Monday, April 16, 2007
George Tenet's "At the Center of the Storm"
The non-existent stockpile of WMD in Iraq is going to be back in the headlines. Not welcome news for the warrior in the White House. According to Al Kamen's column in today's Post, the Presidential Medal of Freedom has not deterred former CIA director George Tenet from writing about what went on behind the scenes and his role in the neocons' war against Iraq. Some people in the Bush Administration are going to be unhappy; they emerge smelling bad. Not that Tenet's revelations were needed; they were rotten eggs to begin with. "The drums have begun sounding for the long-awaited book by former CIA director George Tenet, in which he gives his take on pre-9/11 days and on Saddam's huge cache of weapons of mass destruction."
Excerpts:
- And the drums are saying that Tenet is not going to get too many Christmas cards from Vice President Cheney's office after they read "At the Center of the Storm." Folks from down the river at the Pentagon, including former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz-- a guy who's already going through a rough patch -- and former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, might also get some heartburn.
- Former secretary of state Colin Powell comes out fine. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was President Bush's key adviser in engineering the Iraq invasion, doesn't come out so fine. Not fine at all.
- The White House definitely won't be overjoyed, we're hearing. Tenet even takes some shots at himself and for the first time explains his astute assurance that "it's a slam-dunk case" when Bush asked him how solid the WMD evidence was.
- Tenet has never really explained his views on that comment. The 500-page book -- or more likely his "60 Minutes" interview on April 29, the day before the book goes on sale -- will be the first time he goes over that.
- Tenet, who ran the CIA from July 1997 to July 2004, did the first of two days of taping last week at Georgetown University, where he's teaching.
Casualties in Iraq
The number of dead American soldiers went past 3300. The latest figure is 3303 including 55 in the first 15 days of April.
