Tenet Now Apparently Says He Never Said "Slam Dunk" On WMDs -- Contradicting His Own Previous Stmts

[babylonsister]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/04/post_56.php

Tenet Now Apparently Says He Never Said "Slam Dunk" On WMDs -- Contradicting His Own Previous Statements
April 16, 2007

Sometimes you have to wonder whether our commentators and pundits do even the most basic research into discussion topics before going on the air and spewing about them.

Case in point: Chris Matthews. On his Sunday show yesterday, he flacked a forthcoming book by former CIA director George Tenet in which Tenet is supposedly going to come out and deny a now-infamous episode in the runup to the war: That he privately told the Bush administration that the pre-war intel on WMDs was a "slam dunk." As Editor and Publisher noted today, here's how Matthews described the book (via Nexis):

MATTHEWS: Welcome back. This month George Tenet, the former director of the CIA and a key member of Geroge Bush's war council, is said to release an explosive new book. In it, Tenet takes on Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney has maintained that Tenet told President Bush in December of 2002, two weeks before Bush decided to invade Iraq, that there was a slam dunk case to be made that Saddam Hussein possessed those banned weapons. But now Tenet denies ever making that claim.

Matthews discussed this claim with two other well-established pundit/commentator types: The Washington Post's David Ignatius, and NBC's Andrea Mitchell. But none of these three appeared to have any command of even the most basic facts associated with Tenet's claim.

Specifically, none of them appeared to know that Tenet himself has publicly admitted to having used the "slam dunk" language. Tenet admitted this during a speech he gave in Pennsylvania in 2005. From Pennsylvania's Allentown Morning Call on April 28, 2005 (via Nexis):

Open about his mistakes and sometimes brutally frank about the state of America's intelligence system, former CIA Director George Tenet stole the show Wednesday night at a Kutztown University forum that also featured 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean.

Tenet drew laughs from a crowd of about 1,200 business leaders and community members when he ruefully acknowledged that "the two dumbest words I have ever said in my life" were "slam dunk," his label for the certainty of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Tenet's remarks were picked up by Time magazine, The New York Times, and elsewhere. There's simply no doubt but that Tenet has publicly told some version of the "slam dunk" story -- something that should at least prompt the likes of Matthews to mention that the tale has potential problems.

Here's why this is important. The "slam dunk" tale was one of the key defenses by the administration against attacks by John Kerry and the Democrats in 2004, helping deflect blame for the WMD fiasco onto the CIA and thus helping Bush get reelected. Tenet allowed the story to go unchallenged -- even saying outright that it was true as late as 2005. So presuming Matthews' information on the forthcoming denial in the book is good, Tenet was either lying then or he's lying now. And if his current denial is the true version, the real question is, Why did he prop up the false "slam dunk" tale, covering for the administration rather than reveal the truth about it at a time when it might have really made a real difference?

More broadly, why wouldn't Matthews do even a bit of elementary Googling and Nexis-ing on this topic before unskeptically floating Tenet's denial on the TV? And will any pundits seriously press Tenet about this when he makes the talk show rounds in upcoming weeks after the book's release?


Update: I should add a bit of clarification. There are certainly conceivable explanations for this apparent difference in the two tales. The point is that if we accept Tenet's assertion that he never made the claim that the WMD story was a "slam dunk" -- which is perfectly possible -- then we all deserve to know why he let the claim basically stand unchallenged through the 2004 election and beyond.

[IChing]

1. dupe n/t delete

[IChing]

2. I wonder if he will end up like Colby?

On April 27, 1996, Colby died in a boating accident near his home in Rock Point, Maryland. The accident was highly suspicious and Kay Griggs, exwife of United States Marine Colonel George Griggs, continues to allege that Colby was murdered.

Colby's body was eventually found, underwater, on May 6, 1996. The life jacket his friends said he usually wore was ironically missing. The body was found approximately 20 yards from the canoe, after the area had been thoroughly searched multiple times. The subsequent inquest found that he died from drowning and hypothermia after collapsing from a heart attack or stroke and falling out of his canoe. The investigation was closed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Death

[global1]

3. This Is Just Part Of The Mission To Change History......

say it didn't happen in a book. Hove the pundits repeat it. And suddenly - it didn't happen.

[lyonn]

4. "Slam Dunk" was a major news item concerning Iraq 's WMD's

This whole issue of WMD's in Iraq and how dangerous they were to the world is the whole going to war with Iraq issue. Tenet is in a position to clarify this. If he denies it in a book that could be damned interesting info. There is no doubt that the intelligence that the bushies used was fradulent. Proving that is the biggie. Like impeachment material.