by
Larry C Johnson (blog/bio)
Anyone who follows politics probably knows who George Tenet is (former CIA Director). Few may recognize the name of Bill Harlow. Harlow is the co-author of George Tenet's book and was his press flack at the CIA. Let's first recall what George Tenet said about his failure to tell Congress that Bin Laden and Saddam were not working together to attack America. On Wolf Biltzer's show, The Situation Room, Tenet made this stunning admission:
TENET: We -- we would regret not having that clause that was -- that I talked about that was in all of our testimonies and every paper that we wrote. We were -- we were sloppy in that letter.
No shit. But sloppiness is not your only sin, George Tenet.
Most already know that Tenet opens his book with an alleged conversation with Richard Perle, neocon and Prince of Darkness. Tenet claims he talked to Perle at the White House on September 12, 2001. Tenet claims Perle told him:
'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday, they bear responsibility.' It’s September the 12th. I’ve got the manifest with me that tell me al Qaeda did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way shape or form and I remember thinking to myself, as I'm about to go brief the president, 'What the hell is he talking about?'" Tenet remembers.
One small problem. Perle was in France. Tenet claims he was mistaken about the date but that the conversation took place. Sorry folks, if you're the Director of the CIA you are supposed to get your facts right. Sloppiness was the hallmark of Tenet's tenure.
Tenet, for example, claims in his book that the first of the World Trade Center towers hit on September 11, 2001 was the "South Tower". Hello? The North Tower was the first one hit.
I had an indirect run in with Bill Harlow a few years back (I think it was in June of 2003 after I started speaking out about friends inside the CIA who told me the books had been cooked). Bill Harlow called several journalists and told them, "You should not use Larry Johnson as a source because he is misrepresenting his experience at the CIA. He only worked there for one year."
How do I know this? I was called on that same day by Knut Royce (who writes for Newsday) and David Kaplan (who writes for U.S. News and World Reports). Both men relayed Harlow's claim. I responded:
This explains in part why the CIA is having trouble locating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I worked at the CIA for four years-September 1985 until September 30 1989.
Let's ignore for a moment that I received two Exceptional Performance Awards my last year at CIA. Let's ignore that I was ranked in the top 10% of analysts for current intelligence production (which means the aritcles I wrote for the National Intelligence Daily and the Presidential Daily Brief). And let's ignore the fact that I also produced a "hard cover" (a long term research paper). These clowns didn't even have the competence to check the facts before trying to trash me.
George Tenet did some good things in trying to rebuild the CIA's collection capabilities. He did some good things in trying to make terrorism a priority. Yet, as others have noted, Tenet's sloppiness was another hallmark of his tenure. As John Weisman so adroitly records:
On George Tenet's watch, CIA mistakenly bombed the embassy of the People's Republic of China in Belgrade because Langley lacked the assets to provide the correct information.
While Deputy Director George Tenet was busy overseeing a new fishpond outside The Bubble at CIA headquarters, al-Qa'ida bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen American service personnel and wounding 500 more.
On George Tenet's watch, CIA missed any advance warning of India's May, 1998 nuclear tests because it had not recruited enough spies from within the Indian government and its nuclear program.
On George Tenet's watch, Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan's network smuggled nuclear materials and expertise to Iran and North Korea. But for years CIA was deaf, dumb and blind to the Pakistani's villainy because it had no agents close to Khan and no agents privy to the North Korean or Iranian nuclear weapons programs.
On George Tenet's watch, CIA shut down many of its sub-Saharan stations and bases. The resulting intelligence vacuum left America vulnerable to al-Qa'ida's August, 1998 attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed and wounded hundreds.
On George Tenet's watch, unilateral agent penetrations of al-Qa'ida cells in the Gulf States and the Arabian peninsula were virtually nonexistent because CIA suffered from a dearth of language-capable officers and a culture of risk aversion and political correctness. CIA was therefore unable to provide any prior warning about the October, 2000, attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 of our Sailors.
On George Tenet's watch, America suffered 9/11, its most ignominious intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor. 9/11 resulted in the worst-ever loss of life from a hostile attack on American soil.
Tenet says he was so worried about an impending terrorist strike in 2001 that he brief National Security Advisor Condi Rice in July 2001. Yet, during August, he declined to say anything to President Bush beyond the August 6th PDB that warned of an impending attack.
Let's give Tenet his due for consistency. He was sloppy as the DCI and he is sloppy about "facts" in his book. If you think sloppiness deserves reward then buy his book. But, if you believe that the head of the CIA is responsible for getting facts right, don't. He was sloppy and U.S. soldiers are now paying a fearsome price for his cavalier attitude.