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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: philosofy123
Given her evil;

Given her drive;

Given her ambition;

Given her connections;

Given her star status;

Given the masses who'd kill just to please her;

Given the masses who'd bring society down around their own ears in her behalf;

Given her access and manipulations of the media;

Given the demonic forces eager to boost her power;

Given the revisionism aflood in our society;

Given tooooo much apathy on the part of tooooooo many conservative patriots, Christians;

Given even overt and covert real witchcraft;

. . .

I prefer not to discount her until she's thoroughly off the public stage in an old age nursing home if God allows her that much time in this time/space dimension.

881 posted on 07/14/2003 9:40:43 AM PDT by Quix (LIVE THREAD NOW STARTED. UFO special Tues eve & share opinions)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
The bottom line is that an executive must make his or her decisions based upon the evidence or information at hand, none of which is 100% fool-proof. If one were to hold out for 100% confirmation, from all sources, no decisions would ever be made.
882 posted on 07/14/2003 9:41:40 AM PDT by ought-six
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To: Quix; Cathryn Crawford
i THOUGHT the attitudes of some were unworthy attacks. And the shrill questioning beyond what I felt was warranted, fitting of her conservative orthodoxy. I decried the haughtiness in some of the wording.

The point is, it's the article we're supposed to be commenting on, not Ms. Crawford's character, whether positive or negative.

Personally, I think she's a very nice person, but that's beside the point: I disagree totally with this article.

883 posted on 07/14/2003 9:41:43 AM PDT by Amelia (It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness)
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To: Amelia
The White House didn't say that the statement was based on "faulty intelligence", just intelligence that our sources had been unable to verify.

"[I]ntelligence that our sources had been unable to verify" is, in my opinion, "faulty intelligence" for purpose of inclusion in a president's State of the Union address.

I agree with the White House that it would have been much better to have excised those 16 words.

884 posted on 07/14/2003 9:42:34 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (Summertime!)
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To: William McKinley
"You want a scandal and a Watergate? Let's find out who arranged for Wilson to go to Niger."

You are absolutely correct on this point.
885 posted on 07/14/2003 9:49:15 AM PDT by ought-six
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To: justshe; Cathryn Crawford
The discussion that she was attempting to elicit, imo, narrowed the field of discussion.

Well, I don't know what to tell you. I've gone back and read my posts on this thread and I remember feeling at all times very comfortable in voicing my views on the subject.

Nothing she or anyone else said made me feel crippled or unable to discuss the issues rationally. ;-)

886 posted on 07/14/2003 9:50:05 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (Summertime!)
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To: Scenic Sounds
YOUR comfort, however, was not addressed in my post. I'm sure many felt comfortable in expressing their views. "Comfort" does NOT have anything to do with the contentions that arose on this thread, imo. And rationality is VERY subjective, no?
887 posted on 07/14/2003 9:59:13 AM PDT by justshe (Eliminate Freepathons! Become a monthly donor.)
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To: Amelia
Fair and reasonable ENOUGH, to me.
888 posted on 07/14/2003 10:02:22 AM PDT by Quix (LIVE THREAD NOW STARTED. UFO special Tues eve & share opinions)
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To: Scenic Sounds
"[I]ntelligence that our sources had been unable to verify" is, in my opinion, "faulty intelligence" for purpose of inclusion in a president's State of the Union address.

I agree with the White House that it would have been much better to have excised those 16 words.


The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Personally, I just don't see the problem, but I don't see that the line added that much to the SOTU address either.

889 posted on 07/14/2003 10:05:01 AM PDT by Amelia (It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness)
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To: Amelia
Personally, I just don't see the problem, but I don't see that the line added that much to the SOTU address either.

If you read my prior posts on this thread, I think you'll see that I agree with you that the mistake was a minor one. ;-)

890 posted on 07/14/2003 10:10:35 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (Summertime!)
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To: justshe
And rationality is VERY subjective, no?

Good question! Beats me! LOL. ;-)

891 posted on 07/14/2003 10:14:17 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (Summertime!)
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To: Cathryn Crawford
"For discussion purposes - has Bush been conned by Tenet? And if he has, isn't that rather serious?"

No. A mistake in judgment on the part of the CIA may have occurred, but it's looking more and more likely that the intelligence on which the '16 words' were based was actually correct. (Haven't seen the news in the last couple of hours, but this morning, it sure looked that way.)

892 posted on 07/14/2003 10:24:40 AM PDT by MEGoody
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To: MEGoody
To complicate things even more, the UN nuclear experts now think that ALL of the Brit intelligence came from forged documents.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/945836/posts
893 posted on 07/14/2003 10:30:08 AM PDT by huck von finn
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To: Scenic Sounds
I agree with you that the mistake was a minor one. ;-)

Exactly. Very minor.

That was why I took issue with the article here:

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?

The answers to the above questions are really very simple: we don't have a problem, serious or otherwise, with regards to the President's competency or credibility.

We do have a public relations problem, caused by the press making a mountain out of a molehill, and the situation is exacerbated by articles like this which seem to imply that the President included false information in the SOTU address and that the administration is either incompetent or dishonest.

894 posted on 07/14/2003 10:32:13 AM PDT by Amelia (It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness)
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To: Amelia
The answers to the above questions are really very simple

That's why in my posts I tried to address those questions. You know me, if they'd been complicated questions, I would have been completely stumped. LOL

We do have a public relations problem,

I agree - that's why the inclusion of those 16 words was, in retrospect, a mistake.

I trust the American people to judge the facts fairly. The American people are not as stupid as a lot of folks seem to imply.

895 posted on 07/14/2003 10:43:20 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds (Summertime!)
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To: Quix
Given her evil; Yes but bush is more than able to beat the EVIL-DOERS.

Given her drive; Yes, but we are JUST AS DRIVEN!

Given her ambition; Yes, but enough people hate her.

Given her connections; Yes, pinco commies/media love her.

Given her star status; AS A LIAR!

Given the masses who'd kill just to please her; If you are counting only fags.

Given the masses who'd bring society down around their own ears in her behalf; If you think that there are enough Americans who are proud to be openly communists.

Given her access and manipulations of the media; Correct, the majority of the media is liberal commies.

Given the demonic forces eager to boost her power; Let us expose fags, and commies.

Given the revisionism aflood in our society; FOX is keeping things in the up and up.

Given tooooo much apathy on the part of tooooooo many conservative patriots, Christians; THAT IS ONE SINGLE DANGER THAT WE ALL SHOULD BE AWARE OF. WE MUST BE VIGELANTS.

Given even overt and covert real witchcraft; I don't believe in that!

896 posted on 07/14/2003 10:53:15 AM PDT by philosofy123
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To: Scenic Sounds
I agree - that's why the inclusion of those 16 words was, in retrospect, a mistake.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, and it becomes all too easy to criticize others for not being able to foresee the future, doesn't it?

The American people are not as stupid as a lot of folks seem to imply.

True, and most people don't like being accused, even implicitly, of being stupid, do they?

897 posted on 07/14/2003 10:57:52 AM PDT by Amelia (It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness)
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To: ought-six
The bottom line is that an executive must make his or her decisions based upon the evidence or information at hand, none of which is 100% fool-proof. If one were to hold out for 100% confirmation, from all sources, no decisions would ever be made.

that's a pretty poor excuse for foisting what was known to be weak intel on the nation in SOTU with the lame disclaimer "or so the brits say." this bit about obtaining uranium from africa was never, at least accord to tenet's statement, the strongest evidence of a nuclear reconstitution program in iraq. it was little more than a footnote in the NIE.

why would the president use the weakest part of the intelligence picture to make his case? can anyone here answer that question?

exceprt of tenet's statement:
"In October, the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified, 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's WMD programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the intelligence community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Let me emphasize, the NIE's key judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them."

898 posted on 07/14/2003 10:59:51 AM PDT by jethropalerobber
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To: jethropalerobber
what difference does it really make?

The difference is Wilson stated on the record that Cheney would know the result of his tea-sipping trip (so what) and therefore "knew" the uranium story was bogus (which it has not been determined to be despite Wilson's claims).

However, Tenet says Wilson's report was not conclusive and the VP was NOT briefed on it.

See?

899 posted on 07/14/2003 11:02:14 AM PDT by cyncooper
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To: jethropalerobber
Wilson claims he went to Niger in 2002 and acts as if his inability to determine any trade taking place puts the end to the question.

Here is Tenet's version:

Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials. We also had to consider that the former Nigerian officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.

I hope you see by now Jethro, that I am absolutely correct in my original assessment of Wilson.

900 posted on 07/14/2003 11:07:01 AM PDT by cyncooper
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