Whatever it is, it's justified in his mind.
"We don't torture people," he says. "I want you to listen to me. The context is it's post-9/11. I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are gonna be blown up, planes that are gonna fly into airports all over again, plot lines that I don't know. I don't know what's going on inside the United States, and I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur. Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through: the palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much we did not know."
When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in a raid in Pakistan, the "enhanced interrogations" apparently were a surprise to him. According to Tenet, the captured terrorist told CIA interrogators, "I'll talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer." Instead, he reportedly was flown around the world, kept in secret prisons and water-boarded. Tenet repeated his denial again and again: "Let me say that again to you. We don't torture people. OK?"
But when asked by Pelley why the "enhanced interrogation" techniques were necessary, Tenet says, "Because these are people who will never, ever, ever tell you a thing. These are people who know who's responsible for the next terrorist attack … [who] wouldn't blink an eyelash about killing you, your family, me and my family and everybody in this town."
When Pelley presses, asking whether he lost sleep over the interrogations, Tenet says, "Of course you lose sleep over it. You're on new territory."
In 1998, the President thought Iraq had WMD and did nothing. In 2002, the President thought Iraq had WMD and did something. George Tenet was at the helm of the CIA in both cases. I have no doubt Iraq had WMD and would use it, but Tenet can’t claim ignorance on this.
I think he kept this one inside along with other observations so he could maximize sales of the book he intended to write.
That’s the only way I can explain why he didn’t clarify his ‘slam dunk’ comment earlier.
Bush/Cheney should claim that Tenet did cook the intel, or at least that should be their ace in the hole when it comes down to nut cutting time. He is a useful idiot in that he was the DCI, the ultimate fallguy for Bush/Cheney. Use him for that purpose. You notice he’s trying to distance himself from the intel. His feet should be held to the fire.
You are so correct! Why this POS was in such an important position from the get go is an anaethma(SP?)to all of us!
Bush got screwed in the FLA election debacle, I think, and kept Tenet for the interim because he had SO much crap on his plate!
We were a government out of convenience/immediate need at that time.
Another Klintoon/wonder blunder.
“His July 11, 2003 Press Release undermined the President. It was a stab in the back.”
I think you are wrong there. Nearly the opposite could be said to be true.
Tenet wrote it under compulsion of the White House, overwroughtly fearful Bush’s “truth teller” appearance was threatened by Wilson’s article.
...and there you have it.
If you are elected President and you love your country, and there is a Demosocialistcrat anywhere, in any position with any power at all when you get to Washington,
FIRE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FIRE EVERY ONE OF THOSE SCUMBAG WEASELS EVEN IF THEY ARE ONLY FRIENDS OF DEMS!!! FIRE THEM!!!!
W should have never kept Tenet or anyone from the Clinton Administration in his administration.
Did you read the press release. The sixteen words in the STOU were true. And the Brits, after hearings in the UK, still stand by their assertion. This is what the Tenet Press release said about those 16 words:
"The background above makes it even more troubling that the 16 words eventually made it into the State of the Union speech. This was a mistake. "
"And third, the President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.
"From what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct - i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a Presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for Presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed.
The 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did. A British intelligence review [Butler Report]released July 14, 2004 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
Tenet's press release admitted to a mistake that wasn't a mistake.
“Tenet’s press release admitted to a mistake that wasn’t a mistake.”
True.
Still, Scooter and Rove pushed him to write something.
I’m not making this up.
Why not? Everything else is! That is the whole point behind Tenet's revelation on 60 min, it is EASY to blame the one man responsible for everything that is bad in the world.
< /sarcasm >
Translation (in a whiny voice):
“It’s not my fault.”
“Tenet says to have the president base his entire decision to go to war on such a remark is unbelievable.
This lying sob knows full well that the decision to depose Saddam was not solely based on WMD, although that certainly was a sufficient reason. We were in a continuous state of war with Iraq since the first Gulf War. Clinton refused to do anything about the problem.
>>>Ex-CIA Director George Tenet says the way the Bush administration has used his now famous “slam dunk” comment — which he admits saying in reference to making the public case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — is both disingenuous and dishonorable.<<<
Doubtful. After all, Tenet is a hard-core liberal, initially appointed by Bad-Boy Clinton (who only appointed hard-core liberals to any post). Further, everything Bush told the public prior to the Iraq Invasion was previously stated by the Clinton administration and leading liberals (including Chuck Hagel) while Bush was still the governor of Texas. Even further, Bush’s policy of regime change in Iraq was Bill Clinton’s policy, which was endorsed by all liberals in the congress when Clinton proposed it.
The entire argument by the left would not have been possible except for President Bush’s so-called “New Tone” approach, which gave the vultures of the left unlimited targets within the Bush administration, with no concern for retaliation.
The left is right on one point: Bush is an idiot. Only an idiot would believe leftists would play fairly.
In his press release Tenet made it clear that the VP's office did not initiate the Wilson trip nor was the VP's office briefed on the results. The question is why the gratuitous inclusion about the 16 words being a "mistake?" Was this payback by Tenet and a way to set the WH up? The Tenet press release on July 11 was five days after the Wilson piece in the NYT and three days before the Novak column published on July 14 that disclosed Plame's name. Armitage had told Novak on July 8 that Wilson's wife had worked at the CIA.
What can I tell you Kabar?
Libby, Rove, etc. drafted and edited the announcement.
Tenet did get in some jabs on Wilson, though.
Bush was an idiot for keeping him and all the other Clintonestas in the first place. He shot himself in the foot with his "New Tone" crap actually expecting these weasels and backstabbing bureaucraps to support him. Next candidate needs to run on a platform, "Get along? Hell I'm gonna kick their asses!"
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