Those 16 Words Threaten the Tenure of Long-Serving CIA Chief

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON, July 26 — Throughout his six-year tenure as director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet has proved to be one of official Washington's most adept survivors.

He survived the awkward transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. He survived the greatest intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor, the Sept. 11 attacks. And he survived wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that stretched the C.I.A.'s capabilities to the limit. He has survived for so long that just this month, he became the third-longest-serving director in the C.I.A.'s history, surpassing William J. Casey, President Ronald Reagan's director, who, gravely ill, left office in 1987 amid the Iran-contra scandal.

(snip)

There is no doubt that Mr. Tenet has developed a much closer relationship with Mr. Bush — whom he sees almost daily and who appreciates his plain-spoken and sometimes jocular manner — than he ever had with Mr. Clinton, with whom he met much less frequently. So some agency officials wonder whether the director now finds it hard to push back against administration pressure.

Other observers say Mr. Bush's defense of Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. after the Sept. 11 intelligence failures may have left the director too weak to stand up to the White House on Iraq.

"He got top cover on 9/11," one former intelligence official said of the dynamics of Mr. Tenet's relationship with Mr. Bush.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/politics/27TENE.html

[PartyPooper]

1. George Bush will never let him go.

Mr. Tenet knows way too much about the pre-9/11 intelligence.

[Melinda]

2. No, I think you have it backwards.

It's Tenet who has that idiot by his teeny tinys, not the other way around. The end result of this -- I think the WH machine is trying to to cover their asses and play hardball with Tenet cast as the bad guy -- is gonna blow up in their faces.