Posted on 04/30/2007 6:02:08 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
The Bush administration: a bigger threat to national security than a foreign spy. That was Tom Brokaw's implicit assumption in his interview with former CIA Director George Tenet on this morning's "Today." Along the way, Brokaw accused former Defense Secretay Donald Rumsfeld of running a "rogue" intelligence operation.
BROKAW: In the opening passage you describe conversations in the Clinton administration between the Palestinians and the Israelis attempting to get some sort of a new peace arrangement. But the Israelis were demanding the release of Jonathan Pollard, a United States military intelligence analyst who had been selling them secrets, who's in jail for life. You said if you release Jonathan Pollard, I'll resign from the CIA. And yet when you were the head of the CIA, you had Condi Rice ignoring your warnings, Vice-President Cheney exaggerating the threats repeatedly, Don Rumsfeld in the Pentagon running what effectively was a rogue CIA, his own intelligence operation, and you didn't threaten to resign then.Brokaw never explained how an intelligence operation created by a Secretary of Defense who was appointed by the president, and which operation in turn reported to the president, could be considered "rogue." And while Tenet oh-so-delicately declined to necessarily agree with all of Brokaw's accusations, he pointedly did not take issue with Brokaw's stunning "rogue" allegation.
TENET: Well, Tom, I don't know that I agree with the premise of everything in your question, but let me say this. I had a job to do. We had a war on terrorism, we had conflict in Iraq. I thought I could best serve my country by continuing to do my job every day. A Director of Central Intelligence is agnostic on policy because we have to become objective and give them the best data and I thought it was best to serve my country by staying in my job.
BROKAW: But if the country was not getting the true story, which it's fairly clear from your book that it was not, that the Vice-President had one clear view of what was necessary in Iraq, that the Defense Department had its own intelligence operation going on, and Condoleeza Rice was not responding with alacrity to your warnings, very clear warnings, in July of 2001 that an attack was imminent, doesn't a country deserve to know that?
TENET: Well, Tom, I chose to do my job in a way in which you stay inside the system. You do your best. You push your objective analysis. You make people aware of what you believe to be true. People are asking, why are you talking now, why were you silent so long? I certainly wasn't silent within the purview of my job and the councils of the administration in terms of what we said and how we said it.
Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
ENOUGH SAID... Go back to the ranch Tom.
Given the constant attacks on American assets the world over during Tenet’s tenure, it’s a mystery as to why he has a drop of credibility at all.
If I am not mistaken, he was on duty when the USS Cole was attacked.
I’m surprised Brokaw didn’t mention the ‘forged-but-real’ Bush memo’s... or secret agent Plame’s outing.
A lot of people are asking about Tenet’s credibility this morning.
another phony who forgot to leap to the defense of his good buddy Imus.
Brokaw-strikes-again ping to Today show list.
Note also Brokaw’s claim that “the country was not getting the true story.” The former Nightly News anchor seems to align himself with the “Bush lied, people died” crowd.
Tenet is already being exposed as a liar on many of his so-called ‘facts’—flash in the pan, baby. Just looking for his 15 minutes of fame, and he’s already used up 14 of ‘em.
Next!
Tom Brokaw is demonstrating his allegiance to ideas unlike those of “The Greatest Generation.”
That book was a great way to kiss up to his audience but not a true demonstration of where his heart was.
Brokaw should have written an honest book titled “Make Love, Not War” or “The Hippie Generation.”
What IS the frequency, Tom?
Brokaw never explained how an intelligence operation created by a Secretary of Defense who was appointed by the president, and which operation in turn reported to the president, could be considered "rogue." And while Tenet oh-so-delicately declined to necessarily agree with all of Brokaw's accusations, he pointedly did not take issue with Brokaw's stunning "rogue" allegation.To this crowd, anything in the federal government not operated by Democrats is considered "rogue".
The main untruth that Brokow tells us is that the CIA was the only large intelligence gathering agency in the government. I guess the public doesn’t know that it is only one of several. It hasn’t been THE agency siunce the ‘70s when it was gelded by the Church committee. If there was a “rogue” agency, it was the CIA, which clearly aimed at undermining US policy in the Middle East.
“IMHO Tenet was another self serving Washington bureaucrat who was responsible for the deaths of a lot of Americans, and now he has a book deal and it is someone else’s fault as always.”
Agreed, but let’s put the blame squarely on Bush’s shoulders. Why did he reappoint the man? Stupid.
What’s funny is... it’s almost word for word like Clarke’s (before his book came out, of course)
How come Tom didn’t bring up Merlin? nevermind...
I am very concerned that Tenet will be used to further a case for impeachment of the President and Vice President.
Tenet is a liar, but the echo chamber of a pro Democratic media will only trumpet items damaging to this Administration.
The Republicans are sitting around with their fingers up their whazoo, when they should be rallying around the President, and nailing these traiterous Demon Senators and their war bill vote.
My concern is that the Dems are going to try to simultaneously impeach both the President and the Vice President, which is unprecedented in American history. They will go for it, because they will have nothing to lose. At best they get their way, and they think the resulting power vaccum will result in Pelosi becoming temporary President until 1/20/09. At worst, they get to pummel the Administration daily, which will benefit them in the ‘08 campaign and election.
Don’t think they are above trying this. They have pushed their behavior past the point of treason and are paying no price for it, as the media is in the tank for them.
If this power play develops, well, there’s no telling what may happen.
And the awful thing is, this is happening during a time of war, with our armed forces in harm’s way.
In six years, we have seen how the Demons lie and lie and lie, and manipulate the truth to bash this Administration, and how the Republicans can’t, or rather won’t, defend themselves. The President has a bully pulpit and doesn’t use it.
Some thing very bad is the air.
Anyone else notice Tenet constantly covered his mouth with his hand as he talked?
Second question, how many in the forum understand the implication?
Just wondering...
Why doesn’t Brokjaw “investigate” them? He claims to be a reporter doesn’t he?
“My concern is that the Dems are going to try to simultaneously impeach both the President and the Vice President, which is unprecedented in American history.”
I hope they ‘go there’. It will generate a landslide for the GOP in 08 if they do.
Meanwhile, what ever happened to the stiff upper lip? Aren’t spymasters supposed to be the ultimate in self-abnegation; grey men who are never seen, let alone heard?
George Smiley would not be pleased with Mr. Tenet.
Didn’t need to watch Tenet to know he was lying thru his teeth to curry favor with the demonrats in and out of government.
He’s hoping for a demonrat administration where he’ll land another high paying job where results are unimportant and not expected.
He just knows the public does not.
After all he spend decades dumbing them down to idiot level.
Brokaw and Tenet - and the rest of the left - apparently think “military intelligence” is an IQ test for soldiers...and they all KNOW that military types are stupid, because John F’n Kerry told them so.
The Bush administration has been continuously undermined by backstabbers & leakers ...... most turn out to be folks from the former Clinton administration who were not ‘purged’ from their jobs when Bush took office. Bad mistake.
Why didn’t Brokaw resign after making the wrong call for Al Gore in Florida? Why didn’t Brokaw resign after NBC called Richard Jewell the BOMBER in the 1996 Olympics tragedy??
Brokaw is one interview short of being a reporter. The arrogance of these MSM lackies is amazing. Too, Pres. Bush is paying the price for keeping Clinton people in their jobs after he took over.
Perhaps someday we will learn why Bush allowed Tenet to continue at the CIA. When that day comes we will probably learn that the miserable bureaucrat was seconded by George Sr., (once CIA director and loved by the organization because he agreed with their mushmouthed efforts to support detente) and by Brent Scowcroft. They were, of course, the reason the State Department got the feckless Powell. Rice, who is an obvious weak reed, is Bush’s own choice and he has decided to live with her despite her ditherings in both the Middle East and in the former Soviet Union. That Tenet even produced this apologia is just another indication that character no longer counts at the highest levels of the CIA.
Look at Richard Clarke as well as Tenet — and you see two people trying to shift accountability away from themselves.
History will prove him (them) to be inept.
Exactly.
Psst - Tom. There is also another little tiny agency charged with intelligence in the Defense Department:
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is America’s cryptologic organization. It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. government information systems and produce foreign signals intelligence information. A high technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and data processing. It is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the government.
Brokaw is referencing the same old CIA/DIA battle that has been underway for some time now. It partly explains why the CIA, in league with the communist State department, initiated its own rogue operation through Plame and Wilson to smear the Bush Administration and attempt to fix the election.
Bush has no use for the CIA. It's a shame he didn't have the wherewithall to dismantle the sick institution completely and take bolder steps to neuter the State Department at the same time. Now it's all just a big disgraceful mess, still in place to do further damage to the country.
Shoulda woulda coulda. Oh, what might have been....
I don’t recall when Tenet took the reigns, either...but the idea that the CIA should have any credibility after their recent failures is a joke. This is the same group that supposedly produced “antiquated maps” which mistakenly led to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; the same group that had false intel on Al-Shifa and the supposed VX nerve producing pharmaceutical plant; the same group that had no idea that both Paksitan and India were ready to test nuclear weapons.
Heck, they were 10 years off on Saddam’s nuclear capability prior to the first Gulf War (when Saddam was producing WMDs) and now—if we are to believe them, were wrong again on their latest prediction. From 9/11 to the Cole to the attacks on our US Embassies and military compounds around the world—the CIA has been a failure of late. That Tenet should have any credibility at all is a joke—and again, exposes the hypocrisy of the Left that will support anything or anyone who crticizes the administration—even a hack like Tenet.
Tenet took control of the CIA in 1997 when Tony Lake could not get confirmed.
Tenet presided over the failure of the Embassy Bombings and the USS Cole. Add to that the 9/11 attacks and you have to wonder just what President Bush had in mind to keep such an abject failure on board.
I remember when Tenet insisted he hadn’t met with the president at all during the summer prior to 9/11.....then he had to acknowledge that he had flown to Crawford for meetings with the President.
Tenet is an out and out liar and a traior.
Just the kind of guy the MSM adores.
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