Several of George Tenent's former colleagues at the CIA have released a letter criticizing his recent portrayal of himself as a victim of the Bush administration. Some highlights:"Your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership.
"You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq."
"You showed a lack of leadership and courage in January of 2003 as the Bush administration pushed and cajoled analysts and managers to let them make the bogus claim that Iraq was on the verge of getting its hands on uranium."You signed off on Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. And, at his insistence, you sat behind him and visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset - credibility."
"It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community -- a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality.
George Tenent (pictured), along with Paul Bremer (responsible for the dissolution of the Iraqi army and the firing of all members of the existing ministeries) and Donald Rumsfeld, were all awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their work in Iraq. The Medal of Freedom is "designed to recognize individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."
9 comments:
Nice place you have here, Harris. I will spread the word to other bloggers and commentors who don't have the stones to start their own blogs.
I love the tag line "You were not a victim." Unfortunately, claming victimhood seems to be the standard response to political attacks, whether warranted and unwarranted. The culture of victimhood is pervasive in this country's public disourse (of course, I say, most often on the Left--I have to get Harris going somehow) Instead of "poor me", why not just wipe the dirt off your shoulder, be a man and tell people why you are right and they are wrong?
If you're going to be a self-hating American, then please spell the enemy's name correctly: George Tenet. L. Paul Bremer.
Thank You. I am looking forward to a long and prosperous blog.
Thanks for your comments. At least I've got two readers for now. I didn't know that Count Choculitis was such a Bush lover!
I suspect that Count Choc was being at least somewhat facetious. At least I hope so.
The Count ain't no Bush lover. However, he knows who really loves America.
George Bush?
I am no Bush lover, but nor am I a reflexive anti-Bush pinko commie either. Every single problem in this world is not George Bush's fault, despite popular opinion and the New York Times to the contrary. The environment is not George Bush's fault. The Va. Tech shootings were not George Bush's fault. Middle Eastern fanatics do not hate us because George Bush is President.
I know you don't like being lumped in with either side, because you think of yourself as some sort of arms-folded, scoffing independent. But I don't think it requires a conspirator to believe George Bush and his cabinet are principally at fault for the mistakes made in Iraq (the underlying subject of this post).
That's funny, because I think of Count Choc as an "arms-folded, scoffing" critic of baseball and TV. I can only assume it carries over to politics.
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