Who Is George Tenet?

[Gold9472]

February 12, 2003
Democratic Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee accuse CIA Director George J. Tenet of sabotaging the weapons inspections by refusing to supply the inspectors with the intelligence they need to do their work. [Independent, 2/14/2003] Senator Carl Levin tells the Washington Post that according to declassified letters he has obtained from the CIA, dated Jan. 24 and Jan. 28, the agency has not provided inspectors with information about a “large number of sites of significant value.” Furthermore, the senator charges, the letters contradict on-the-record statements made by Tenet who on February 11 claimed that the US had provided inspectors with all the information it had concerning “high value and moderate value sites.” Commenting on this, he says, “When they’ve taken the position that inspections are useless, they are bound to fail,” adding, “We have undermined the inspectors since the beginning.” [Washington Post, 2/13/2003; Independent, 2/14/2003] Tenet will later acknowledge to Senator Levin—after the US invasion of Iraq—that his comments were not entirely accurate. [New York Times, 2/21/2004]

March 9, 2003: UN Investigates NSA Wiretapping of Security Council Delegates
The United Nations launches an investigation into the electronic and physical surveillance of a number of its Security Council delegates by the National Security Agency (see January 31, 2003). The NSA operation, revealed the week before, was apparently leaked to Britain’s Observer by Katharine Gun, who works at Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and has been arrested on suspicion of breaking Britain’s Official Secrets Act (see February 2003). The NSA also solicited the assistance of an intelligence agency of an unnamed “friendly foreign government”; it is believed to be Great Britain. The leak is touted as “more timely and potentially more important than the Pentagon Papers” by celebrated whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. The leak of the NSA surveillance program has caused deep embarrassment for the Bush administration, which is working to recruit supporters for a second UN resolution authorizing military force against Iraq (see February 24, 2003). The authorization for the NSA operation is believed to have come from National Security Adviser Rice, but US intelligence experts say that such a decision would have had to involve Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, and NSA Director Michael Hayden. President Bush, by necessity, would have been informed of the proposed operation at one of his daily intelligence briefings. While such surveillance of foreign diplomats at the UN is legal under the US’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), it violates the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. According to international law expert Dr. John Quigley, the Vienna Convention stipulates: “The receiving state shall permit and protect free communication on the part of the mission for all official purposes…. The official correspondence of the mission shall be inviolable.” [Observer, 3/9/2003]

(March 18, 2003): CIA Conducts Major Review of Iraq Intelligence; Finds No Evidence of a Link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda
After the US Department of Defense publishes several reports linking al-Qaeda to Iraq, CIA Director George Tenet orders CIA researchers and analysts—who have maintained that there are no such links—to go through all the agency’s records on Iraq and al-Qaeda and search for evidence of the alleged relationship. CIA researcher Michael Scheuer leads the effort, which combs through about 19,000 documents going back nine or 10 years. The agency finds no evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 11/24/2004; PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006; Michael Kirk, 6/20/2006 Sources: Michael Scheuer]

March 30, 2003: Rumsfeld States Desire for Iraqi Government that is Friendly toward US
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sends a classified paper to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney, and CIA Director George Tenet. In the paper, Rumsfeld says that the US should not hand over control of Iraq to the Iraqis too quickly. There should first be a guarantee that any new Iraqi government will be “friendly” to the US, he says. [Gordon and Trainor, 3/14/2006, pp. 479]

June 17, 2003: CIA Memo States That There Is Insufficient Evidence to Back Iraq-Niger Uranium Allegation
An internal CIA memorandum addressed to CIA Director George Tenet states “ince learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.” [The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (aka 'Robb-Silberman Commission'), 3/31/2005]

July 11, 2003: CIA Officially Retracts Uranium-From-Africa Claim
Referring to Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, CIA director George Tenet says in a written statement, “These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.” But Tenet denies that the White House is responsible for the mistake, putting the blame squarely on his own agency. Condoleezza Rice also blames the CIA, “If the CIA, the director of central intelligence, had said, ‘Take this out of the speech,’ it could have been gone, without question. If there were doubts about the underlying intelligence, those doubts were not communicated to the president, to the vice president or to me.” Another senior White House official, defending the president and his advisors, tells ABC news: “We were very careful with what the president said. We vetted the information at the highest levels.” But an intelligence official, also interviewed by ABC, dismisses this version of events. [CNN, 7/11/2003; Washington Post, 7/12/2003; New York Times, 7/12/2003 Sources: Unnamed intelligence official] Following Tenet’s statement, a barrage of news reports citing unnamed CIA officials reveal that the White House had in fact been explicitly warned not to include the African-uranium claim. These reports indicate that at the time Bush delivered his State of the Union address, it had been widely understood in US intelligence circles that the Africa-uranium claim had little evidence supporting it. [Boston Globe, 3/16/2003; New York Times, 3/23/2003; Associated Press, 6/12/2003; Knight Ridder, 6/12/2003; Associated Press, 6/12/2003; Knight Ridder, 6/13/2003; ABC News, 6/16/2003; Newsday, 7/12/2003; Washington Post, 7/20/2003] For example, CBS News reports, “CIA officials warned members of the president’s National Security Council staff the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa.” And a Washington Post article cites an unnamed intelligence source who says, “We consulted about the paper [September 2002 British dossier] and recommended against using that material.” [CBS News, 7/10/2003; CNN, 7/10/2003; Washington Post, 7/11/2003 Sources: Unnamed intelligence official] White House officials respond that the dossier issued by the British government contained the unequivocal assertion: “Iraq has… sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” and that the officials had argued that as long as the statement was attributed to the British Intelligence, it would be technically true. Similarly, ABC News reports: “A CIA official has an idea about how the Niger information got into the president’s speech. He said he is not sure the sentence was ever cleared by the agency, but said he heard speechwriters wanted it included, so they attributed it to the British.” The same version of events is told to the New York Times by a senior administration official, who claims, “The decision to mention uranium came from White House speechwriters, not from senior White House officials.” [ABC News, 6/12/2003; CBS News, 7/10/2003; New York Times, 7/14/2003; New York Times, 7/19/2003 Sources: Unnamed CIA official, Unnamed administration official] But according to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who are investigating the issue, the decision to include the Africa-uranium claim was influenced by the people associated with the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (see September 2002). [Information Clearing House, 7/16/2003 Sources: Unnamed CIA official, four members of the Senate's intelligence committee]

July 13, 2003: Condoleeza Rice Again Blames CIA for Uranium-From-Africa Claim
Challenged to explain why the president was permitted to say in his 2003 State of the Union address (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003) that Iraq had reportedly attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice blames CIA director George Tenet. “My only point is that, in retrospect, knowing that some of the documents underneath may have been—were, indeed, forgeries, and knowing that apparently there were concerns swirling around about this, had we known that at the time, we would not have put it in.…And had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence in, that the director of Central Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone.” [Face the Nation, 7/13/2003; Washington Post, 7/26/2003]

July 24, 2003: 9/11 Congressional Inquiry Says Almost Every Government Agency Failed
The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry’s final report comes out. [US Congress, 7/24/2003 pdf file; US Congress, 7/24/2003] Officially, the report was written by the 37 members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, but in practice, co-chairmen Bob Graham (D) and Porter Goss (R) exercised “near total control over the panel, forbidding the inquiry’s staff to speak to other lawmakers.” [St. Petersburg Times, 9/29/2002] Both Republican and Democrats in the panel complained how the two co-chairmen withheld information and controlled the process. [Palm Beach Post, 9/21/2002] The report was finished in December 2002 and some findings were released then, but the next seven months were spent in negotiation with the Bush administration over what material had to remain censored. The Inquiry had a very limited mandate, focusing just on the handling of intelligence before 9/11. It also completely ignores or censors out all mentions of intelligence from foreign governments. Thomas Kean, the chairman of 9/11 Commission says the Inquiry’s mandate covered only “one-seventh or one-eighth” of what his newer investigation will hopefully cover. [Washington Post, 7/27/2003] The report blames virtually every government agency for failures:

• Newsweek’s main conclusion is: “The investigation turned up no damning single piece of evidence that would have led agents directly to the impending attacks. Still, the report makes it chillingly clear that law-enforcement and intelligence agencies might very well have uncovered the plot had it not been for blown signals, sheer bungling—and a general failure to understand the nature of the threat.” [Newsweek, 7/28/2003]
• According to the New York Times, the report also concludes, “the FBI and CIA had known for years that al-Qaeda sought to strike inside the United States, but focused their attention on the possibility of attacks overseas.” [New York Times, 7/26/2003]
• CIA Director Tenet was “either unwilling or unable to marshal the full range of Intelligence Community resources necessary to combat the growing threat.” [Washington Post, 7/25/2003]
• US military leaders were “reluctant to use… assets to conduct offensive counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan” or to “support or participate in CIA operations directed against al-Qaeda.” [Washington Post, 7/25/2003]
• “There was no coordinated… strategy to track terrorist funding and close down their financial support networks” and the Treasury Department even showed “reluctance” to do so. [Washington Post, 7/25/2003]
• According to the Washington Post, the NSA took “an overly cautious approach to collecting intelligence in the United States and offered ‘insufficient collaboration’ with the FBI’s efforts.” [Washington Post, 7/25/2003] Many sections remain censored, especially an entire chapter detailing possible Saudi support for 9/11. The Bush administration insisted on censoring even information that was already in the public domain. [Newsweek, 5/25/2003] The Inquiry attempted to determine “to what extent the president received threat-specific warnings” but received very little information. There was a focus on learning what was in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001 (see August 6, 2001), but the White House refused to release this information, citing “executive privilege.” [Washington Post, 7/25/2003; Newsday, 8/7/2003]

End Part XXI

 

[Gold9472]

July 29, 2003: David Kay Tells Top US Officials That Iraq Survey Group Has Yet to Find Evidence of WMD; Bush Unfazed
In a briefing to the president and other top officials, Kay says that he has found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and says the disputed trailers (see April 19, 2003 and May 9, 2003) were probably not mobile biological factories, as the CIA and White House had claimed (see May 28, 2003 and 2:28 p.m. May 29, 2003). Present at the briefing are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Andrew Card, and other White House aides. Kay’s briefing provokes little response from his audience. Describing the president’s reaction, Kay later says: “I’m not sure I’ve spoken to anyone at that level who seemed less inquisitive. He was interested but not pressing any questions. .. I cannot stress too much that the president was the one in the room who was the least unhappy and the least disappointed about the lack of WMDs. I came out of the Oval Office uncertain as to how to read the president. Here was an individual who was oblivious to the problems created by the failure to find WMDs. Or was this an individual who was completely at peace with himself on the decision to go to war, who didn’t question that, and who was totally focused on the here and now of what was to come?” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 310]

September 25, 2003
Representatives Porter J. Goss (R-Fla) and Jane Harman (D-Calif) of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence send a letter to CIA Director George J. Tenet, criticizing his agency for providing poor intelligence on Iraq during the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. They were prompted to write the letter after spending “four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material” and discovering how poorly the evidence supported the White House’s assertions about Iraq. Administration officials downplay the charges. In the letter, they say the CIA provided intelligence based on “circumstantial,” “fragmentary,” and ambiguous evidence. “Thus far, it appears that these judgments were based on too many uncertainties,” they note in their letter. [Washington Post, 9/28/2003; Reuters, 9/29/2003] They also accuse the CIA of using intelligence that was outdated, including assessments dating back to 1998 when the UN was forced to leave Iraq ahead of US bombing. Evidence that was recent often consisted of “piecemeal” intelligence. “Intelligence assessments that Iraq continued to pursue chemical and biological weapons… were long-standing judgments,” which “remained constant and static over the past ten years,” they complain in the letter. [Washington Post, 9/28/2003; Reuters, 9/29/2003] Another criticism they have is that the intelligence agency sometimes drew conclusions based on faulty logic. “The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist,” they say. [Washington Post, 9/28/2003; Reuters, 9/29/2003] Lastly, they complain that the CIA uncritically accepted claims from dubious sources. In the agency’s assessments, it failed to clarify which reports “were from sources that were credible and which were from sources that would otherwise be dismissed in the absence of any other corroborating intelligence.” [Washington Post, 9/28/2003] Significantly, the authors assert, “We have not found any information in the assessments that are still classified that was any more definitive.” [Washington Post, 9/28/2003] The White House dismisses the two Republicans’ criticisms.

Statements
Porter J. Goss
The CIA provided intelligence based on “circumstantial,” “fragmentary,” and ambiguous evidence. “Thus far, it appears that these judgments were based on too many uncertainties.” — September 25, 2003 [Washington Post, 9/28/2003; Reuters, 9/29/2003]

Evidence that was provided by the CIA often consisted of “piecemeal” intelligence. “Intelligence assessments that Iraq continued to pursue chemical and biological weapons… were long-standing judgments,” which “remained constant and static over the past ten years,” they complain in the letter — September 25, 2003 [Reuters, 9/29/2003; Washington Post, 9/28/2003]

In the CIA’s assessments on Iraq, the agency failed to clarify which reports “were from sources that were credible and which were from sources that would otherwise be dismissed in the absence of any other corroborating intelligence.” — September 25, 2003 [Washington Post, 9/28/2003]

“The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof [by the CIA] that they continued to exist.” — September 25, 2003 [Washington Post, 9/28/2003; Reuters, 9/29/2003]

Jane Harman
In response to defensive comments made by Condoleezza Rice, Harman said: “We don’t see the support for that.… As we moved to war, did the claims the policy-makers made, were those claims supported by the intelligence? My conclusion is no.” — September 29, 2003 [Washington Post, 9/30/2003]

October 2003: OLC Issues Opinion on Status of Protected Persons In Iraq
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales asks the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to provide an opinion on protected persons in Iraq and more specifically on the status of the detained Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul, an Iraqi prisoner being held in Afghanistan. In a one-page memo, Jack L. Goldsmith, head of the OLC, rules that Rashul is a “protected person” with rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention and therefore has to be returned to Iraq. Goldsmith also decides that non-Iraqis, who came to Iraq after the invasion, do not qualify for protection under the Geneva Conventions. [Washington Post, 10/24/2004]

October 2, 2003: David Kay: No Evidence of WMD in Iraq
David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, tells Congress that his investigation has found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Nor has he uncovered anything to support the theory that two trailers discovered in Iraq (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) were mobile biological weapons factories. [US Congress, 10/2/2003; Washington Post, 4/12/2006] After Kay’s testimony, White House officials call George Tenet and John McLaughlin and ask why Kay included such a blunt statement that the Iraq Survey Group had not found any weapons of mass destruction in the beginning of his report. Couldn’t he have buried that statement elsewhere in the report they ask. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 329]

Late October 2003: Rumsfeld Agrees to Keep Detainee Hidden from Red Cross
The CIA complies with the Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) opinion that Hiwa Abdul Rahman Rashul should be returned to Iraq (see October 2003). But CIA Director George Tenet asks Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to see that Rashul is hidden from Red Cross survey teams and that he not be given a registration number. The secretary of defense complies with the request. On June 16, 2004, [Christian Science Monitor, 6/17/2004] Rumsfeld will admit that he ordered Rashul to be hidden from the Red Cross in order to prevent the detainee’s interrogation from being interrupted. [CBS News, 6/18/2004] For the next seven months, Rashul remains a so-called “ghost detainee” at the High Value Detention facility near the Baghdad airport at Camp Cropper. [US News and World Report, 6/21/2004]

November 2003
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at the request of George J. Tenet, orders military officials in Iraq to keep a high-value detainee being held at Camp Cropper off the records. The order is passed down to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then to Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, and finally to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq. “At each stage, lawyers reviewed the request and their bosses approved it,” the New York Times will report. “This prisoner and other ‘ghost detainees’ were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy,” the newspaper will report, citing top officials. The prisoner—in custody since July 2003—is suspected of being a senior officer of Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic group with ties to al-Qaeda. Shortly after being captured by US forces, he was deemed an “enemy combatant” and thus denied protection under the Geneva conventions. Up until this point, the prisoner has only been interrogated once. As a result of being kept off the books, the prison system looses track of the detainee who will spend the next seven months in custody. “Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him,” a senior intelligence official will tell the New York Times. “The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn’t.” [New York Times, 6/17/2004; Reuters, 6/17/2004; Fox News, 6/17/2004]

December 2003: David Kay Tells George Tenet He Believes Iraq Had No WMDs
David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, returns to Washington and informs CIA director George Tenet that Curveball lied about the mobile biological weapons laboratories and that he believes Iraq had no mobile labs or banned weapons. Shortly thereafter he is assigned to a windowless office without a working telephone. [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]

Early 2004: Weldon Fails to Convince 9/11 Commission to Look into Data Mining Programs
Rep. Curt Weldon (R) is not yet familiar with Able Danger, though he will help bring information about the program to light in 2005. However, he is familiar with the closely related Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) program, having had dealings with it before 9/11. He says he is frustrated at the apparent lack of understanding about programs like LIWA based on the lines of questioning at public 9/11 Commission hearings in early 2004, so, “On at least four occasions, I personally tried to brief the 9/11 Commissioners on: NOAH [Weldon’s pre-9/11 suggestion to have a National Operations and Analysis Hub]; integrative data collaboration capabilities; my frustration with intelligence stovepipes; and al-Qaeda analysis. However, I was never able to achieve more than a five-minute telephone conversation with Commissioner Thomas Kean. On March 24, 2004, I also had my Chief of Staff personally hand deliver a document about LIWA, along [with] questions for George Tenet to the Commission, but neither was ever used.” [US Congress. Senate. Committee on Judiciary, 9/21/2005] He says, “The next week, they sent a staffer over to pick up some additional materials about the NIWA, about the concept, and about information I had briefed them on. They never followed up and invited me to come in and meet with them. So they can’t say that I didn’t try.” [Office of Congressman Curt Weldon, 9/17/2005]

January 28, 2004: CIA Director Privately Tells 9/11 Commission about Urgent Pre-9/11 Warning, but His Testimony Is Kept Secret
Former CIA Director George Tenet privately testifies before the 9/11 Commission. He provides a detailed account of an urgent al-Qaeda warning he gave to the White House on July 10, 2001 (see July 10, 2001). According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet displays the slides from the PowerPoint presentation he gave the White House and even offers to testify about it in public. According to the three former officials, the hearing is attended by commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, the commission’s executive director Philip Zelikow, and some staff members. When Tenet testifies before the 9/11 Commission in public later in the year, he will not mention this meeting. The 9/11 Commission will neglect to include Tenet’s warning to the White House in its July 2004 final report. [McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006] Portions of a transcript of Tenet’s private testimony will be leaked to reporters in 2006. According to the transcript, Tenet’s testimony included a detailed summary of the briefing he had with CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black on July 10 (see July 10, 2001). The transcript also reveals that he told the commission that Black’s briefing had prompted him to request an urgent meeting with Rice about it. This closely matches the account in Woodward’s 2006 book that first widely publicized the July meeting (see September 29, 2006). [Washington Post, 10/3/2006] Shortly after Woodward’s book is published, the 9/11 Commission staff will deny knowing that the July meeting took place. Zelikow and Ben-Veniste, who attended Tenet’s testimony, will say they are unable to find any reference to it in their files. But after the transcript is leaked, Ben-Veniste will suddenly remember details of the testimony (see September 30-October 3, 2006) and will say that Tenet did not indicate that he left his meeting with Rice with the impression he had been ignored, as Tenet has alleged. [New York Times, 10/2/2006] Woodward’s book will describe why Black, who also privately testified before the 9/11 Commission, felt the commission did not mention the July meeting in their final report: “Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork about the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about. It was what happened in investigations. There were questions they wanted to ask, and questions they didn’t want to ask.” [Woodward, 2006, pp. 78]

End Part XXII

 

[Gold9472]

February 5, 2004: George Tenet: Trailers ‘Could be Made to Work’ as Biological Weapons Labs
CIA Director George J. Tenet says in a speech that while there is “no consensus” among intelligence officials that the two trailers found in Iraq (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) were mobile biological weapons factories, the trailers “could be made to work” as weapons labs. [Central Intelligence Agency, 2/5/2004; Washington Post, 4/12/2006]

March 24, 2004: Counterterrorism ‘Tsar’ Clarke Gives High-Profile Testimony
Just a few days after releasing a new book, former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke testifies before the 9/11 Commission. His opening statement consists of little more than an apology to the relatives of the 9/11 victims. He says, “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you. For that failure, I would ask… for your understanding and forgiveness.” Under questioning, he praises the Clinton administration, saying, “My impression was that fighting terrorism, in general, and fighting al-Qaeda, in particular, were an extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration—certainly no higher priority.” But he’s very critical of the Bush administration, stating, “By invading Iraq… the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism.” He says that under Bush before 9/11, terrorism was “an important issue, but not an urgent issue.… [CIA Director] George Tenet and I tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the al-Qaeda threat were frequently given to the president and other high-level officials. But although I continue to say it was an urgent problem, I don’t think it was ever treated that way.” He points out that he made proposals to fight al-Qaeda in late January 2001. While the gist of them were implemented after 9/11, he complains, “I didn’t really understand why they couldn’t have been done in February [2001].” He says that with a more robust intelligence and covert action program, “we might have been able to nip [the plot] in the bud.” [Washington Post, 3/24/2004; New York Times, 3/24/2004; 9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004] It soon emerges that President Bush’s top lawyer places a telephone call to at least one of the Republican members of the commission just before Clarke’s testimony. Critics call that an unethical interference in the hearings. [Washington Post, 4/1/2004] Democratic commissioner Bob Kerrey complains, “To call commissioners and coach them on what they ought to say is a terrible mistake.” [New York Daily News, 4/2/2004]

June-November 2004: Critical CIA Report on 9/11 Failures Is Finished, but Its Release Is Successfully Delayed until after Presidential Election
In November 2002, as the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry was finishing its investigation, it formally asked for a report by the CIA to determine “whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable” for the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks. [New York Times, 9/14/2004] The CIA report by the agency’s inspector general is completed in June 2004. Newsweek calls the report “hard-hitting” and says it “identifies a host of current and former officials who could be candidates for possible disciplinary procedures imposed by a special CIA Accountability Board.” [Newsweek, 10/24/2004] While the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry and 9/11 Commission Reports didn’t single out individuals for blame, this one does, and it is said to find “very senior-level officials responsible. Those who have read the classified report say that it faults about 20 intelligence officials, including former CIA Director George Tenet, his former Deputy Director of Operations James Pavitt, and the former head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center Cofer Black. Tenet in particular is faulted for focusing too little attention on combating al-Qaeda as a whole in the years prior to 9/11.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/19/2004; Los Angeles Times, 10/6/2005; Washington Post, 10/6/2005] The report is submitted to John McLaughlin, interim acting CIA Director, but he returns it to the inspector general with a request “for more information.” [New York Times, 9/14/2004] It continues to remain completely classified, and even the 9/11 Commissioners (who all have high level security clearances) are not allowed to see it before they complete their own 9/11 investigation. [Newsweek, 10/24/2004] In late September 2004, Peter Hoekstra (R) and Jane Harman (D), chairman and highest ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee respectively, send a letter to the CIA. [New York Times, 10/27/2004] They request that at least their committee, as the oversight committee that originally mandated the creation of the report, be allowed to see the report. But even this committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee are not allowed to see it. One anonymous official who has read the report tells the Los Angeles Times, “It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed.… The report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren’t interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward.” This official says the report has been deliberately stalled, first by John McLaughlin, then by Porter Goss, his replacement as CIA Director. (Ironically, Goss was the co-chairman of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that originally called for the report.) This official further notes that the only legal and legitimate reason the CIA can give for holding back such a report is national security, yet this reason has not been invoked. The official claims that Goss is “basically sitting on the report until after the [November 2004 Presidential] election. No previous director of CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/19/2004; Los Angeles Times, 10/20/2004] One anonymous CIA official says, “Everybody feels it will be better off if this hits the fan after the election.” [Newsweek, 10/24/2004] The previously mentioned official speaking to The Los Angeles Times comments that the successful delay of the report’s release until after the election has “led the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in a cover-up with impunity.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/19/2004] More details of the report are revealed to the media in January 2005.(see January 7, 2005). In October 2005, CIA Director Porter Goss will announce that he is not going to release the report, and also will not convene an accountability board to hold anyone responsible.(see October 10, 2005).

June 3, 2004: CIA Director George Tenet Resigns
Citing personal reasons, CIA Director Tenet announces he will be stepping down in the next month. President Bush praises Tenet’s service, but there is widespread agreement that significant intelligence failures occurred during Tenet’s tenure, most strikingly 9/11 itself. Sources also suggest that Tenet, originally a Clinton appointee, has been made a convenient scapegoat for Bush administration intelligence failures in Iraq and elsewhere. [CNN, 6/4/2004; Independent, 6/4/2004]

July 8, 2004: Magazine Correctly Predicts ‘July Surprise’ Al-Qaeda Arrest
On July 8, 2004, the New Republic predicts a “July surprise” from the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign involving the arrest of a high-value target in Pakistan by the end of the month. The magazine reports that in the spring of 2004, the administration increased pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, all believed to be hiding in Pakistan. Bush officials such as CIA Director George Tenet, Secretary of State Colin Powell and his assistant, Christina Rocca, State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black, and others all visited Pakistan in recent months to urge Pakistan to increase its efforts in the war on terrorism. The New Republic comments, “This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November.” Bush spokespeople deny that the administration exerted any such pressure. But according to one source in the Pakistani ISI, “The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the US administration to deliver before the [upcoming] US elections.” Another source in the Pakistani Interior Ministry says, “The Musharraf government has a history of rescuing the Bush administration. They now want Musharraf to bail them out when they are facing hard times in the coming elections.” And another ISI source says that the Pakistanis “have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must.” The Pakistanis have even been given a target date, according to the second ISI source: “The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ISI director Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq’s] meetings in Washington.” The source says that a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that “it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July”—the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. One Pakistani general said recently, “If we don’t find these guys by the election, they are going to stick this whole nuclear mess [relating to A. Q. Khan] up our asshole.” The Bush administration apparently is using a carrot-and-stick approach to make sure such an arrest takes place on schedule. The New Republic observes, “Pushing Musharraf to go after al-Qaeda in the tribal areas may be a good idea despite the risks. But, if that is the case, it was a good idea in 2002 and 2003. Why the switch now? Top Pakistanis think they know: This year, the president’s reelection is at stake.” [New Republic, 7/29/2004] Pakistan will announce the capture of al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani on July 29, just hours before Democratic presidential John Kerry’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The authors of the New Republic article will claim vindication for their prediction (see July 25-29, 2004).

September 24, 2004: Porter Goss Sworn in as New CIA Director
Porter Goss becomes the new CIA Director, replacing George Tenet (John McLaughlin served as interim director for a few months after Tenet’s sudden resignation (see June 3, 2004)). Goss was a CIA field agent, then a Republican Representative and co-chair of the 2002 9/11 Congressional Inquiry. [Knight Ridder, 10/25/2004] He took part in secret meetings with Pakistani ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed before 9/11 and on the morning of 9/11 itself (see August 28-30, 2001) (see (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Despite some press reports that Mahmood directly ordered money to be sent to hijacker Mohamed Atta, there is virtually no mention of Mahmood or Pakistan in the Inquiry report that Goss co-chaired. Such issues appear to be forgotten by the US press, but the Times of India raises them when his nomination is announced. [Times of India, 8/10/2004] During his confirmation hearings he pledged that he will be a nonpartisan CIA director, but he will purge the CIA of all but “true believers” in Bush’s policies shortly after becoming director (see November-December 2004). [Knight Ridder, 10/25/2004]

November-December 2004: Political Purge of CIA Follows Presidential Election
A former CIA officer tells New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh that, in mid-2004 the White House begins putting pressure on CIA analysts “to see more support for the Administration’s political position.” But after Porter Goss becomes the new CIA Director and the November 2004 election passes, a “political purge” of employees who have written papers that dissent with Bush policies begins. One former official notes that only “true believers” remain. [New Yorker, 1/24/2005] An anonymous former CIA official tells Newsday, “The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House. Goss was given instructions… to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats.” [Newsday, 11/14/2004] Days after the November 2004 Presidential election, Goss circulates an internal memorandum to all CIA employees, telling them their job is to “support the administration and its policies in our work.” [New York Times, 11/17/2004] The memo also contains a caveat that they should “let the facts alone speak to the policymaker.” However, an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calls this mere “lip service,” and says the memo leaves “the impression that in the second Bush administration, the White House will run the CIA.… Goss has confirmed the worst fears of critics who warned he was too partisan when Bush appointed him…” [Los Angeles Times, 11/21/2004] Such new policies inspire more employees to leave. By the time the purge is completed in early 2005, about 20 senior CIA officials will have resigned or retired. Only one member of the leadership team from George Tenet’s tenure will remain. [Washington Post, 1/6/2005] Newsweek says the “efforts at cleaning house may have only thrown the spy agency into deeper turmoil.” [Newsweek, 2/21/2005]

End Part XXIII

 

[Gold9472]

November 30, 2004: Civil Rights Groups File Criminal Complaints Against US Officials and Military Officers
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), based in New York, and the Republican Lawyers’ Association in Berlin, file a criminal complaint in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Stephen A. Cambone, Ricardo S. Sanchez, and Janis Karpinski, alleging responsibility for war crimes at Abu Ghraib. The German 2002 Code of Crimes Against International Law grants German courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity. The center is representing five Iraqis who claim they were victims of mistreatment that included beatings, sleep and food deprivation, electric shocks, and sexual abuse. [Deutsche Welle (Bonn), 11/30/2004] Though German law stipulates that prosecution can be dismissed in cases where neither the victim nor the perpetrator are German citizens or are outside Germany and cannot be expected to appear before court, [Deutsche Welle (Bonn), 11/30/2004] that fact that Sanchez is based at a US base in Germany makes it possible that the case will be heard. [Deutsche Welle (Bonn), 11/30/2004]

December 21, 2004: Tenet Healthcare Corp. Settles Over Allegations That Its Doctors Performed Unnecessary Heart Surgery on Patients
Tenet Healthcare Corp. settles with more than 769 patients over allegations that one of its hospitals, Redding Medical Center in California, performed hundreds of unnecessary operations on its patients between 1992 and 2002. A 2002 FBI affidavit alleged that perhaps as many as 50 percent of the heart surgeries and tests performed by doctors at the hospital were not necessary. Of those, as many as a quarter did not even involve patients who had serious heart issues. According to Russell Reiner, the attorney who represented about half the patients, at least 20 patients died after undergoing unnecessary heart surgery at the hospital, while other patients suffered strokes, brain damage, or amputations. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Tenet will pay the former patients $395 million. [San Francisco Chronicle, 12/22/2004]

January 7, 2005: Still-Classified Report Is Said to Blame CIA Leaders For 9/11 Failures, But There Are Pressures to Water It Down
Details of an internal CIA report (see June-November 2004) investigating the CIA’s failure to stop the 9/11 attacks are leaked to the New York Times. The report by John Helgerson, the CIA’s inspector general, was completed in June 2004 but remains classified (see June-November 2004). It sharply criticizes former CIA Director George Tenet, as well as former Deputy Director of Operations James Pavitt. It says these two and others failed to meet an acceptable standard of performance, and recommends that an internal review board review their conduct for possible disciplinary action. Cofer Black, head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center at the time of 9/11, is also criticized. However, the New York Times notes that, “It is not clear whether either the agency or the White House has the appetite to reprimand Mr. Tenet, Mr. Pavitt or others.… particularly since President Bush awarded a Medal of Freedom to Mr. Tenet last month.” It is unclear if any reprimands will occur, or even if the final version of the report will point blame at specific individuals. [New York Times, 1/7/2005] In late October 2004, the new CIA Director, Porter Goss, had asked Helgerson to modify the report to avoid drawing conclusions about whether individual CIA officers should be held accountable. [New York Times, 11/2/2004] Helgerson “appears to have accepted [Goss’s] recommendation” and will defer any final judgments to a CIA Accountability Review Board. The final version of the report is said to be completed within weeks. [New York Times, 1/7/2005] However, months pass, and in October 2005, CIA Director Porter Goss will announce that he is not going to release the report, and also will not convene an accountability board to hold anyone responsible.(see October 10, 2005)

October 10, 2005: CIA Announces No Agency Officials to be Held Responsible For Pre-9/11 Failures
CIA Director Porter Goss announces that the agency will not pursue disciplinary action against any current or former CIA officials who have been severely criticized in an internal report produced by John Helgerson, the CIA’s inspector general. Those who have read the classified report say that it faults about 20 intelligence officials, including former CIA Director George Tenet, his former Deputy Director of Operations James Pavitt, and the former head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center Cofer Black. Tenet in particular is faulted for focusing too little attention on combating al-Qaeda as a whole in the years prior to 9/11. However, he and others who are singled out strongly object to the report’s conclusions, and have prepared lengthy rebuttals. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, of which Goss was ironically the co-chairman, had formally requested the report in November 2002, as it was finishing its investigation. The 400-page document was completed in June 2004, but its release was delayed (see June-November 2004). John Helgerson finally delivered it to Congress in August 2005, and had urged Goss to convene “accountability boards” to assess the performance of officers it criticized. However, Goss says he has decided not to do this. He says the report in no way suggests “that any one person or group of people could have prevented 9/11,” and that “[o]f the officers named in [Helgerson’s] report, about half have retired from the Agency, and those who are still with us are amongst the finest we have.” Goss also claims the report “unveiled no mysteries,” and states that it will remain classified. [New York Times, 10/5/2005; Los Angeles Times, 10/6/2005; Washington Post, 10/6/2005] In response to Goss’s statement, Sen. John Rockefeller (D), the senior Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, asks, “What failures in performance, if not these, warrant the convening of an accountability board at the CIA?” 9/11 victim’s relative Kristen Breitweiser comments, “No one has been held accountable for the failures on 9/11.” [Reuters, 10/5/2005]

December 6, 2005: Khalid el-Masri Files Lawsuit against CIA for Mistaken Abduction
Khalid el-Masri and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) file a lawsuit against former CIA director George Tenet and three corporations. The suit alleges that all of the defendants were complicit in el-Masri’s abduction transfer to to a secret prison, and subsequent mistreatment (see December 31, 2003-January 23, 2004, January 23 - March 2004, and March-April 2004 ). Tenet is said to have known that the CIA had mistakenly detained an innocent man, but allowed el-Masri to remain in detention for two months. The three corporations are accused of owning and operating airplanes that transported el-Masri to a secret prison in Afghanistan known as the “Salt Pit.” [American Civil Liberties Union, 12/6/2005; Beeson, Wizner, and Goodman, 12/6/2005 pdf file]

June 29, 2006: Tenet Healthcare Reaches Settlement with Justice Department over Allegations of Defrauding Medicare
Tenet Healthcare Corp., the country’s second largest hospital chain, agrees to a $900 million settlement with the Justice Department over allegations that it defrauded Medicare. In 2003, the company was charged with violating the False Claims Act. The government alleged that Tenet had billed for services not rendered, inflated reimbursable costs, and paid kickbacks to doctors for referrals. The company, which admits no guilt—only that it made billing “mistakes”—will pay $725 million over a four-year period to resolve the billing dispute and will forfeit its right to collect $175 million in Medicare payments for past services. Wall Street analysts had expected the amount to be well over a billion. [Reuters, 6/29/2006; US Department of Justice, 6/29/2006; Tenet Healthcare Corp., 6/29/2006 pdf file]

September 29, 2006: New Book Causes Controversy Over Previously Unmentioned 9/11 Warning
Journalist Bob Woodward’s new book State of Denial is released. While the book focuses mainly on politics regarding the Iraq war, it also describes an urgent warning that then-CIA Director George Tenet gave to Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser at the time, and other White House officials on July 10, 2001 (see July 10, 2001). [New York Times, 9/29/2006; New York Daily News, 9/29/2006; Washington Post, 10/1/2006] This warning had been mentioned in passing in a 2002 Time magazine article, but it had escaped widespread attention until Woodward’s book. [Time, 8/4/2002] The meeting is particularly controversial because neither the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry nor the 9/11 Commission mentioned in it in their final reports. The 9/11 Commission had learned about it from Tenet in early 2004 (see January 28, 2004). Rice and a number of 9/11 Commissioners deny knowing about the July meeting for several days, until documentation surfaces in the media detailing the meeting and Tenet’s testimony to the commission (see October 1-2, 2006 and September 30-October 3, 2006). Details about the July meeting and surrounding controversies are reported on by the mainstream media for about a week, but there are no articles on it in any prominent newspaper after October 3, 2006. On October 5, Sen. John Kerry (D) formally asks Sen. Richard Lugar (R), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for hearings about the revelations in Woodward’s book, including controversies surrounding the July meeting. Kerry says in a letter to Lugar, “It is necessary to understand the mistakes of the past in order to ensure they are not repeated, and having testimony from the parties under oath will help to sharpen recollections and clarify the exact nature of this important meeting.” However, no hearings take place. [Kerry, 10/5/2006]

September 30-October 3, 2006: 9/11 Commissioners Claim to Be Furious They Were Not Told of July 2001 Warning, When In Fact They Were
In late September 2006, a new book by Bob Woodward reveals that CIA Director Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black gave National Security Adviser Rice their most urgent warning about a likely upcoming al-Qaeda attack (see July 10, 2001 and September 29, 2006). Tenet detailed this meeting to the 9/11 Commission in early 2004 (see January 28, 2004), but it was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s final report later that year. According to the Washington Post, “Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork on the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about.” [Washington Post, 10/1/2006] The 9/11 Commissioners initially vigorously deny that they were not told about the meeting. For instance, 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick says she checked with commission staff who told her they were never told about a meeting on that date. She says, “We didn’t know about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our report if we had known to ask about it.” [Washington Post, 9/30/2006] Commissioner Tim Roemer says, “None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath, nor do we have any paper on this. I’m deeply disturbed by this. I’m furious.” Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste says the meeting “was never mentioned to us.” Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, says the commissioners and their staff had heard nothing in their private interviews with Tenet and Black to suggest that they made such a dire presentation to Rice. “If we had heard something that drew our attention to this meeting, it would have been a huge thing.” [New York Times, 10/2/2006] However, on October 3, 2006, a transcript of Tenet’s private testimony to the 9/11 Commission is leaked to reporters and clearly shows that Tenet did warn Rice of an imminent al-Qaeda threat on July 10, 2001. Ben-Veniste, who attended the meeting along with Zelikow and other staff members, now confirms the meeting did take place and claims to recall details of it, even though he, Zelikow, and other 9/11 Commissioners had denied the existence of the meeting as recently as the day before. In the transcript, Tenet says “the system was blinking red” at the time. This statement becomes a chapter title in the 9/11 Commission’s final report but the report, which normally has detailed footnotes, does not make it clear when Tenet said it. [Washington Post, 10/3/2006] Zelikow had close ties to Rice before joining the 9/11 Commission, having co-written a book with her (see March 21, 2004), and became one of her key aides after the commission disbanded (see February 28, 2005). Zelikow does not respond to requests for comments after Tenet’s transcript surfaces. [McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006; Washington Post, 10/3/2006]

October 1-2, 2006: Rice Denies Attendance in Urgent Pre-9/11 Al-Qaeda Briefing, but State Department Confirms She Was There
Secretary of State Rice says that she does not recall the meeting on July 10, 2001, when CIA Director Tenet and other officials briefed her about the al-Qaeda threat (see July 10, 2001). “What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible.” [Associated Press, 10/2/2006] Rice says she has no recollection of what she variously calls “the supposed meeting” and “the emergency so-called meeting.” [Editor & Publisher, 10/1/2006; McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006] The Washington Post comments that “Rice added to the confusion… by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred at all—even though administration officials had conceded for several days that it had.” Hours after Rice’s latest denial, the State Department confirms that documents show Rice did attend such a meeting on that date. However, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack then says, “The briefing was a summary of the threat reporting from the previous weeks. There was nothing new.” The Washington Post notes that when it was pointed out to McCormack that Rice asked for the briefing to be shown to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft (see July 11-17, 2001), “McCormack was unable to explain why Rice felt the briefing should be repeated if it did not include new material.” [Washington Post, 10/3/2006]

End