From 3/10/04: "CIA says Cheney was wrong. Facts Misread, Tenet Contends"

[Lex]

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How does this article from March 10, 2004 square with what was released today about how it's all the CIA's fault? :shrug:

It's like looking through the looking glass . . .

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CIA says Cheney was wrong

Facts misread, Tenet contends

By JONATHAN S. LANDAY

Knight Ridder Newspapers

“I'm not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was … and what I did and didn't do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it.”
George Tenet, director of central intelligence

WASHINGTON — CIA Director George Tenet on Tuesday rejected recent assertions by Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq had cooperated with the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Tenet also rejected Cheney's statements that the administration had proof of an illicit Iraqi biological warfare program.

Tenet's comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee were expected to fuel friction between the White House and intelligence agencies over the failure to find any of the banned weapons stockpiles that President Bush, in justifying his case for war, charged Saddam Hussein with concealing.

Tenet at first appeared to defend the administration, saying that he did not think the White House misrepresented intelligence provided by the CIA. The administration's statements, he said, reflected a prewar intelligence consensus that Hussein had stockpiled chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear bombs.

But under sharp questioning by Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, Tenet reversed himself, saying there had been instances when he had warned administration officials that they were misstating the threat posed by Iraq.

“I'm not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was … and what I did and didn't do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it,” Tenet said. “I don't stand up publicly and do it.”

Tenet acknowledged to Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, that he had told Cheney that the vice president was wrong in saying that two truck trailers recovered in Iraq were “conclusive evidence” that Hussein had a biological weapons program.

Cheney made the assertion in a Jan. 22 interview with National Public Radio.

Tenet said that U.S. intelligence agencies disagree on the purpose of the trailers. Some analysts think they were mobile biological weapons facilities. Others think they may have been for making hydrogen gas for weather balloons.

whole article: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/8146447.htm?1c

[Lex]

1. Just wanted to bump in case anyone wants to see how the stories

don't square up.



In March---> Tenet saying he told Cheney he was all wrong on Saddam, etc.

In July---> It's all the CIA's fault for misleading the White House.

[liveoaktx]

2. Is this why Tenet quit? Disagreement with being setup as

the fall guy for Cheney? He knew the intelligence report was coming out and had to have had wind of what it was going to say. Maybe Bush told him they'd ride it out, but Tenet had some integrity and quit.