Lifelike Pundits: Tenet Failed to Follow Through

September 2008
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

« Democrats Do Not Care about Children - They Care Only About Power | Main | Mixed Emotions »

October 02, 2006

Tenet Failed to Follow Through

But that's not what the NY Times Headline says:

Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda.

That would make you believe that she ignored what he said (confirming Bob Woodward's latest charge).

But after READING the article, we find this wonderful nugget:

Mr. Tenet told members of the Sept. 11 commission about the July 10 meeting when they interviewed him in early 2004, but committee members said the former C.I.A. director never indicated he had left the White House with the impression that he had been ignored.

“Tenet never told us that he was brushed off,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the commission. “We certainly would have followed that up.”

Mr. McCormack said the records showed that, far from ignoring Mr. Tenet’s warnings, Ms. Rice acted on the intelligence and requested that Mr. Tenet make the same presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Atttorney General John Ashcroft.

But Mr. Ashcroft said by telephone on Monday evening that he never received a briefing that summer from Mr. Tenet.

“Frankly, I’m disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing,” he said. “I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by and tell me.”

The dispute that has played out in recent days gives further evidence of an escalating battle between the White House and Mr. Tenet over who should take the blame for such mistakes as the failure to stop the Sept. 11 attacks and assertions by Bush administration officials that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and cultivating ties to Al Qaeda.

So all the EVIDENCE and WITNESSES say that Condi acted by instructing Tenet to move forward and brief the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and that the 9/11 Commission heard this testimony and it was not controversial.

But the NY Times thinks the story is about Condi, when it is all about George "Slam Dunk" Tenet. This stinks and the NY Times and Democrats are goign to make fools out of themselves.

If I were Bush, I would start declassifying all sorts of "presidential memos" that Clinton wrote or saw (or Sandy Berger stole and destroyed).

Posted by Aaron at October 2, 2006 09:05 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.lifelikepundits.com/cgi-bin/mt3/mt-tb.cgi/2879

Comments

If you were Bush, you'd think the people don't have a right to see the memos they pay the government to produce and leave them all unnecessarily classified.

Posted by: paul at October 2, 2006 10:32 PM

Hey Paul, I hear the NYT is hiring. Get on over, quick!

Posted by: Pam at October 3, 2006 09:03 AM

Have fun with the "you're a loser cabbie for the rest of your life, sucker" daggers as you will.

Posted by: paul at October 3, 2006 12:24 PM

Its very nice that Condi told Tenet to brief two cabinet members on a briefing that she had been given. Does the CIA Director report to the National Security Advisor and take orders from him/her?

Condi's role was to be a policy adviser and advocate for the President on national security. She was responsible for telling the President what he needs to know in addition to what he wants to know, and then keeping the process moving in the direction that the President wants. By telling Tenent to take his briefing to the secretary of defense and the attorney general, she was telling him that the information was not sufficiently important to warrant involving the President of the United States by briefing him. This is precisely why Tenet was approaching Rice in the first place.....his belief was that she didn't sufficiently appreciate the problem enough to involve the President and the National Security Council to address the threat as a Nationaly Security issue.

Condi had the authority to call a meeting of the NSA for Tenet to brief them all (The secretary of defense would have been required to be there, and they could have chosen to invite the Attorney General). Alternately, she could have provided the information to the President and allowed him to decide whether or not he needed to act through the NSA. By telling Tenet to take his briefing to Ashcroft and Rumsfeld, she was in effect saying, "Not a National Security Problem to bother the President and the NSA with. Take it elsewhere". In Tenent's words, she blew him off.

Posted by: KeithS at October 3, 2006 01:57 PM

Nice try, KeithS.

By instructing Tenet to brief the Justice Department and the Pentagon meant that Tenet was to do just that.

Why? Because Rumsfeld has all the overseas guns and Ashcroft has all the domestic guns.

And it only reinforces the fact that Bob Woodward was not being truthful in his characterization of what Tenet showed Condi.

When the National security advisor tells you to go tell the head of our military and the head of our federal police agents what you know, you do it.

Tenet showed that what he showed her must not have been all that important or he would have been waiting outside of Rumsfelds house with the information.

Posted by: aaron at October 3, 2006 06:19 PM

How about this scenario? They all knew something was going to happen on 9/11 and didn't want anyone outside the circle to know. The PNAC put their wish in print for a "new Pearl Harbor" so they could grab power and oil in the region. Why did Bush tell the CIA briefer, after he delivered the "bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US" briefing, "All right, you’ve covered your ass, now."

Posted by: Ev at April 9, 2008 05:46 PM

level">level">http://www.gamesavor.com/WOW/WoW-PowerlevelingService-DE.aspx">level wow
mp3">mp3">http://www.digihedo.fr">mp3 players
mp3">mp3">http://www.digihedo.fr">mp3 player
wow">wow">http://www.gamesavor.com/WOW/WoW-PowerlevelingService-DE.aspx">wow lvl
mp3">mp3">http://www.digihedo.de">mp3 players
mp3">mp3">http://www.digihedo.de">mp3 player
wow">wow">http://www.gamesavor.com/WOW/WorldOfWarcraft-Power-Level/WOWPowerLevel-DE.aspx">wow