Posted on 06/21/2006 12:27:12 PM PDT by n-tres-ted
After 9/11, Vice President Richard Cheney seized the initiative. He pushed to expand executive power, transform America's intelligence agencies and bring the war on terror to Iraq. But first he had to take on George Tenet's CIA for control over intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
That early listing of past CIA failures looked somewhat hopeful that the reporting would be somewhat objective. But let's look at an example of what they did on Afghanistan. Frontline reported as if CIA won Afghanistan single-handedly, with no help from the Defense Department (i.e., military). They made a big deal of stating that the CIA was in Afghanistan 30 days before any military, making it appear the CIA was in the driver's seat in calling in air strikes on the Taliban forces. Yet, in "The Hunt For Bin Laden," it was the special ops guys who did all that, with almost no assist from the CIA. What is the truth?
Another instance was the reporting of the discussions at Camp David on the weekend immediately after 9/11. Bob Woodward's book on the subject reported very specifically that Rumsfeld did not raise the subject of Iraq when he reported DoD's assessment in response to Tenet's initial presentation. Woodward said Wolfowitz raised Iraq by interrupting Rumsfeld (causing Rummy's eyes to narrow to slits). This caused the president to pass a note that only head's of agencies were to speak. Then late in the day the president called a rest break and a reconvening for final assessments. During the rest break, according to Woodward, the president circulated a memo to all participants saying he had heard enough about Iraq and it should not be a part of the final assessments when the participants reconvened. NONE of this was reported by Frontline, even though Woodward was one of its sources. And Frontline made it appear that Bush's final orders after the Camp David conclave were really dictated by Cheney after he got the president alone. What is the truth? This again appeared to be a pre-conceived agenda transcript regardless of the facts.
Hmmm... thanks for your post. I searched for the Dark Side before posting and nothing showed up. Wonder how that happened.
Amen, sgt. And Norman Minetta, too.
I think he listened to Dad on both of these, and maybe on immigration, too.
Laughing out loud! It puts me in mind of Rummy as some irascible alien on Star Trek NG.
Frontline said the Tenet call by GWB was made upon the strong endorsement of Bush 41, for whom Tenet had renamed CIA headquarters at Langley, VA. Tenet was described as very deft at politics, but one who succumbed to the sirens of power. The CIA officer who wrote the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq expressed his mea culpa for having been pressured to put into the report what Cheney wanted, and then Frontline let another CIA officer describe the fellow as the most sterling of intelligence agents who would not have done such a thing except under the most extraordinary circumstances. How pathetic, particularly on the part of Frontline!
Yes, I've seen those "slits for eyes" of Rummies a number of times on the tube, mostly when he gets completely fence-post dumb questions from reporters.
I saw it the same way you describe. And did they ever overcook their assertion that Rummy and the Pentagon got caught with their pants down when the president wanted to act promptly against Afghanistan. The book I mentioned, "The Hunt for Bin Laden," said the Central Command wanted something like six months to prepare, but a Special Ops colonel said we can do it now. So the president went with the SO operation.
Good point. I wonder if the show last night had something to do with de-classification of the WMD info today.
Yes, I had certainly hoped for a higher standard of integrity from Frontline, rather than total dedication to Leftist ideology. I'm sure the Left will hope that this becomes a plank of "history" of what really happened as America began transforming the Middle East.
"The Dark Side" was confused and confusing: On the one hand, CIA was demonstrably not there for us about the nature of the Al Qaeda threat, and (most tellingly) about 9/11). On the the other hand, they're just the best and the brightest. Every analyst at CIA (apparently) submitted a "minority report" on Iraq and (specifically) "no WMD", but somehow the intel estimates said "slam dunk". The President (according to "Frontline") gave CIA the lead on Afghanistan and Iraq, but somehow Tenet was so overawed by Cheney and Rumsfeld (who had been "defeated,thwarted and frustrated by him") that he could only say "slam dunk" when the President himself (allegedly) said "George, this 'evidence' looks a mite thin" (which would have been the perfect time to mention the "minority reports" every "analyst" had presumably submittted).
After the show, it occurred to me that what I had just watched, insofar as it essentially "exonerated" the President, Secretary Powell and George Tenet, was an attempt to get one of those gentleman to say something really nasty about the VP and Rummy (in keeping with the current Democrat "accountability for mistakes says Rummy must go" mantra).
An excellent description of the Frontline presentation.
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