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ANTENNA SHARON | minds |
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Saturday, June 05, 2004
Abu Gharib's and Nick Berg video failure. Scapegoat must go
The Washington Post reports that President Bush announced that CIA Director George J. Tenet has submitted his resignation:
CIA officials said the resignation was for personal reasons, denying that Tenet quit, or was pressured to leave, because of criticism of U.S. intelligence over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or missed clues to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot.
"He told me he was resigning for personal reasons," Bush said. "I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people."
Bush said he had accepted Tenet's letter of resignation, which Tenet submitted at a White House meeting Wednesday night.
Speaking to reporters briefly before leaving on a trip to Europe, Bush said Tenet would serve as CIA director until mid-July, then give way to the current CIA deputy director, John E. McLaughlin, who will take over as acting director. Bush did not indicate who would be Tenet's permanent successor.
[. . .]
Tenet was appointed by President Bill Clinton and has served as CIA director since July 1997.
This is good news. I only wish President Bush announced that he had asked for Tenet's resignation.
UPDATE: Tenet's resignation may have been prompted by the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence failures. ABCNews reports the findings in the not yet released report on pre-war intelligence failures are "devastating" for Tenet. According to ABC:
Democratic sources confirm Tenet was losing support among Democrats because of the conclusions reached by this report. One Republican source predicted Wednesday Tenet might resign before it is released. The report is currently being declassified by the CIA and is expected to be made public on June 17.
UPDATE II: A former CIA Director thinks President Bush asked tenet to resign. According to the New York Times:
The official announcement was unconvincing to a former C.I.A. chief, Stansfield Turner, who held the post under President Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Turner said the resignation is "too significant a move at too important a time" to be inspired by nothing more than personal considerations.
"I think he's being pushed out," Mr. Turner said in an interview on C.N.N. "The president feels he has to have someone to blame."
Mr. Turner went on, "I don't think he would pull the plug on President Bush in the midst of an election cycle without being asked by President Bush to do that."
Turner's analysis makes sense to me. Again, I just wish President Bush announced that he fired Tenet.
UPDATE III: The June 4th edition of the Christian Science Monitor suggests many factors contributed to Tenet's resignation:
* The upcoming 9/11 commission report is almost certain to hit the CIA for failures prior to the Sept. 11;
* Recent controversies concerning various intelligence leaks;
* The mistaken US predictions about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction;
* The inclusion of the assertion in a State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger; and
* Tenet has also been tarred by the Wilson affair.
The Monitor wonders if the Chalabi investigation was the last straw:
More recently, federal investigators have begun looking into which US government official might have leaked the fact that the US had broken Iranian codes to Ahmed Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile who has long been a favorite of some in the Pentagon.
"Maybe [the Chalabi investigation] was the one that broke the camel's back" and convinced Tenet to leave.
The Monitor's list sums up why everyone seems pleased Tenet is leaving.
Source : California Yankee Blogs
# ANTENNA SHARON | 5:51:00 pm |
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