Who Didn’t Know This Already?
WASHINGTON, April 26 — George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate†about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.
The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,†is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.
“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,†Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion†about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
Lets hope the US Congress will have the gonads necessary to do the right thing when his Articles of Impeachment come to them.
Tenet: No ’serious debate’ on Iraq
Former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book that Vice President Dick Cheney and other admi
No, no, no. It’s not true. He is trying to sell a book.
Same with Richard Clarke.
And anyone else who writes a book about how Bush co. took a country to war under false pretenses.
[...] Stageleft:. Life on the left side » Blog Archive » Who Didn’t Know This Already? George Tenet, who had no credibility when he liked Bush, now has tons of it since he’s criticizing him. Isn’t that the way it works, anyway? (tags: george tenet cia faillure loser) [...]
Several of us here unhappily predicted most of the current scenario in Iraq back in 2003. If only Bush had consulted us SL, instead of his CIA, he may have avoided the current mess in Iraq.
Bush, Cheney, Rove,… all men looking for an excuse to launch the invasion, September 11 gave them that excuse and no persons counsel would have made any difference in the world.
The American public could have, but in the paranoid and fearful state they were led into they believed what they were told; the world was against them, everybody hated them, all had targets on their backs, options were limited, Iraq lurked in plain sight as the next great danger…. and the world didn’t care…. uranium…. weapons of mass destruction…. unmanned drones with chemical and biological payloads…. the intelligence was clear…. and the world didn’t care.
It is such a silly message that the three of them are now propagating:
1) We were in favour of the war in Iraq because the CIA said Saddam was a threat
2) Yes the war is a mess but we still support it wholeheartedly in our “War on Terror” even though the CIA advised otherwise.
3) It’s the CIA’s fault, all of it, but we must carry on with it. Thank George Tenet for the mess. We will still fix it, just you wait and see.