Charles Krauthammer: Tenet's book aims at amnesiac market

Washington Post via Star Tribune ^ | May 7, 2007 | Charles Krauthammer

[jdm]

WASHINGTON - George Tenet has a very mixed legacy. On the one hand, he presided over the two biggest intelligence failures of this era -- 9/11 and the WMD debacle in Iraq. On the other hand, his CIA did devise and carry out brilliantly an astonishingly bold plan to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Tenet might have just left it at that, gone home with his Presidential Medal of Freedom and let history judge him.

Instead, he's decided to do some judging of his own. In his just-released book and in hawking it on television, Tenet presents himself as a pathetic victim and scapegoat of an administration that was hellbent on going to war, slam dunk or not.

Tenet writes as if he assumes no one remembers anything. For example: "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat."

Does he think no one remembers President Bush explicitly rejecting the imminence argument in his 2003 State of the Union address in front of just about the largest possible world audience? Said the president, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent" -- and he was not one of them. That in a post-9/11 world, we cannot wait for tyrants and terrorists to gentlemanly declare their intentions. Indeed, elsewhere in the book Tenet concedes that very point: "It was never a question of a known, imminent threat; it was about an unwillingness to risk surprise."

[Vince Ferrer]

Someone said that there are two kinds of people in the world: All of the innocent people who write memoirs, and all of the guilty people who don’t.

[kellynla]

BUMP 4 LATER

[Tamar1973]

Tenet's book aims at amnesiac market

Like Kang Joon Sang?

[Cicero]

I’m really surprised how widespread the attacks are on Tenet’s book. They have come from every direction. He got a sycophantic hearing on TV—it think it was on 60 Minutes—but he has been panned and laughed at almost everywhere else.

Surprising. I would have thought that the whole MSM would jump on board and play it for all it was worth.

[jdm]

Surprising. I would have thought that the whole MSM would jump on board and play it for all it was worth.

And you know that Tenet, himself, expected the MSM to embrace him and his book as well. He's probably in shock right now.

[kellynla]

Thank you, Charles Krauthammer!

How would you like to have these “fair-weather war-backers” in a fighting hole with you the first time you started receiving rockets & mortars!
When they weren’t peeing all over themselves, they’d be throwing their hands up in surrender. LOL

Of course, lets not forget that these Leftists’ poster boy was the three-time draft-dodger, “BJ” Clinton, himself!

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[Rembrandt]

I think Marc Steyn is fabulous but I think Charles Krauhammer is even fabulous-er.

[mtntop3]

Tenet concedes that very point: "It was never a question of a known, imminent threat; it was about an unwillingness to risk surprise."

"...an unwillingness to risk surprise" states the case for going to war perfectly. That phrase sums it up and should be proclaimed to the world - it already has, but the amnesia needs to be addressed.