Salon: Was Tenet Source For Downing Street Memo?

[kpete]

Sidney Blumenthal has now written something about this that—if true—is a giant bombshell:George Tenet, spook for all seasons

By Sidney Blumenthal
Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

CIA Director George Tenet testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 9, 2004.

Tenet's account of the July 20, 2002, meeting of CIA officials and British intelligence officers in Washington is also misleading, according to a former high CIA official with firsthand knowledge, who described it to me as "total bullshit. That meeting was important as the basis of the subsequent briefing of Prime Minister Tony Blair that took place at Downing Street three days later, summarized in the famous so-called Downing Street memo. In the memo, Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of MI6, is quoted: "Military action was now seen as inevitable ... Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." Even more ominously, Dearlove warned that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

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Tenet's account of the July 20, 2002, meeting of CIA officials and British intelligence officers in Washington is misleading, according to a former high CIA official with firsthand knowledge, who described it to me as "total bullshit."
That meeting was important as the basis of the subsequent briefing of Prime Minister Tony Blair that took place at Downing Street three days later, summarized in the famous so-called Downing Street memo. In the memo, Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of MI6, is quoted: "Military action was now seen as inevitable ... Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." Even more ominously, Dearlove warned that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Tenet writes that Dearlove told him he was misquoted and that Tenet "corrected it to reflect the truth of the matter." "Tenet doesn't say what the truth of the matter is," the former CIA officer told me. "Dearlove just didn't want to be blamed." Dearlove, the former CIA official emphatically insists, claiming direct knowledge, was accurately relating what Tenet had personally told him.

The former CIA official explains that the Washington meeting was an annual U.S.-U.K. event, usually held in Bermuda. But in 2002, as the drums of war were beating, Tenet wanted to blow off the British. British intelligence officials threatened that if they were not briefed with the latest material, they would have Blair call Bush and force the meeting to happen. Still, Cofer Black, the State Department chief of counterterrorism, tried to block it. The overwhelming factor working in the Brits' favor was the figure of Blair. "They could deliver Tony Blair, and he was important as the one major international figure who supported Bush and was popular with the American public," the former official told me. So the meeting was held at Langley. After a daylong briefing in the director's conference room and private dining room, Tenet took Dearlove into his office. According to the CIA source, "That's where Dearlove asked where the intelligence was going, was it heading to war, did it matter what the intelligence was. Tenet said, that's the way things are heading, they are looking for intelligence to fit into this." Dearlove's "fix" was simply the British version of "fit." He was not misquoted; he was spot on.

more at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/05/03/george_tenet/
via:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22110