← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · il ragno
Thread ID: 14038 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2004-06-03
2004-06-03 16:26 | User Profile
[B]CIA Director Tenet Resigns[/B] By PETE YOST, AP
WASHINGTON (June 3) -- CIA Director George Tenet, buffeted by controversies over intelligence lapses about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has resigned.
President Bush said Thursday that Tenet was leaving for personal reasons. ''I will miss him,'' Bush said.
Tenet, 51, came to the White House to inform Bush about his decision Wednesday night. ''He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people,'' the president said.
Tenet will serve until mid-July. Bush said that deputy, John McLaughlin, will temporarily lead America's premier spy agency until a successor is found. Among possible successors is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., a former CIA agent and McLaughlin.
''He's been a strong and able leader at the agency. and I will miss him,'' Bush said of Tenet as he got ready to board Marine One for a trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and on to Europe.
''George Tenet is the kind of public servant you like to work with,'' the president added. ''He's strong, he's resolute. He's served his nation as the director for seven years. He has been a strong and able leader at the agency. He's been a strong leader in the war on terror.''
''I send my blessings to George and his family and look forward to working with him until he leaves the agency,'' Bush said.
Tenet had been under fire for months in connection with intelligence failures related to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, specifically assertions the United States made about Saddam Hussein's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction, and with respect to the threat from the al-Qaida terrorist network.
In May, a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks released statements harshly criticizing the CIA for failing to fully appreciate the threat posed by al-Qaida before the terrorist hijackings. Tenet told the panel the intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the attacks will take five years to correct.
Notwithstanding his controversial place in the life of Washington, Tenet's resignation seemed to catch the city off guard.
''I'm surprised,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. ''I don't think anyone saw it coming. I think we need to know more about the reasons why this surprise announcement came today,'' the South Dakota Democrat said.
''Mr. Tenet's been under very harsh criticism. I think clearly he's been under great pressure and some criticism. Whether or not that's a factor is not something I can comment on,'' Daschle said.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tenet ''restored morale and provided stability and continuity at a crucial time.''
''I have been critical of the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD and ties to terror, as well as failures leading up to the attacks of 9-11,'' she noted. ''With Tenet's departure, the president has the opportunity to fix these problems by transforming the job that Tenet held.''
Said Rep Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of House Intelligence Committee: ''Just boat loads of stuff have been dumped on him by all kinds of people. He was given the job of rebuilding an agency that had been depleted.''
House Speaker Dennis Hastert said: ''He served his country a long time. History will tell what the implications of his tenure were.''
''I think history will tell,'' the Illinois Republican said when asked how Tenet's performance would be judged. ''It's too early to make that snap judgment.''
''I think history will either vindicate him or say, 'Hey there was a problem there','' Hastert said.
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner said he thought Tenet had been ''pushed out and made a scapegoat.''
''I don't think he would have pulled the plug on President Bush in an election cycle without having been told to do that,'' Turner, a former CIA director, told CNN.
Tenet spoke to CIA personnel at a late-morning gathering at the CIA auditorium. ''It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the well being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less,'' he said, according to a CIA official who was willing to describe the session but only on grounds of anonymity because Tenet's had spoken for himself in the session.
''This is say with exceptional pride: The CIA and the American intelligence community are stronger now than when I became DCI (director of central intelligence) seven years ago, and they will be stronger tomorrow than they are today. That is not my legacy. It yours,'' the official quoted Tenet as telling the standing-room-only crowd.
As director of the CIA, Tenet drew one particularly unusual assignment: trying to ease tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. He tried to curb the violence and prompt talks on strengthening security arrangements. Like virtually all special U.S. mediators, his efforts had mixed results.
During his seven years at the CIA, speculation at times has swirled around whether Tenet would retire or be forced out, peaking after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and surging again after the flawed intelligence estimates about Iraq's fighting capability.
Even when his political capital appeared to be tanking, Tenet managed to hang on with what some say was a fierce loyalty to Bush and the CIA personnel. A likable, chummy personality, also helped keep him above water.
Conventional wisdom had been that Tenet, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, did not plan to stay on next year, no matter who won the White House. Tenet has been on the job since July 1997, an unusually lengthy tenure in a particularly taxing era for the intelligence community that he heads.
Tenet is the son of Greek immigrants who grew up in Queens, N.Y.
Some close to Tenet have said the job overseeing more than a dozen agencies that make up the intelligence community has been taxing for him. He suffered heart problems while at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, although a CIA official said his resignation was not health related.
06-03-04 12:12 EDT
[I]Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. [/I]
2004-06-03 17:59 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Tenet, 51, came to the White House to inform Bush about his decision Wednesday night. ''He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people,'' the president said.[/QUOTE]
Still telling lies. . . Tenet didn't leave for personal reasons and he didn't do a superb job on behalf of the American people.
He left, as a guilty fall guy, for one of the biggest hoaxes against Americans in American history.
2004-06-03 19:48 | User Profile
Tenet steps aside in retaliation for cutting out Chalabi (and blaming it on the absurd story of his passing secret code to Iran -- for which stunt the FBI was unleashed on the Pentagon (you couldn't make up this shit) to hook up polygraphs and find our Who Told -- may they use hoods? ohh Ohh).
Why? -- This may seem a long shot, but check itout. The split between State/CIA vrs. Chalabi interests goes back to 1996, when The Firm put out an aunauthorized (by Clinton) co tract on the President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Some deal made with the Kurds, involving expatriate funds, which the Shi'ite Dr. nixed, and held over their heads. Saddam Hussein crushed the incipient revolt in his northern province, incited by the US CIA. Bad pub if it gets out.
Then, even more deadly, if Chalabi had dope on the alleged use of poison gas during the war with Iran. he could blow holes in the most powerful mantra used to demonize the Iraqi leader: "he poisoned his own people." That is the deepest, most powerful fantasy token because it relates directly to fetal (pre-birth) fantasies of "poisonous placenta", shared by 'siblings' -- children of "god" = in utero Placental Other -- evoking the involuntary Struggle For Birth reaction, the shared ritual unconscious behavioral manifestation of that is War (sacrifice of youth for group re-birth: blood poured into the sands of the desert renews Hope).
Thus, Tenet's purge comes right after the Birth of the New Iraq, installation of the "CIA's" man as Prime Minister -- Allawi; the Iraq Governing Council's choice Ghazi as interim president, opposed by State/UN's Brahami who had personally asked him to step aside. Where is the "CIA" in this?
They are: fingering al Zarqari for both: connecting Al Quada to Saddam Hussein (with super flimsy, half-digital fingerprint type evidence); and, beheading Nick Berg.
Where does this leave us? - Monumental struggle WITHIN THE AGENCY between a Woolsey faction, in contact with, if not under orders from the Aitch Bush clan. This was pre-Tenet, who mainly went with the neocons, "slam dunking" the evidence for WMD into Dubya's one ear; meanwhile, the Cheney/Pentagon (Feith, in State) canon-wadded the same drum-beat in his other ear. He's gonna hold out against this? (even while Aitch is clucking into his towell) Sounds more or less like one voice, coming out his mouth saying "He is a madman; poisoned his own people." This, of course, as a fantasy token, picks up associations with Hitler allegedly using poison gas on Jews; and, again via associatio with the fantasy of "purifying the blood" of the shared children's womb-surround, picks up and repeats "ethnic cleansing", which got smuggled into the national consciousness as war justification in attacking Serbia.
This fanasy level of communication, mostly unconacious but picked up on and used in PSY-OPS operatives (by 'psychic driving' on themes relating, specifically to male-powered rebirth on helpless ones by way of anal rape, this time around), is all-important, because it is metaphysical. What detrermines the group consciousness (through each one's group-fantasy: individual fantasy of themselves participating through "we", "I", "you", etc., in their big NEW POST- 9/11 AMERICA (not:) movie) determines the realilty all will relate to, today; and, by remembered predication on that (re-threaded and re-treaded every time there is such a huge shake-up, such as the disappearance of entities as large as Chalabi and Tenet from the verbal/rhetorical scene), determines what will happen tomorrow. The New Metaphysics is in the [B]Public Relations narrative, the contintuity of which is an imperative overriding everything else, and no longer had a place left in it for Gearge Tenet. [/B] That is how tight the dynamic is.
Hanging in the balance, also, is the NYTimes splitting. The Okrent demolition of its historical integrity, forever, centered specifically on it's allowing Chalabi, through Judith Miller (among others) to dominate their news leading into war. Also, Wm. Safire often cites a link to "spooks", as sources. Is this the same CIA? What happens to David Brooks' people -- WSJ swap-over Max Boot, David Frum; the Dr. Strangelove contingent -- witness protection programs for all?
Its hittin' the fan. Somehow, I can't see evev that cute picture of the President holding a wind-inverted bumpershoot keeping out the rain. I genuinely hope nothing happens to him over there. Or to us, back here.