GLOBE EDITORIAL
Exit TenetTWO FAILINGS have beset the Central Intelligence Agency in recent years: the quality of information and its use.
George Tenet's overdue departure yesterday as director of central intelligence, combined with public and congressional scrutiny of systemic lapses, may lead to urgently needed improvements in intelligence gathering in a time of global terrorism. But no one who replaces Tenet can promise that sensitive information will no longer be twisted to political ends. Only a change of attitude in the White House can guarantee that. On Sept. 11, 2001, Tenet was having breakfast at the St. Regis hotel in Washington, oblivious to the fact that 19 terrorists were at that moment committing the most horrific attack on America since the War of 1812. In many countries the person responsible for intelligence in such a situation would not have kept his job 24 hours. President Bush retained Tenet, who allowed his agency's work to be used for political ends. Under pressure from the White House and personally from Vice President Dick Cheney, the CIA supported Bush's rationale for war in Iraq by confirming the presence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction yet to be found. According to Bob Woodward in his book "Plan of Attack," Tenet assured Bush that the case for WMDs was a "slam dunk." The CIA also let Secretary of State Colin Powell speak to the United Nation about mobile biological weapons laboratories that have not been found to date. Under Tenet, the CIA relied far too much on data analysis and other signals intelligence and did too little to revive human intelligence. In addition, the gaps in communication among the CIA, FBI, and other agencies prior to Sept. 11 have been well documented. Recent stories describe excessively coercive measures used by the CIA on detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq and at the prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba.
Bush yesterday said Tenet has done a "superb" job -- the same word he used when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was under fire. What the CIA needs now is a director -- and a president -- who will remove politics and restore the agency's professionalism. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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