Well George gave Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Posted on 08/21/2007 1:27:11 PM PDT by STARWISE
The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday.
Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them.
"The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found.
"They did not always work effectively and cooperatively,"
*snip*
Yet the review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson found neither a "single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have stopped the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
*snip*
• The CIA and the National Security Agency tussled over their responsibilities in dealing with al-Qaida well into 2001. Only Tenet's personal involvement could have led to a timely resolution, the report concluded.
*snip*
The report recommended forming accountability boards for the CIA Counterterror Center chiefs from 1998 to 2001, including Black.
• Although 50 to 60 people read at least one CIA cable about two of the hijackers, the information wasn't shared with the proper offices and agencies. "That so many individuals failed to act in this case reflects a systemic breakdown.... Basically, there was no coherent, functioning watch-listing program," the report said. The report again called for further review of Black and his predecessor.
While blame is heaped on Tenet and his deputies, the report also says that Tenet was forcefully engaged in counterterrorism efforts and personally sounded the alarm before Congress, the military and policymakers. In a now well-known 1998 memo, he declared, "We are at war."
The trouble, the report said, was follow-up.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Well George gave Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
It seems to me .... clinton that’s bill.... passed a bill or what ever making it impossible for the CIA and other organizations to communicate with each other.
Also see my post #20 .. ;)
Bush Honors Tenet, Franks, Bremer
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2004
Mr. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw combat in Afghanistan and the initial invasion of Iraq, former CIA Director George Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer.
Franks is a retired four-star Army general who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He didn’t decide until last summer to endorse Mr. Bush’s re-election, but then spoke on the president’s behalf at the Republican National Convention and campaigned for him through the fall.
Mr. Bush said Franks “led the forces that fought and won two wars in the defense of the world’s security and helped liberate more than 50 million people from two of the worst tyrannies in the world.”
Tenet left the CIA in July after seven years as director. He has been criticized for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the never-proven prewar allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Bush credited him as “one of the first to recognize and address the threat to America from radical networks.” He said that after Sept. 11, Tenet was “ready with a plan to strike back at al Qaeda and to topple the Taliban.”
Bremer was the top civilian U.S. official in postwar Iraq, overseeing the transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government in June. “For 14 months Jerry Bremer worked day and night in difficult and dangerous conditions to stabilize the country, to help its people rebuild and to establish a political process that would lead to justice and liberty,” Mr. Bush said.
This fall, Bremer suggested the United States had paid a price in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations because it did not have enough troops in place to stop the looting.
Those remarks gave Bush critics ammunition for their claims that the administration’s postwar planning was inadequate.
Bremer tried to calm that controversy by saying he had constantly supported the president’s strategy in Iraq.
The Medal of Freedom, established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize civilians for their efforts during World War II, was reinstated by President Kennedy in 1963 to honor distinguished service.
“This honor goes to three men who have played pivotal roles in great events and whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty,” Mr. Bush said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/14/iraq/printable660994.shtml
..... he should have waited for this report, or maybe the medal is for something not told to public
Of course they did and it is very unfortunate.
Jamie Gorelick .... I just don’t know how that witch sleeps at night.
There is nothing they won’t do, no dirty trick they won’t pull, my friend. Not one.
Not ONE!
IMHO the part of your question following 'unless' is the answer to the previous part.
Just shakin my head...
Thanks so much for the ping. Off to read now..
In other news, The C.I.A. failed to see the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Only spent 1 trillion dollars in preceding decade.
Don`t blame Bush for prior political choices... I too am from Texas; Lot`s of what he has to endure is from Billery...
It`s politics.
Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq
The book recounts C.I.A. efforts to fight Al Qaeda in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mr. Tenet’s early warnings about Osama bin Laden. He contends that the urgent appeals of the C.I.A. on terrorism received a lukewarm reception at the Bush White House through most of 2001.
“The bureaucracy moved slowly,” and only after the Sept. 11 attacks was the C.I.A. given the counterterrorism powers it had requested earlier in the year.
Re-read the article by replacing CIA with Congress and Pre-911 with today. The article would still be true.
Of course not. You think the MSM is going to say ANYTHING linking Tennet to Clinton at this point? Not a chance in H###.
One (of many things) I do fault GW for: Keeping Tennet, and for that matter most of the top staff at CIA and NSA, on board for the sake of the “New Tone.” How’d that work out, GW? Getting lots of warm and fuzzies from the traitorous Demscum? No? Wow, that was one NAIVE move!!!
Hindsight is always perfect, isn’t it?
There is plenty of blame to go around MrJapan.
It`s politics.
And Billery and George both are politicians.
As far as we know OBL is still sucking air.
Valerie Plame and Co.
Yup, and I do engage in hindsight sometimes. This isn't one of those times. I was screaming for Tenet et al. to be fired from day one. Almost threw my computer across the room when I read about that hack getting the Medal of Freedom the first time, again in a transparent attempt at creating the "New Tone" (where Republicans cave to Demscum in hopes that the Demscum will be nice).
Following is the text of a written statement issued by George J. Tenet, the former Director of Central Intelligence, regarding the public release today of the executive summary of the June 2005 report by the Office of the Inspector General concerning the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001
The latest IG report is equally wrong regarding resources. Although resources available for everything else at CIA went down or stayed flat, counterterrorism resources were going up. The IG report fails to understand where we were starting from or the geopolitical context that the intelligence community faced. We had to try to rebuild a seriously under-funded intelligence community across the board. During the 1990s, as a Community, we had lost 25 percent of our people and tens of billions of dollars in investment compared to the 1990 baseline. The rebuilding of the entire Community was essential to bolstering our counterterrorism efforts and enabling us to address all the intelligence priorities established by the President. For me, however there was no priority higher than fighting terrorism. The IG fails to understand how intensely I pushed the counterterrorism issue because he failed to interview either me or policymakers from either the Clinton or Bush Administrations on this matter. Had he done so he might have learned that I was relentless in seeking additional funding for the Intelligence Community in general and counterterrorism in particular. I wrote the Administration in 1998 and 1999 imploring for more money to rebuild U.S. intelligence. When only a small portion of what I requested was made available, I went outside established channels to work with then-Speaker Gingrich to obtain a $1.2 billion budgetary supplemental for the intelligence community
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21cnd-tenet.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.