Former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials never conducted a "serious debate" about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat, the New York Times reported. Nor "was there ever a significant discussion" about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion, he writes. He describes Cheney and others as hell-bent on going to war with Iraq following the Sept. 11 attacks. So what about Tenet’s infamous "slam dunk" comment? He claims, not very convincingly, that he was talking about whether the administration could make a better public case for war, not about whether the intelligence evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a slam dunk.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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39 Comments
This is going to be fun to watch!
60 Minutes – Sunday. ENJOY!
Is Tenet the first Medal of Freedom winner to turn on Augustus Stupidus?
Good grief, what will Commander Codpiece do.
If Tenet’s correct, Bush is an idiot (ok, arguably tautologous).
If Tenet’s incorrect, Bush gave a MoF to a guy who in 2003 didn’t have the courage of his 2007 convictions…as HEAD of CIA (appointed by Bush).
Is anybody out there STILL having difficulty seeing just how stupid Bush is?
Pedant,
Purty funny thar, ah tell yew what…
Ben,
Indeed: Sunday should be big for TiVo.
It really is geting to be impeachment time ’round these parts. And that Kucinich is smellin’ like a rose.
PBS did a segment about how Tenet fell on his sword for the “slam dunk” assessment of intelligence.
The PBS piece went into detail about how that came to be.
I’m too sick and too lazy today to find the link, so start with the Jews did it and work backwards.
It’s their war.
Pedant: The NYT article says that Tenant is complimentary of Bush. And it would appear to be a little tough for him to be a very convincing critic considering his contribution; the “Slam Dunk” comment in reference to the question of WMDs in Iraq.
It is almost beyond belief how fardown the Bush Administration has gone in it’s 2nd term. I mean youhave almost an endless list of things that have been botched either on purpose or by incompetence. President Bush evenhad a good word for Paul Wolfowitz head of the World Bank. This afterit was discovered that Wolfowitz gave a high post to a woman whose best contributions came after office hours. I actually voted forBush twice.
Now we know why prez Shrub is so loyal. Even the guy that he gave the MOF to is turning on him.
“Condie get Cheney’s shotgun. I’ve got some brush to clear”
Bush is in love with the Jews. I think that they told him he was their saviour or Messiah or whatever smoke they blew up his ass, it worked.
In hindsight….was Kerry that bad of choice? Seems like a monkey could have beat Shrub.
Don’t beat yourself up davd…..we are only stuck with this clown for a couple more years. Sadly, we will pay for his mistakes for the next 20
Rice, after her dose of smoke, fell in love with herself.
Not surprising that only one post was made that didn’t involve a “hey look at me insult George Bush or Rice” comment.
Shows the quality of the liberal left discussion material – non-exisitent.
Tenant is just hyping up his new book, i doubt there is anything worth reading about or seeing. He wants books sales not prime time exposure.
While watching the debate last night, I realized that a big mistake we as a nation made was by “electing” Bush in the 2000 Presidential election.An even bigger mistake was reelecting him in 2004.Any of the 8 candidates last night would make for a better President than this village idiot from Texas.George Bush and his administration has set a new low for incompetence.What a waste of American and Iraqi lives…what a waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.
Not surprising that only one post was made that didn’t involve a “hey look at me insult George Bush or Rice” comment.
Shows the quality of the liberal left discussion material – non-exisitent.
Tenant is just hyping up his new book, i doubt there is anything worth reading about or seeing. He wants books sales not prime time exposure.
Posted by: Republican | April 27, 2007 at 01:28 PM
And on cue there you are deflecting and defending with all your might. If you would only admit to some of the incompetencies of this administration you might be more credible on other topics. Your undying loyalty makes others think you are as dumb as those you defend.
Dumber.
Mike: “dumb”Ed: “dumber”
Dumb and dumber.
Just funnin’ you guys. Well sort of.
Sounds like you got something to say there Outlander? Go ahead and speak your mind.
Tenant was a Clinton hire btw.
No one is claiming that he wasn’t. Just fun to watch the administration unravel at the seams and you stand there waving your “GW” pom pons. Acting as if he was has been the best prez this country has ever seen.
Never said Bush was the best – I supported all Presidents, including Clinton. Well…wasn’t very old to know much about Nixon, but I wouldn’t have supported him back then because of what he was.
I believe that you would have supported Nixon. He is the closest prez you can compare to Bush. Both of them are liars and had no respect for the Constitution. Nixon actually rates higher because he didn’t start a war with his lies and only spied on political rivals and not everybody in the country.
outlander,
“…considering his contribution; the “Slam Dunk” comment in reference to the question of WMDs in Iraq.”
Tenet’s comment was in reference to the PUBLIC PRESENTATION, NOT the “question of WMDs in Iraq”.
““I told the president that strengthening the public presentation was a ’slam dunk,’ a phrase that was later taken completely out of context,” Mr. Tenet writes.”
Tenet was made Director of Central Intelligence by Bill Clinton, not GWB, in 1997. Had a problem taking home classified CIA documents on a laptop computer, the reasons for which were never fully clarified.
If you haven’t seen The Good Shepherd, it’s worth watching.
Read the article and then read outlander’s take on the article.
This will explain to you how there can still be idiots like outlander who can still support Worst. President. Ever.
Tenant expresses admiration for Bush the PERSON, not Bush’s decisions.
Huge difference.
Try reading the text next time, outlander, instead of reading what you want it to say . . .
Sheesh.
No question GWB is dumbest president ever. No Question Dick Cheney loves his power and himself so much that he doesn’t need info to make decisions.The more this plays out…the more I think Cheney should be tried for war crimes.
Rats deserting the sinking ship, captained by shrub “the decider”. But still his loyal bushettes dance to the tune spread by the bush/cheney/rush/coulter/ad naseum cheer-leading brigade.
Maybe they can send him cartons of cigarettes when he’s rotting in a jail cell where he belongs for lying to the american people and making a mockery of the United States Constitution.
The wheels are fallin’ off…
Ed,Sorry to hear you’re not feeling so hot.Take care of yourself.
… it would appear to be a little tough for him [Tenet] to be a very convincing critic considering his contribution; the “Slam Dunk” comment in reference to the question of WMDs in Iraq.Posted by: outlander | April 27, 2007 at 12:47 PM
From the NYT link:“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
Given everything that happened from 9/11 to March, 2003, I’d say Tenet is convincing as hell. In fact, Tenet’s assertions fit everything else we know about that time; there are no outliers and although self-serving nothing rings false about it at all.
In fact, Tenet’s criticism is the ONLY way to make sense out of WHY Bush invaded Iraq at the time he did. Augustus Stupidus never seriously considered containment and never thought seriously about the imminence of the threat.
Furthermore, your side bought it all as a balanced, wise, considered analysis. Hook, line, and sinker. It fits.
And look where we are today.
Maybe you’re right, “convincing” isn’t the most accurate. “Devastating,” on the other hand, is perfect.
Tenet to a certain extent is a politic animal, though at times has show some moral core. At one time he was Richard Clarke’s strongest ally in the drive to take Al-Qaeda as a great threat to the U.S. But soon after Bush took office became a team player and outlasted Clarke and the others that were still pointing out the problems with focusing more on Saddam.
According to every source I have read so far, the “Slam dunk” comment was in reference to Saddam having WMDs. So I suspect he is trying to spin the comment, as by the time it was made he was a team player with the Administration. In part convinced by the truth that at the time they really did not know why the changes in the specs for the aluminum tubes. So they were making a SWAG, they only knew there had been a change but not as to why there was a change (it turns out that because of another deal with a supplier of the propellant used was to weak. They were making the shells casings lighter. They were asking weapons experts, but not nuclear weapons experts. So there was a guess that it was for centerfuses?).
But before he made the comment, he had gotten with Condi Rice and her people and it was agreed as to the certainty. So the comment was a consensus, when it proved wrong it was agreed that all would share the blame. Then he was betrayed the next day by Rice and she was saying in the press that it was the fault of the CIA alone.Tenet though Angry and betray, agreed to take the blame for the team and the mistake. His metal of freedom came from the fact he was a team player.
“Beating a dead horse”, in a sense it gets me how suddenly there are some many in the know are coming out and saying “I knew all along!”. Much of what I had learn prior to the 2004 elect and convinced me that it was wrong to invade Iraq and that Bush&Co. was not being actuate and honest. Is now being treated as if it just is coming out! AND what good is it going to do? I have my doubts that Bush will be impeached, my confidence is that much like with Nixon and the reasons given by President Ford for the pardon.
There will be a rush to “Neuter” Bush&Co. and let him ride out the rest of his term. Once out of office he is fair game, but even then for the good of the nation. He will be censured and the whole mess will be put in a best case spin. There are many bells that cannot be un-rung, the deceptions, the incompetence, the invasion and the aftermath. Sometime the greatest wrongs are so wrong that there is no way to make it right. Yes there are glaring mistakes, an example it we are now into the fifth year in a action that the administration was firmly convinced would be over in a matter of months. Though there were many behind the scenes at lower levels tried to voice how this was illogical on the administration’s part. But again what good it is doing to affirm what so many have believed for years? It will not stop the invasion, it will not serve to bring down those that made such glaring mistakes and deceptions. It will not bring back the loved one that have been killed by those mistakes and deceptions.
History will record all the mistakes and deceptions, but for now it will just gnaw on the stomach. Is it right or just? Now but it is the way it is…..
Maybe Tenet could ask Kerry to throw his sham medal of freedom over the White House fence; or would that be treasonous?
Anyone with a brain doesn’t need Tenet to tell him that Bush lied. The claims prior to the war were unbelievable and preposterous to anyone with any kind of knowledge base. The most glaring lie was the mobile weapons labs, which were made up to address the question of where chem-bio factories were, and to take advantage of the anthrax scare, which may have been a CIA operation. Ask Tenet about that.
Thanks, Triple X
There were lots of things that just didn’t pass the smell test in early March 2003.
For example:-That Hussein, a curiously secular autocrat in a part of the world that’s a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, would ally with an Islamic anarchist, Osama bin Laden, to the point of inviting bin Laden’s operations people into Iraq. This makes absolutely no sense at all, and of course it’s exactly why we later learned definitively that there were no operational contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. It was easy to see that Hussein was just as likely to ally with al Qaeda as he was to be a democrat; to him they must have the same outcome (to Hussein, there wasn’t any difference between inviting OBL’s org into Iraq and abdicating power since either would have led to the other).
Conclusion 1: no way was Iraq linked to al Qaeda.
-That Iraq posed an imminent threat to the world. Not when there were WMD inspectors in the country trying mightily to find just that out. Not only that, but the US military was on Iraq’s doorstep. That’s a helluva credible threat, the US army, to have covering the WMD inspectors’ backs. They weren’t allowed to finish their work by guess who: Augustus Stupidus. Not only that, but the inspectors were coming up empty-handed every time and several (Kay, Ritter) were jumping up and down and shouting that what they were finding was at odds with what the administration was saying about WMD in Iraq.
Conclusion 2: IF a threat existed in Iraq, then that threat was not imminent at the time we invaded.
Conclusion 3: Bush obviously was more interested in military invasion than in containment.
There were also credible stories of Bush’s circumventing intelligence channels via stovepiping in order to make the evidence fit the policy (Sy Hersh) due to a bias to invade Iraq rather than find a diplomatic solution (Clarke), and dramatic examples of poor planning and piss-poor thinking by the Bush administration (”Al Qaeda Determined to Strike in the US” was the title of what was at the time a public NIE).
By March 2003 all anybody had to do was open their eyes to see how bad things were going.
Certainly by fall 2003 the die was cast.
In October 2003 Israel’s defense minister told Cheney to send more troops and change tactics or “the only thing you Americans will leave up for decision is the quality of your retreat” from Iraq. [paraphrase]
Of course Bush/Cheney ignored the only unconditionally pro-Western country in the Middle East, and here we are.
$$$ for Tenet! Don’t blame him either. Why not?
You should be applauding tenet for holding off until Iraq war dragged bush down under it’s own weight. He could have done great damage to your bush if he’d come clean, rather than taking a medal of freedom.
George Tenet- you mean the guy standing right behind Colin Powell when he was making his famous WMD speech at the UN? If I read his book, it’ll be while sitting in the bed of a loaded salt truck and wondering how he wrote with both hands covering his ass!
if anyone cares to read the actual book, here’s an important part:
Page 336:
The intelligence reports and analysis used over the years on the WMD issue, and repeated in the NIE, were flawed, but the intelligence process was not disingenuous nor was it influenced by politics. Intelligence professionals did not try to tell policy makers what they wanted to hear, nor did the policy makers lean on us to influence outcomes. The consistency of our views on these weapons programs was carried forward to two presidents of different political parties who pursued vastly different courses of action.
funny how the liars here at the Eagle fail to actually read the book before writing.
“Iraq … has also had contacts with al-Qaida. Their ties may be limited by divergent ideologies, but the two sides’ mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggests that tactical cooperation between them is possible, even though Saddam is well aware that such activity would carry serious consequences.”
The above is what Tenant told a Senate Committee.Therefore, what difference does it make if he was mis-quoted by Bush or anyone in the Bush White House? (He wasn’t, by the way!)
http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2165269/nav/tap1/