Tenet’s Victories Outweighed by Failures

When CIA Director George J. Tenet testified in mid-April before the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the keeper of America’s secrets revealed a little secret of his own.

“I sit back at night and look at a war in Iraq, a war on terrorism, conflict in Afghanistan and all the things I have to do, and recognize, you know, no single human being can do all these things,” Tenet said. “If I’ve failed or made a mistake, I’ve been evolutionary in terms of the [intelligence] community. Maybe I should have been more revolutionary.”

With the announcement Thursday that Tenet will step down next month, seven years after he took the helm of the CIA and America’s 14 other spy agencies, Tenet’s account is a fair summation of his troubled tenure.

Even his supporters concede that Tenet’s efforts were insufficient. He worked hard to rebuild and rejuvenate America’s battered intelligence agencies after their resources were slashed following the end of the Cold War. But his achievements did not meet the new demands of a world riven by stateless groups and faceless enemies practicing terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction.

Tenet’s undeniable successes -- including the CIA’s role in the recent disarming of Libya and the dissolving of a nuclear trafficking network -- have been vastly overshadowed by two of the worst intelligence failures in U.S. history: the inability to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the gross misjudgments of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons.

The CIA now faces such intense criticism that Jami A. Miscik, the deputy director for intelligence, compares it with the worst intelligence scandals of the past. CIA veterans “say they haven’t seen anything like it since Vietnam, or since the period in the mid-1970s when the Church committee was investigating the agency,” she told agency analysts in February. The committee headed by then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) probed allegations that the agency had spied on Americans and had otherwise abused its authority.

Some blame Tenet’s overconfident predictions that Hussein’s regime had resumed production of chemical, biological and perhaps nuclear weapons. A devoted Georgetown University basketball fan, Tenet even assured President Bush -- twice -- that Iraq’s possession of such forbidden arms was a “slam dunk.”

“ ‘Slam dunk’ is going to hang with him until the end of his days,” said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst on Iraq who now teaches at the National Defense University. “That’s how people will remember him.”

But other problems also have scarred Tenet’s tenure.

The CIA failed to foresee India’s underground tests of nuclear weapon designs in May 1998, learning about the tests on CNN. And the CIA was responsible a year later when U.S. bombers were given the wrong coordinates and mistakenly struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO’s air war against Yugoslavia.

The agency’s record on battling terrorism was equally problematic. In the late 1990s, Tenet warned intelligence officials to consider themselves “at war” with Al Qaeda. But subsequent investigations found that few in the broader intelligence community heard the message or viewed the threat with the same urgency.

The CIA never had a spy inside Al Qaeda’s high command. And Tenet never ordered a formal intelligence estimate -- a highly vetted, official judgment by the entire intelligence network -- of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden. Doing so might have exposed what critics have called the CIA’s complacency.

“The problem is the failures on his watch were so devastating,” Yaphe said. “You can’t blame him personally, but it happened on his watch and it revealed endemic problems.”

Aides fear that Tenet will face increasing blame after his departure. One longtime enemy, Ahmad Chalabi, is already gloating. CIA officials have accused the former Iraqi politician of leaking highly classified materials to Iran. Chalabi in turn charged Thursday that Tenet provided “erroneous information about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush, which caused the government much embarrassment at the United Nations and his own country,” according to a statement released in Washington.

To some, Tenet’s sheer survival as America’s chief spy was a sign of success.

When President Clinton appointed him to the post in July 1997, Tenet was the fifth director of central intelligence in six years. That churning at the top reflected deeper problems: Budget cuts, outdated equipment and staff departures had left America’s intelligence agencies in crisis.

Tenet responded. He expanded the CIA’s corps of analysts and clandestine operatives, reopened stations overseas, increased support for foreign espionage and presided over major reforms at agencies that provide electronic intercepts, satellite photos and other forms of high-tech surveillance.

But his accomplishments go beyond budgets and hardware.

“His most important achievement is he’s restored the sense of purpose and mission here,” said a senior CIA official who has worked closely with Tenet.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, argued that “some of things we’ve been faulted for were things we were in the process of fixing” when terrorists attacked New York and the Pentagon in September 2001.

In particular, he said Tenet was desperately trying to rebuild the agency’s once-fabled cadre of spies. Tenet said in April that the training program was so rigorous that the new clandestine service wouldn’t reach full capability for another five years.

But former Sen. Warren Rudman, a New Hampshire Republican who got to know Tenet when Rudman headed the Senate Intelligence Committee and Tenet was a staff aide, lauded the progress so far.

“I think he’s done an extraordinarily good job of organizing the clandestine service,” said Rudman, who headed the president’s foreign intelligence advisory board for eight years. “It was in terrible shape. I don’t think it’s fair to lay all the so-called intelligence failures on George’s shoulders. I think he did a rather good job.”

Experts also cited Tenet’s political and personal skills. As CIA chief, Tenet had demanding bosses -- the president and House and Senate oversight committees. He was one of the rare high-level officials who won the confidence of both Clinton, who appointed him, and Bush, who kept him on.

Some credit Tenet’s earthy charm for his long tenure. He is a cigar-chomping, back-slapping figure with an easy laugh. “I don’t know anybody who didn’t like George,” said a former senior CIA official who worked closely with Tenet.

Tenet’s extraordinary family story is part of his appeal.

“My mother escaped from Albania on a British submarine just as the Iron Curtain was closing, never to see her family again,” he said three weeks ago in a commencement speech at Texas A&M; University.

“My father came to the United States from Greece just before the Great Depression -- without a word of English, a nickel in his pocket or a friend in sight. They are the two greatest people I have ever known,” he said.

He portrayed his elevation from rowdy street kid in Queens, N.Y., to confidante of presidents and America’s top spy as a constant source of wonder to him and his friends. “Back home in New York, I was the guy who could never keep a secret,” he told the students.

Tenet’s popularity amid the rank and file at the CIA is undeniable. On Thursday, he was interrupted by several standing ovations -- and some sobs -- when he delivered an emotional resignation speech to about 500 people in a packed auditorium at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

The speech was shown on closed-circuit TV in the rest of the complex.

“What you have achieved in this fight against a clever, fanatical enemy, around the world -- the cells destroyed, the conspiracies defeated, the innocent lives saved -- will for most Americans be forever unknown and uncounted,” Tenet told his audience.

But his geniality may have hurt his effectiveness.

One close friend, a former senior official in the Clinton White House, said he sometimes wondered if Tenet had carefully tailored his views -- and his analysis -- so as not to alienate top policymakers.

“He’s had to deal with the problem any CIA director has,” the former official said. “In order to have access, you have to be seen as someone who can participate in the discussions. But it’s hard to maintain your independence and your seat at the table. If you’re going to have independent views, you cut yourself off from being relevant and useful.”

Still, the former Clinton official said, “I’m comfortable that when I was in the room, George called it straight. He called awkward truths. There were many times, especially in the Balkans, when he said things that didn’t necessarily conform to what we wanted or believed. But he was a straight shooter with us.”

By all accounts, Tenet’s relations with Bush have been even stronger.

They typically have met, according to Tenet, six mornings a week for a briefing on intelligence matters. Tenet was intimately involved at nearly every stage of White House preparations and command for the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, playing a pivotal role that few CIA directors previously had.

“He is right in the loop,” said a former senior CIA official who spent 28 years as an operative. “He has regular access. He solidified a relationship with the White House.”

His relations with Congress were less salutary. He often appeared prickly in congressional hearings, curtly dismissing questions he didn’t like. His dark eyes grew raccoon-like, and his smile shifted to a scowl.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby, the Alabama Republican who headed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, repeatedly clashed with Tenet and demanded that he resign.

“I have long felt that, while an honorable man, he lacked the critical leadership necessary for our intelligence community to effectively operate,” Shelby said Thursday.

The current committee chief, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), gave a speech last month that sharply criticized the agency -- and implicitly called for Tenet to step down.

“Almost three years after 9/11, no one in the intelligence community has been disciplined, let alone fired,” Roberts said. “Almost two years since the publication of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that declared Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was reconstituting his nuclear program, no one has been disciplined or fired.”

On Thursday, scores of politicians from both sides of the aisle lined up at microphones to praise Tenet -- and to bury him. Most thanked him for his service, and then called for immediate reforms.

Tenet had been an effective CIA chief but was caught in a “difficult situation ... trying to manage a 20th century intelligence community infrastructure to meet 21st century threats. This was not his fault,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).

“Clearly there have been many intelligence failures over the last several years that have compromised our national security, contributed to wrongheaded policy decisions and cost lives,” said Rep. Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Tenet insisted Thursday that he was quitting for “the well-being of my wonderful family. Nothing more and nothing less.” For the occasion he brought his wife, Stephanie, and teenage son, John Michael, to the CIA auditorium and repeatedly thanked them for their love and support.

He also gave a review of the CIA’s performance -- but he may have been judging himself as well.

“Our record is not without flaws,” he said. “The world of intelligence is a uniquely human endeavor, and as in all human endeavors, we all understand the need to always do better.

“We are not perfect, but one of our best-kept secrets is that we are very, very, very good.”

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Tenet’s tenure

CIA Director George J. Tenet oversaw U.S. intelligence for seven years, one of the longer directorships in the spy agency’s six-decade history.

Intelligence failures under Tenet

May 1999 During the NATO Kosovo campaign, faulty CIA targeting is blamed for the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia that killed three journalists.

September 2001 Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Tenet later admits he could have done more to foil the strikes.

July 2003 President Bush and his aides blame Tenet for the inclusion of exaggerated claims in the State of the Union speech that Iraq sought African uranium.

April 2004 Tenet assures Bush that proving Iraq possesed unconventional weapons would be a “slam dunk,” according to Bob Woodward’s book “Plan of Attack.”

May 2004 Secretary of State Colin L. Powell says the CIA’s prewar intelligence about Iraq’s mobile biological weapons laboratories was wrong.

Sources: Associated Press, CIA