Former Intelligence Officials Hold Ex-CIA Chief George Tenet's Feet to the Fire

[marmar]

from AlterNet:


Former Intelligence Officials Hold Ex-CIA Chief George Tenet's Feet to the Fire

By Former CIA Officers, AlterNet. Posted April 29, 2007.



Former CIA officers write to Tenet: "You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq."

To Mr. George Tenet --

Dear Mr. Tenet:

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the "damage to your reputation." In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.

We agree with you that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials took the United States to war for flimsy reasons. We agree that the war of choice in Iraq was ill-advised and wrong headed. But your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.

You are not alone in failing to speak up and protest the twisting and shading of intelligence. Those who remained silent when they could have made a difference also share the blame for not protesting the abuse and misuse of intelligence that occurred under your watch. But ultimately you were in charge and you signed off on the CIA products and you briefed the President. This is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking.

You helped send very mixed signals to the American people and their legislators in the fall of 2002. CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq. This intelligence was ignored and later misused. On October 1 you signed and gave to President Bush and senior policy makers a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- which dovetailed with unsupported threats presented by Vice President Dick Cheney in an alarmist speech on August 26, 2002. You were well aware that the White House tried to present as fact intelligence you knew was unreliable.

And yet you tried to have it both ways. On October 7, just hours before the president gave a major speech in Cincinnati, you were successful in preventing him from using the fable about Iraq purchasing uranium in Africa, although that same claim appeared in the NIE you signed only six days before.

...(snip)...

The reality of Iraq, however, has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous. The damage to the credibility of the CIA is serious but can eventually be repaired. Many of the U.S. soldiers maimed in the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad cannot be fixed. Many will live the rest of their lives missing limbs, blinded, mentally disabled, or physically disfigured. And the dead have passed into history.

Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.

Sincerely yours,

Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro, David MacMichael .........

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51229/?page=1

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Tenet's self-serving whining makes me ill. Glad that

these upstanding ex-CIA operatives spoke out and voiced their dissatisfaction with his lack of leadership. Tenet has much blood on his hands and he knows it. I think it seeps out in his aggressive extolling of his innocence.

[formercia]

2. Selective Memory

The George Tenet Syndrome:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firing_squad

In some cases, one member of the firing squad is issued a weapon containing a blank cartridge instead of one with a bullet, without telling any of them to whom it has been given. This is believed to reduce flinching by individual members of the firing squad, making the execution process more reliable. It also allows each member of the firing squad a chance to believe afterward that he did not personally fire a fatal shot. This reinforces the sense of diffusion of responsibility. While an experienced marksman can tell the difference between a blank and a live cartridge based on the recoil (the blank will have much lower recoil), there is a significant psychological incentive not to pay attention and, over time, to remember the recoil as soft.

[formercia]

3. Others publishing books to weasel out.

I noticed on TV about a new book on Condi. I was too busy laughing to get all of the details but it seemed like another attempt at a whitewash.

How many more finger-pointing expose books are about to surface?


What's really slimy about all this is the craven attempt to profit from the failed policy they promoted or failed to expose.

[jazzjunkysue]

4. Holy crap. This is not done. Ever. This is mutiny. Wow.

CIA infighting in public?

Is there anything this administration has not ruined? Is there any group they haven't divided?