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Ear to the Ground

Tenet: Cheney Distorted His ‘Slam Dunk’ Remark

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Posted on Apr 27, 2007

In a new memoir, former CIA Director George Tenet accepts some responsibility for his intelligence assessment of Iraq in the buildup to war, but he also blames the Bush administration for its ill-founded determination to invade. 

He takes particular issue with Vice President Dick Cheney for citing Tenet’s “slam dunk” statement as justification for war: “I remember watching and thinking: ‘As if you needed me to say “slam dunk” to convince you to go to war with Iraq.’ ”

BBC:

In a new book, Mr. Tenet accuses the U.S. administration of failing to properly debate the evidence for going to war.

And he said one of his own comments was distorted by the U.S. vice-president.

In the months preceding the invasion, Mr. Tenet told a high-level meeting that conclusive evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction would be a “slam dunk” in publicly promoting the case for war.

Mr. Tenet insists that his remark was theoretical and was not intended to persuade President Bush that Iraq actually had WMD.

Mr. Cheney has since told a TV interviewer that the “slam dunk” remark helped convince Mr. Bush to give the go-ahead for war—an argument Mr. Tenet laughs off in his memoir.

Mr. Tenet, who resigned in 2004, is the first member of President Bush’s inner circle to pen a memoir recalling 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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By LANCE, May 1, 2007 at 7:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Bush couldn’t be possible without Ronnie Reagan.
Iraq couldn’t be possible without Reagan’s collusion and 9/11 wouldn’t have happened without Shrubya’s Daddy’s Desert Storm.
Letting these criminals off the hook over & over simply means Americans will be victimized over & over.
It’s time they pay up for their transgressions against the American People and the US Constitution.

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By tmulvey, April 29, 2007 at 12:16 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Don’t jump on George Tenet so fast! Read Tyler Drumheller’s book “On The Brink”, and Richard Clarke’s “Against All Enemies”, as well as Woodward’s “State of Denial” and you may come away with a different opinion of him. I agree with entry by #66868 Gradioc (thanks for your comment). You can make the argument Tenet perhaps could have done more but the Neo-anderthal Cons , and most of all Cheney ,Libby, Feith and Wolfowitz were damned and determined to decieve the public and congress with bogus claims no matter what. From all the reading I’ve done I put Tenet and Colin Powell in the same boat- they got caught up in the madness by bowing to the #1 principle of loyalty against their better judgement, and have since regretted it.

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By Douglas Chalmers, April 27, 2007 at 9:44 pm #
(2932 comments total)

“...Anxious to restore his reputation after failing to prevent the September 11 attacks and overreacting to flimsy evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Tenet is said to spread the blame freely among other senior members of President George W Bush’s administration.

The intelligence chief, who ran the CIA from 1997 to 2004 under Bill Clinton as well as Bush, is under considerable pressure to spill secrets. Tenet received $4m (£2m) for the book, which has a print run of 300,000. But repeated delays to the publication date, now set at April 30, suggest there have been arguments with the vetters about what could be included.

The reputation of Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who was national security adviser at the time of the 9/11 attacks, is certain to take a battering. The two have already clashed over Tenet’s s claim that in July 2001 he gave Rice a full briefing about the threat of a spectacular Al-Qaeda attack on America. She said she could not remember such an explicit warning.

Tenet is also out to settle a few scores with Vice-President Dick Cheney and his office and neoconservative former Pentagon officials such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. They fought long and hard to discredit the CIA’s belief that there was little evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al-Qaeda, and ran their own separate intelligence-gathering operation at the defence department.......” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_ame ricas/article1687268.ece

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By Kwagmyre, April 27, 2007 at 9:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

As Larry Johnson, former CIA officer said on the Keith Obermann show on msnbc, if Tenet had ANY kind of conscience he would donate a significant portion of the $4,000,000 advance from that newly released book to the families of soldiers killed in the American instigated Civil War in Iraq.

But Machiavellian manipulators like him don’t exactly suffer such pangs of conscience.

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By Joe R., April 27, 2007 at 8:57 pm #
(7 comments total)

There needs to be a War Crimes tribunal to put the people who were behind this disaster behind bars including W.

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By vet240, April 27, 2007 at 7:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

He takes particular issue with Vice President Dick Cheney for citing Tenet’s “slam dunk” statement as justification for war: “I remember watching and thinking: ‘As if you needed me to say “slam dunk” to convince you to go to war with Iraq.’ ”

“I remember watching and thinking”. But you were wanting that medal were’nt you tenut? People like you have allowed one arrogant mad man and one arrogant stupid man take us all into hell.

When are you Democrats going to face your Consitutional mandate and Impeach these two mad men. Clean house so the world can see we’re not all crazy in America.

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By DennisD, April 27, 2007 at 6:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

A Bu$hbot gets a fat “payday”. Pinch me. “Surprise, surprise, surprise” - Gomer Pyle. Just another accomplice that I hope the dead are haunting every f**king night!

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By gradioc, April 27, 2007 at 6:33 pm #
(12 comments total)

As soon as I saw Tenet’s face on an ad for 60 Minutes I said to myself, “The other shoe finally drops.” It was clear to me at the time that Tenet was not part of the cabal determined to invade Iraq and was, in fact, deeply resentful of the backdoor intelligence being provided by Feith & Co. at the Pentagon. That intelligence, largely based on sources dug up by Chalabi in whom the CIA had zero faith, plus the frankly dishonest hyping of information from “Curveball” through the Italians via the Brits, were used to justify a war that Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and the rest of the neocon brain trust had clamored for for a decade. The “slam dunk” comment by Tenet had never made any sense because he clearly did not beleive any of the evidence from these sketchy sources. I always knew he would tell his side of the story. I wish he had done it sooner, but now, at last he has. I do not think George Tenet was one of the bad guys in this drama.

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By jeffrey, April 27, 2007 at 5:10 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

only one question,,,, why did’nt he tell us this BEFORE the last presidential election,,,,,,,,, make that 2 questions why did’nt he say something before the “invasion”?(

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By Louise, April 27, 2007 at 3:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Add one more name to the list of “I didn’t do it” ers.

How many on that list now?
I’ve lost count!

Getting so crowded in that “un-uh, not me” room who’s Bush going to invite over to celebrate his impeachment?
[yeh, I’m being facetious]

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By 911truthdotorg, April 27, 2007 at 12:32 pm #
(309 comments total)

Tenet is a lying, disgusting SOB like the rest of them.

I wonder if he was involved in the planning of 9/11 with bush/cheney/rumsfeld/rove or simply knew about it and was used as a patsy after the fact to blackmail him to keep his mouth shut about Iraq?

Plz watch the Google video: 9/11 Press for Truth

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By M.Currey, April 27, 2007 at 11:57 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

How many people get on the talk shows because they are writing a book, G. Tenent is just adding to the list.

The man can use all the double talk he wants, he was in Bush/Chaney’s pocket all along, also the regime was made up of Rice, Gonzales, and they tried to have Powell go along with their ride, but he bailed out, Thank God, someone had some backbone.

Of course Rove is also in this illegal government, and he is so slime that he used religion to get Bushie Boy in the White House.

Hang em high.

M.Currey

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By FrostedFlakes, April 27, 2007 at 10:28 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

George Tenet is still just as responsible as Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, George “The Anti-Midas” Bush, Condi “Boots” Rice, and Donald “Dumb-Ass” Rumsfield for leading this nation into an unjust war and occupation. He hasn’t given back his Medal of Freedom , so quit bitching! Tenet knew exactly what he was doing. It’s a little to late to try to act like he has a conscience. This is just another ploy, only this time it’s for book sales. A four million dollar advance could make anyone feign disillusionment.

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By dale Headley, April 27, 2007 at 10:01 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Mr.Tenet’s mea culpa would be much more persuasive if he would return the Medal of Freedom with which he was bribed by George Bush to keep his mouth shut.  Now that he’s blabbing all over the place, he doesn’t deserve the medal, does he?

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By QuyTran, April 27, 2007 at 8:31 am #
(843 comments total)

Too late Mr. Tenet, you have to speak up at the very first days when stepping down to unmask the hypocrites at the whorehouse. Don’t forget thousands and thousands troops have been killed and or wounded in vain and million of Iraqis are bathing in the ocean of blood due to your dumb and mute. Just blame yourself because of your coward.

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By THOMAS BILLIS, April 27, 2007 at 7:15 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

George Tenet should be tried for treason and hung by that absurd medal that George Bush gave him and Bremer.I guess its rewritehistory time and Tenet is trying to get his rewritein early.Mcnamara tried and failed. I guess Tenet figures he is a better writer.They all including Powell gave the Moron In Chief ju8stification to go to war and now that it looks like it might not turn out so well Tenet is first one out of the box with his bullshit version.If he thought that things were being misconstrued he should have resigned and stepped forward with whatever he could have said that was declassified.To whom does Tenet owe loyalty to the Country or George Bush.Boy if Hitler only had more loyal subordinates like Tenet we would be speaking German.To paraphrase Milton “the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who see evil and do nothing”.George if you get chest pains I reccommend you put on a bathing suit.

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By Alejandro, April 27, 2007 at 7:07 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The adage “A day late and a dollar short” comes to mind. 3,300+ Americans dead, 25,000+ wounded, thousands traumatized for life. Untold, perhaps hunderds of thousands of Iraqi people dead and a good number of them innocent childern. WOW! Unbelievable! I feel dirty for some reason. Will there be no accounting for the dis-honor that has been brought upon our nation?

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By Mar Del Zur, April 27, 2007 at 6:43 am #
(25 comments total)

Spare me...Tenet knew what he was doing. He sold out the CIA, not to mention his own country, when he decided to go along with his neocon pals’ war. He gave Cheney, Rummy and Wolfowitz exactly the “intelligence” they requested, then agreed to be the fall guy. One Medal of Freedom, please.

If there were any justice left in this country they’d all be doing time in prison right now.

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By Hammo, April 27, 2007 at 6:41 am #
(372 comments total)

Many questions remain about Tenet’s knowledge about events leading up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Maybe his book will shed some light on these. See:

“‘Intelligence failures’ Iraq war or planned strategies?”

American Chronicle

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle. asp?articleID=3367

- - -

“CIA inspector general blamed own officers; scapegoats for intel on 9/11, Iraq?”

American Chronicle

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle. asp?articleID=3510

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By James Yell, April 27, 2007 at 6:36 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Well this isn’t news. The only people who thought we had a reason for going to the invasion of Iraq, were people too lazy to read the balance of the report on Iraq as a danger and the information that had been around for years that the Royal Saudi’s had paid for control of Saudi Oil by buying off the mullahs and paying for the radicalization of Islam, although from my vantage point Islam is radical enough on any given day in history. Saudi’s hide the transfers of money to terrorist and refused any encouragement or request to help track these people down. It was all Saudi’s that did 9/11. Response of Bush/Cheney smuggle the Saudi’s out of the country and start talking about the dangers of Iraq, which country had nothing to do with 9/11.

Thousands dead. It should have been about 9/11, but it was about Bush/Cheney arrogance, love of cash and oil which makes cash. Our laws have been violated by our supposed elected officials, who swore to the God they supposedly believe in more than the rest of us, they can’t even defend what they did with any honesty, as the good of the United States had nothing to do with it, just as Iraq had nothing to do with it, except as a distraction from their complicity with the Saudi’s and the desire if not to own Iraq Oil to at lest control Iraq Oil. What do we get from the opposition? Equivacation over if one slap on the wrist is too extreme in dealing with George Bush and Dick Cheney, men-things who have repeatedly shown they have no interest in a balanced relationship with the rest of the country. Impeach Bush/Cheney and do it now.

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