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The Tenet Fiasco - Discussion Thread
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Posted on 07/12/2003 12:52:33 PM PDT by Cathryn Crawford

George Tenet's admission last night that it was his mistake that caused President Bush to use faulty intelligence in his State of The Union address is interesting at the same time as it is convienent. In the statement itself, which is lengthy and filled with reasons as to the intelligence failure, Tenet wholeheartedly takes responsility for his agency.

"Let me be clear about several things right up front. First, CIA approved the President's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my Agency. 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. "

On the face of it, this admission seems like the perfect solution to the growing problems for both the Bush and Blair administration. It's all CIA's fault, they can claim. But is that really viable?

On the face of it, perhaps. But Bush is the President. He has to take final responsibility, doesn't he?

If Bush can truly claim to know absolutely nothing, then don't we have a serious problem - wouldn't that imply that Bush is either incompetent or is simply not paying attention?

For discussion purposes - has Bush been conned by Tenet? And if he has, isn't that rather serious?

And if he wasn't conned by Tenet, what is the alternative?


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: attackedbyharpies; banningkeywords; skullofmush
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To: Neets
oh I forgot about the rules .. thanks for reminding me ;0)
381 posted on 07/12/2003 4:44:10 PM PDT by Mo1 (Please help Free Republic and Donate Now !!!)
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To: Mind-numbed Robot
Just the fact that they were trying to buy uranium is enough to implicate them as seekers of nuclear weapons, else no need for uranium. Plus the British still insist they are correct and have other collaborating evidence.

Exactly. But, that is really beside the point. This really is a tempest in a teapot boiled up by toadies like tea-drinker Joseph C. Wilson 4th so they can attack President Bush's integrity. The Democrats have none so they think that if they can take that out Bush is (as Terry McAuliffe yelled at a Fox News reporter yesterday) done.

382 posted on 07/12/2003 4:47:57 PM PDT by Lauratealeaf
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To: Mind-numbed Robot; Dan from Michigan; Cathryn Crawford
Even if you are technically correct it is still unrealistic

Maybe Dan and Cathryn will send you a postcard when they reach that destination called, "the perfect world".

383 posted on 07/12/2003 4:50:50 PM PDT by Dane
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To: PhiKapMom; Cathryn Crawford
The Bush Administration has begun a chess game of monumental proportions. It is breathtaking in its sheer audacity.

Yes, absolutely. This is precisely what is happening. The Islamists have been killing our people for thirty years now, and until now we have only been nibbling around the edges of the problem. And our strategic situation has been deteriorating, because of our alliance with the Saudis, because of the EU's alliance with Saddam and Arafat.

But, despite family ties to the Saudis, GW Bush has begun to reshape the equation. Essentially, if you picture the Islamists as a mob moving down the alley towards us, GW has picked out the loudest, most dangerous, but also the most vulnerable of the louts, and has jumped on him. The others have been taking by surprise, and are back-peddling.

We have essentially declared war on the Saudis, as well, while hugging them and mugging for the cameras. The Green Berets have been sent into Mindinao, into Georgia, into Yemen, we are training police and troops in every one of the 'Stans, we have wiped out the Taliban, we are in the process of annihilating and disassembling every one of Saudi Arabia's operations.

And the Saudis have seen their world tilt on its axis as we have begun to withdraw our troops from their territory to their Gulf neighbors, and into Iraq, and as their Wahabist creation has begun to target them as well.

This is a chess game, and we are in the process of pulling the legs out from under our enemies. The thirty years of one-side warfare is over.

384 posted on 07/12/2003 4:51:00 PM PDT by marron
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To: huck von finn
Powell chose not to use it because he doubted its veracity. He knew about it.

He may not have used it before the Security Council but the State Department did issue a press release in December 02 that included the claim. This was, of course 9 months after the CIA operative had returned with the finding of bogus.

I cannot figure out how to post that document but I will email it to anyone who cares to see it. It is in pdf as an image so you cannot use the clip board to take out the text.

385 posted on 07/12/2003 4:52:38 PM PDT by Mike4Freedom (Freedom is the one thing that you cannot have unless you grant it to everyone else.)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
George Tenet's admission last night that it was his mistake that caused President Bush to use faulty intelligence in his State of The Union address is interesting at the same time as it is convienent. In the statement itself, which is lengthy and filled with reasons as to the intelligence failure, Tenet wholeheartedly takes responsility for his agency.

You need to do a spell check. You misspelled "convenient."

386 posted on 07/12/2003 4:57:49 PM PDT by Lauratealeaf
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To: marron
This is a chess game, and we are in the process of pulling the legs out from under our enemies. The thirty years of one-side warfare is over.

That applies to the outside world but not to the enemy within. The Democrats and all their leftist toadies are still engaged in eye-gouging hand-to-hand combat and we are still fighting by the Marquis de Queensberry Rules.

Excellent observations. Thanks

387 posted on 07/12/2003 5:00:10 PM PDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all things that need to be done need to be done by the government.)
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To: Dane
Maybe Dan and Cathryn will send you a postcard when they reach that destination called, "the perfect world".

Maybe. Should I await the postman? :-)

388 posted on 07/12/2003 5:01:22 PM PDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all things that need to be done need to be done by the government.)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
At the very least, Tenet should be fired, or forced to resign. Wouldn't you agree?

British intel says it happened. We have the word of a Clinton appointee, who simply asked the Gov of Niger if it were true, and then asked the mining company the same question. And, based on the word of those two, has rejected the findings of MI 6.

That is not an investigation. Were they going to say "yes"?

And based on that, we are going to fire Tenet?

389 posted on 07/12/2003 5:02:55 PM PDT by marron
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To: Lauratealeaf; Mo1; Neets; cyncooper; Mind-numbed Robot; Peach
Why do I get the feeling "somebody" has a column due tomorrow and that they're trolling for factoids and/or reactions.
390 posted on 07/12/2003 5:03:17 PM PDT by Howlin
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To: Howlin
Why do I get the feeling "somebody" has a column due tomorrow and that they're trolling for factoids and/or reactions.

LOL - Because you've been in the sun too long.

Welcome back, Howlin!! ;-)

391 posted on 07/12/2003 5:04:59 PM PDT by Scenic Sounds (Summertime!)
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To: PhiKapMom
Girl, you're way ahead of me....I thought this was a Cindy Crawford thread.
392 posted on 07/12/2003 5:05:19 PM PDT by YaYa123 (@Never heard of the Washington Dispatch.com)
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To: Howlin
I guess we are homework?
393 posted on 07/12/2003 5:05:48 PM PDT by Mo1 (Please help Free Republic and Donate Now !!!)
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To: William McKinley; PhiKapMom
He [Joseph C. Wilson] also wrote that "neoconservatives" have "a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party." He said that "the new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our world view are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme."

Have read such sentiment recently. Now who's Wilson's echo?

394 posted on 07/12/2003 5:08:09 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: Mike4Freedom
How inconsistent that such a thing would happen! And for anyone who wondered why intelligence sharing between the US and UK seemed shady, take a look at this article, just out from UK:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,997243,00.html

?? Still many unanswered questions.
395 posted on 07/12/2003 5:09:32 PM PDT by huck von finn
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To: Cathryn Crawford
Maybe NOW President Bush will see fit to clean the Clinton left-overs out of the White House, out of the CIA, out of ANY organization having to do with our government/nation. Keeping them in to be "nice" or "bi-partisan" was foolhardy.
396 posted on 07/12/2003 5:11:59 PM PDT by madison10
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To: Howlin
Hey! Welcome back! You have missed all the fun!
397 posted on 07/12/2003 5:12:13 PM PDT by Miss Marple
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To: madison10
Please do yourself a favor and read about Civil Service rules. Most of the Clintonistas left in their jobs are in career positions and can't be summarily fired without cause.
398 posted on 07/12/2003 5:13:43 PM PDT by Miss Marple
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To: Howlin
Why do I get the feeling "somebody" has a column due tomorrow and that they're trolling for factoids and/or reactions.

That is a possibility but I think the thread was posted to try to provide those legs the Democrats so desperately want to create.

399 posted on 07/12/2003 5:16:04 PM PDT by Lauratealeaf
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To: Jim Noble
That having been said, I don't agree with the "who cares, it doesn't matter" crew. GWB made his whole military plan contingent on WMD (in front of me and the whole world), and if there are none there, he is going to be hung by it.

I don't think he's going to be hung by it, because that's not how politics works. In 2004 it will be economy, stupid, just as it was in 1992.

What does bother me is that Clinton's CIA Director should have been removed from his position the day before Bush became President. Instead, he's still there, sinking this administration and this country ever deeper into the mire.

The measure of Bush's character is whether he will dismiss Tenet now, or whether he will still have 'full faith and confidence' in a man who misled the country about Sudanese aspirin factories, Chinese missiles, Serbian genocides, Osama bin Laden's intentions, and now an $80 billion war with Iraq.

If Bush doesn't let the man go, it doesn't mean that Bush is forgiving, it means that Bush lacks the character to admit he made a mistake in allowing this obviously incompetent individual to keep his power for so long.

400 posted on 07/12/2003 5:16:28 PM PDT by JoeSchem (Okay, now it works: Knight's Quest, at http://www.geocities.com/engineerzero)
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