Woodward book contradicts CIA
director By Andrew Tully
WASHINGTON - Two months ago, United States
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet
gave a public response to the growing concern about the
quality of US intelligence preceding the Iraq war. His
remarks came amid questions about whether the
administration of President George W Bush had pressured
the US intelligence community to help make the case for
war, by presenting evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein was an imminent threat.
But Tenet said
CIA analysts never portrayed Saddam as an imminent
threat to the region, the world, or the US. And he
directly countered claims that Bush policymakers
influenced how the CIA interpreted its own intelligence:
"The question being asked about Iraq, in the starkest
terms, is, 'Were we right or were we wrong?' In the
intelligence business, you are almost never completely
wrong or completely right. That applies, in full, to the
question of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction," Tenet
said.
But that is not how Tenet is characterized
in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward of the
Washington Post newspaper.
Woodward's reporting
contributed to the resignation of president Richard
Nixon three decades ago after the Watergate scandal. In
his latest book, Plan of Attack, he writes that
during a crucial meeting with Bush, Tenet twice
reassured a wary president that Saddam had weapons of
mass destruction (WMD).
Woodward writes that in
December 2002 - three months before the war began -
Tenet and his deputy, John McLaughlin, gave Bush what
the president hoped would be a convincing case against
Saddam - convincing enough to prevail in a court of law.
According to the book, McLaughlin gave a
detailed presentation with charts and photographs. But
when he was done, Bush said it was not convincing. The
US president is quoted as saying, "I've been told all
this intelligence about [Saddam] having WMD, and this is
the best we've got?"
Woodward writes that Tenet
described the case as foolproof, literally calling it a
"slam-dunk". When Bush again expressed skepticism, Tenet
reiterated his conviction that the evidence against
Saddam was sound.
During three-and-a-half hours
of interviews with Woodward for the book, Bush recalled
that Tenet's reassurance about the quality of the
intelligence was "very important" in influencing his
decision to go to war.
How to explain the two
apparent faces of Tenet - one brashly confident of the
case for war; one wary and defensive about the CIA's
intelligence?
Retired US Army General Edward
Atkeson said in an interview that he found the passage
from Woodward's book very troubling on several levels.
Atkeson served as an intelligence officer in Europe
during the Cold War and several times was temporarily
transferred to the CIA.
Was the head of the CIA
truly surprised by the failure to find WMD in Iraq? If
so, says Atkeson, his initial confidence is unsettling.
Also, Atkeson says, Woodward's account presents Tenet in
a way that is almost cavalier, and not consistent with
the typical intelligence-community methods:
"I
wouldn't have expected him to just pristinely lay the
thing on the president's desk and say, 'That's it, and
if you have any questions, give me a call.' Nor would I
expect him to give a kind of a 'slam-dunk' kind of a
demonstration," Atkeson said.
In fact, Atkeson
says he is bothered by Tenet's demeanor as it is
described by Woodward. He says analysts may speak in
sports slang when discussing work-related matters among
themselves in unguarded moments, but no one, not even
the CIA director himself, would dare to speak so
casually to a president, especially a president who has
a reputation for demanding proper behavior from
everyone.
"That's out of character for anybody
in the business, so far as a presentation of some
gravitas [is concerned]. That's unprofessional. If I
were the president, I'd say, 'Go back to your office and
call me when you're ready to give me a professional
presentation,'" Atkeson said.
Atkeson also says
he finds Woodward's account troubling because of its
sourcing. Although the writer claims to have spoken to
75 officials close to the case, nearly all of them are
unnamed. Only material from the Bush interviews is fully
attributed to the president.
Atkeson says he
questions how skeptical Bush really was about the
intelligence regarding Saddam's suspected weapons
arsenal. He also wonders whether Karl Rove, Bush's
senior political adviser, may have urged the president
to portray himself as reluctant to go to war.
"[Bush] may have Rove sitting right behind him
saying, 'Tell [Woodward] this, tell him that.' That
would fit in with the popular view of the way [Bush's]
staff works - you know, where they're always trying to
minimize damage and put the best light that they can on
things," Atkeson said.
Tenet says his agency
currently is evaluating whether it served the country
well in the way it gathered and presented intelligence
to the president. He has said the evaluation will be
thorough, and the American people must be patient in
awaiting the verdict.
But with Woodward's book
putting the CIA on the defensive, it appears a reckoning
may come sooner than anybody may have thought.
