Tenet's choice

Was the CIA director pushed out by a White House looking for a scapegoat on Iraq and 9/11? Or did he flee before Bush could make him the fall guy?

By Mary Jacoby

Jun 4, 2004 | Two enduring stories about outgoing CIA Director George Tenet seem destined to follow him into history. The first is the tale told by former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke, about the panicked Tenet running around Washington in the summer of 2001 with his "hair on fire," warning fruitlessly of an impending catastrophic al-Qaida attack. The second is of a supremely confident Tenet in the run-up to the Iraq war, as depicted in Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," telling President Bush what he apparently wanted to hear: that the case for Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk."

On Thursday, the personal stresses, institutional failures and political pressures captured by those two stories culminated in Tenet's announcement that he would retire after an extraordinary seven years at the helm of America's spy community. Tenet's resignation is effective July 11, on the seventh anniversary of his appointment by President Clinton. In a morning address to Central Intelligence Agency employees in the planetarium-like auditorium of their Langley, Va., headquarters, known as "the bubble," Tenet cited the common -- and commonly disbelieved -- excuse for leaving a high-profile job: He wants to spend more time with his family.

"This is the most difficult decision that I have ever had to make," he said. "And while Washington and the media will put many different faces on the decision, it was a personal decision and had only one basis in fact: the well-being of my wonderful family."

Tenet may have been wrong about WMD in Iraq, but he was right about the Washington speculation game, which centers on the question of why Tenet is leaving now, with the nation on alert for a possible election-related terrorist attack and only five months before a presidential election. "I can't remember any resignation that has struck me as more startling than this one," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the Associated Press. "I suspect there is going to be more of a story to tell than just personal reasons."

The most prominent theory is that Bush is making Tenet the fall guy for pre-9/11 intelligence failures and for the inability to find Saddam's supposed arsenal. Although President Bush praised Tenet in announcing his resignation, calling him "a strong leader in the war on terror" and adding, "I will miss him," there's wide speculation that the president wanted Tenet gone.

"I think he's being pushed out. The president feels he has to have someone to blame," former President Jimmy Carter's director of central intelligence, Stansfield Turner, told CNN. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla., suggested something similar to reporters on Capitol Hill, speculating that the issue of faulty intelligence had become too large a political liability for Bush. In his official statement, Graham said Tenet's tenure has been "marred by the intelligence lapses prior to 9/11 and the flawed information about weapons of mass destruction upon which the Iraq war was predicated."

But other Democrats were admiring. "Director Tenet is an honorable and decent man who has served his country well in difficult times, and no one should make him a fall guy for anything," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Added House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.: "I did not lose confidence in his judgment ... I think there are many more people who are responsible for the mess that the administration has" created.

The strong support for Tenet from many Democrats, who are otherwise eager to tear down Bush administration officials, suggests a tantalizing alternative to the reigning theory: that instead of taking the fall, Tenet is leaving early precisely to avoid becoming a scapegoat.

There has certainly been loud rumbling about tension between the CIA on the one hand, and the Pentagon and White House on the other, over the Iraq intelligence mess. Tenet had already fallen on his sword over the controversy about Bush's mistaken claim in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium for nuclear weapons in the African nation of Niger. Although the CIA had in fact warned Bush's national security council deputy, Stephen Hadley, that the information was false, in the end it was Tenet who accepted responsibility.

With the White House having thrown Tenet overboard once, there is little doubt it would do so again. But there is some question about whether he would take the fall a second time. And there are two possible sources of friction between Tenet and the White House that are heating up: the inquiry into who revealed the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, and the unfolding scandal over allegations that Pentagon-favorite Ahmed Chalabi passed sensitive U.S. intelligence to Iran.

Next Page: Bush talks to a lawyer about Plame, and Chalabi fights back

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