In an open letter calling on former CIA Director, George Tenet to return his Medal of Freedom and donate royalties from his new book, six former intelligence officers excoriate the former Director of Central Intelligence for his complicity in overseeing the Bush Administration’s misuse of intelligence to send America into an unnecessary war where more than 3,300 troops have so far been killed.
The complete letter, which pulls no punches is posted at Larry Johnson’s website. Johnson is a former CIA agent and one of the letter’s signatories. A PDF version of the 4-page letter is here.
Just a very few excerpts follow…
Mr. George Tenet
c/o Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
8th Floor
New York City, New York 10022
ATTN: Ms. Tina Andredis
Dear Mr. Tenet:
We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.
…
[Y]our lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.
…
It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community–a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge.
…
Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States. Instead of resigning in protest, when it could have made a difference in the public debate, you remained silent and allowed the Bush Administration to cite your participation in these deliberations to justify their decision to go to war. Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq, which has killed more than 3300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
…
Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.
Sincerely yours,
Phil Giraldi
Ray McGovern
Larry Johnson
Jim Marcinkowski
Vince Cannistraro
David MacMichael
The photo op where preznit blush is putting that thingy around Tenet’s neck reminds me of the hangings in Baghdad. Our hangings are more humane in some ways?
Tenet had Richard “The Dick” Cheney, “The Donald” Rumsfeld, Wolfnowits, and a couple of other crazed neoCons as enemies. Not to mention the Pentagon neoCrazies.
They got him but he helped them screw up the civilian spy realm and move it to more military industrial complex control in the DIA realm.
When Tenet caved in to the pressure, like many others did, he set the stage for the Joe Lieberman syndrome and all the following play pretend foreign policy of the bushie express.
Which would lead to an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. And a hoped for invasion of Iran.
They wanted a little piece of the middle east (oil and land for military bases) but they called it “a little peace for the middle east”. Play pretend foreign policy.
Even the whores became play pretend. Remember Jeffie “Bull Dog” Gannon Guckert, who expanded the definition of “White House Secret Service” (the gay ho thingy).
I wonder if he worked for Madame Shock & Awe during that timeframe and kicked up some Dusty Foggo?
Tenet says he warned about anarchy in Iraq, but when preznit blush heard the term he replied “I have no plans to send Ann Coulter to Iraq”.
Operation slam dunk indeed bushies. Tenet sold out and should suffer that fate in our history books … like the neoCon infestation shall.
He got the medal because he kept his mouth shut. Works for me. Guess I don’t get one. I do get Pat Robertson’s Roller when the rapture comes and I’m left behind. I wish it weren’t pink. Such a gay color, dontcha think? He says it’s mauve, but really, in the right light, it sure looks pink to me.
Does anyone really think that a self-serving prick like Tenet would give up anything? Not a chance. He’s just trying to re-write history pretending like he had reservations about the intelligence that Bushit used to get into this mess knowing full well what he was allowing to happen. He’s representative of the cancer that is eating at the soul of our country. Go along to get along and when things go wrong, deny you had anything to do with it and blame someone else.
So many oil barons have lived spoiled lives. One neoCondi Rice was on This Week with George Stephanopolous, today, fully showing just what I mean.
When George told her what she said was not true, because we have a memo from CIA telling her about the Niger (Wilson trip) yellowcake being untrue, she said, “I do not recall” that memo.
Professionals are held to a standard of constructive notice, which is akin to constructive knowledge.
The essence of these concepts is that professionals are held to a standard of having notice of, and knowing, what they should, as professionals, have notice of and actually know.
This means that wierd Al “I can’t recall remembering” Gonzales is getting by easily before congress. They should ask him about the standard every time he “can’t remember recalling that”.
In these scenarios, incompetence is also defined as “if you do not know what you should, you are incompetent”, and therefore liable for negligence.
Negligence is defined as not doing what a reasonable and competent person would do in those circumstances. And it can even be criminal negligence.
The republican party is, in an increasing degree, going to be held liable for what they should know or should have known. Even spouses can be held liable for infecting their spouse based on what they should know. The republicans likewise should know that the neoCons have infected them with fascism, and that they are spreading that infection into the nation.
And the people (the BIG jury) can hold them liable and vote them out of office or put them in prison without feeling guilty for having done so.
Perhaps this is a bit much, but since more and more scandals are popping up like popcorn since the 110th Congress has restarted oversight and accountability functions in our country, there’s a sort of political cartoon that keeps popping up in my mind. It’s that infamous scene in the film Deliverance in the river where the Ned Beatty character is being sexually assaulted by the criminally redneck mountain boys…only, instead it is the whole of the American people in the Ned Beatty ‘position,’ the Bush Administration committing the unspeakable acts, while the cheering onlookers who are the companions of the ‘perpetrating bushies’ are represented by Big Oil, Big Defense Contractors, and Big Pharma (…ceuticals). They stand nearby witnessing, envying, yelling to the American people, “S-Q-U-E-A-L.”
Funny, Tenant could have spoken up anytime since he “resigned” from his post. Maybe we would have been spared four more years of this maniac and his henchmen.
Where was Powell, how about Durbin, now that the crap is hitting the fan everyone is running away from the barnyard. Funny when it all falls apart, they get “reborn”. Tell that to the military families.
The only way Tenant is believable is to give the proceeds of his blood book to Walter Reed.
The look on teneT’s says it all . . . . . What the fuck am I doing here. . .
After, watching Tenet on 60 MINUTES, I can see he is still in denial about his part. Damn straight, Texaslady, he could have resigned back then as soon as he realized that the White House was determined to attack Iraq, and not Al Queda, and to mislead the American people in order to do it. [Gee,…as I just typed this, my words remind me of the superfamous PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing), the one that neoCondi made no particular notice of, the one entitled, “Bin Ladin Determined to Attack Within the United States.”] Tenet should have resigned when he knew we were about to attack the wrong country based on bogus intelligence, so that he could have empowered the people with the truth. In the Bush administration, the truth is more endangered than the snow leopard.
OT:
You know it is easy to see Gone-zoid-ales in the same ‘position’ as my aforementioned comment, too. He would rather s-q-u-e-a-l, “yez,yez yez, I’m sorry I’ve been incompotent and I promise I’ll do better,” than to have to betray his masters. Why, he just couldn’t have it if the Bushies found him unfaithful. That would be the worst way to go down, if your Al.
I’m from Texas, too, Texaslady, so we have seen the Bush/Gonzales dynamic duo before. Dede dede dede dede…..guess which one plays Robin.
I knew I would see Ray McGovern’s name on the signature list. He is a true patriot.
I hope the people of Ameria wake up and imprision all who colluded in this fake war to steal the future from our children as well as from the Iraqi children and try to keep it for theirs.
Watching the 60 Minutes interview I was thinking, if he shouts loud enough will people believe him? What a phoney! God forbid someone in this administration stand up when it matters. No, they put loyalty to the system and a fool above the 10’s of thousands of lives destroyed by their lies. Send these guys to the Haig and watch them squirm because that’s what they are, worms.
They are “all hat but no cattle” as they say down in Texas. Tenet the palindrome reads bad backwards and forwards.
This self delusion has engended some cases where people have been destroyed by wicked imagination.
In a post above, I said the CMSM/Limbaugh are blaming Tenet for the Iraq War, and that’s spin.
McGovern and his gang here, are bashing Tenet, too, but for the RIGHT reasons: Keeping quiet about the truth, when it counted the most.
McGovern and the gang say:
“””It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community–a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge.
…
Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States. Instead of resigning in protest, when it could have made a difference in the public debate, you remained silent and allowed the Bush Administration to cite your participation in these deliberations to justify their decision to go to war. Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq, which has killed more than 3300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
…
Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.”””
…but Limbaugh and Hannity and their boys say, “Tenet is to blame for the Iraq War, and Bush is absolved, because Tenet gave him bad info. And furthermore, Clinton and the liberals are all to blame. Bush is not guilty of anything.”
This is an example two groups bashing the same guy: One for the right reasons, and one for the “spin” reasons of getting Bushco totally off the hook for any blame of the Iraq War.
I’m qualifying an earlier comment I had, where it may be construed that I was agreeing with the CMSM/Limbaugh/Hannity’s spin, because their reasons for bashing Tenet are different thatn the McGovern’s gang’s reasons.
It MAY seem like “the Hannitys” and “the McGoverns” are agreeing, and on the same side. They are calling out Tenet for totally different reasons.
McGovern’s reasons are to IMPLICATE Bush, Limbaughs are to BLAME Tenet and absolve Bush.
How can one help to cause outrage against the Bush
Administration by the complacent American people??