Tenet regrets WH "slam-drunk"WMD quip/eats humble pie: Guardian

[emad]

Ex-CIA chief eats humble pie

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday April 29, 2005
The Guardian

A chastened former CIA director, George Tenet, says he regrets telling the White House that it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, an assertion that provided the Bush administration with its prime justification for the war.

Seven months after the weapons inspectors of the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Saddam Hussein did not have a lethal weapons cache on the eve of the invasion, Mr Tenet admitted: "Those were the two dumbest words I ever said."

Mr Tenet stepped down as CIA chief in July last year, days before a report from the Senate savaged his seven years in office. Under his stewardship, the report said, the CIA was blinkered by "group think" about Saddam's arms programme, and suffered from a broken corporate culture and poor management.

Subsequent reports attributed the CIA's intelligence failures to an over-eagerness to please its political masters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1472825,00.html

[tuvor]

1. Something's not ringing true.

I posted a few links about this last night.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1432091&mesg_id=1432106

Also, LynneTheDem posted even more links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1432091&mesg_id=1432537

[emad]

3. Thanks, hadn't seen those.

Emad

[rodeodance]

2. I hate these johnny come lately 'regrets"

[gratuitous]

4. So, will Tenet be saying this stateside, or just in the foreign press?

And does he have any medals lying around that he'd like to give back to the American people for wasting so much of our time, treasure and talent?

[erpowers]

5. Wrong Meaning

I contend Tenet takes too much blame for the failure to find WMD in Iraq. Mainly, from the beginning I have believed that George Tenet was not saying that it was a "slam dunk" that WMD would be found in Iraq, but that it was a "slam dunk" that it could be sold to the people as a reason to go to war. I believe that it has been pointed out that Tenet was responding to Bush's question of "Is there enough intelligence to convince that American people to go to war?" To this Tenet responded "It is a slam dunk." Therefore, Tenet was not saying that it was definite that WMD would be found in Iraq, but that it was definite that the American people could be convinced to go to war.