A George Tenet Memory Lapse

[Note from Larry C Johnson: I received the following tonight from Tyler Drumheller, a recently retired CIA officer. His book, "On the Brink", is an important contribution to the history of our misguided war in Iraq. Tyler has first hand knowledge of George Tenet's self-delusion and dissembling about his role in helping lead the march to war. It provides an important correction to the spin of George Tenet.]

Correcting the Record

by Tyler Drumheller

As people read through George Tenet's "At the Center of the Storm" I hope the basic errors and misstatements of fact do not detract from the most important point, that the Bush administration came into office with the idea of attacking Iraq and they proceeded to misuse and manipulate intelligence to support their preconceived views, both before and after 9/11.

The problem for George is that he was not a peripheral player, he was"at the center of the storm" but apparently stood by as the Vice President, Secretary of Defense and others led the country into an ill conceived, ill planned war of choice. He was, after all DCI and as such had the responsibility for how intelligence was being used. I will not pretend to understand why he stood by when he knew what was at stake and had his own questions about the entire affair. In the end, although he served in many senior staff jobs, he was ill prepared to deal with the great crisis of his professional career. Taking lines out of individual presidential speeches and stopping one of many questionable speeches by the Vice President, simply does cut it when balanced against standing by as the country moved toward war.

(The rest is here. Thanks to Minnesota Central for the heads up.)