Tenet and the CIA’s Role Before the Iraq War

In “Time Is Up for CIA’s Tenet” (editorial, Feb. 26), the impression is that the CIA fed an eager administration false information about Iraq, leading to the decision to invade that country.

There were plenty of stories of agents being pressured by Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to magnify the Iraq threat. In your editorial of Oct. 17, 2002, Director George Tenet is encouraged to stick by his agency’s facts. The Times wrote, “But intelligence and congressional sources told Times reporters Greg Miller and Bob Drogin last week that senior Bush administration officials were pressuring CIA analysts to come up with information that would make it easier for Washington to build a case against Saddam Hussein.”

Repeated efforts were made by the CIA to quash the infamous allegation that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger, as well as President Bush’s assertion that Iraq would supply terrorist organizations the means to attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction. When one envoy went public with his field report rejecting the uranium-purchase idea, someone in the administration exposed his wife as a CIA agent.

The only reason Tenet should step down is for double-crossing his own agency by covering for the administration.

Bill B. Butler

Morongo Valley

*

So why hasn’t Tenet been fired? Tenet’s boss, George W. Bush, now says that the prewar intelligence he received was inaccurate. Why wouldn’t Bush get rid of a subordinate who had served him so badly? Perhaps the answer is that Tenet gave Bush exactly what he asked for and firing him would free him to speak more candidly about his interactions with the president before the war.

George Tenet, CIA director, may be less of a political liability than George Tenet, private citizen.

Jim Eastman

Long Beach