George Tenet: At The Center Of The Storm

[IsrAmeriPrius]

Pretty damning indictment of the Bush administration:

Highlights:

Before the war the CIA repeatedly warned the Bush team that Iraq could collapse into chaos after a U.S. invasion, but the warnings were dismissed or discounted.

As early as Bush's first meeting at Camp David with his top advisers on the weekend after the attacks, Wolfowitz "was fixated on the question of including Saddam in any U.S. responses."

Thereafter, the National Security Council staff held regular meetings on Iraq in which discussion proceeded on the assumption that Saddam would be ousted. The confidence in that outcome was so high that sometimes, debate centered on details like whose portrait would be put on the country's new currency, Tenet says.

Tenet reserves his harshest words for Cheney, who comes across as Machiavellian, ideological and surrounded by a coterie of overly self-confident advisers.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, is painted as insecure and almost naive in some sections. At times, she strikes Tenet as incompetent; at others, she appears duplicitous. Overall, she is depicted as never being quite up to the task.

As a consequence the administration rushed headlong into a war that he and his aides at the CIA had warned could lead to disaster.

In September 2002, the CIA contributed a section to a briefing book for policy-makers. It included a CIA paper outlining plans for dealing with the "negative consequences" of invading Iraq.

The paper laid out a series of worst-case scenarios:

• Anarchy and the territorial breakup of Iraq.
  Region-threatening instability in key Arab states.
  A surge of global terrorism against U.S. interests fueled by militant Islamism.
  Disruption of major oil supplies and severe strains on the Atlantic alliance.

Later, in January 2003, two months before the war, the CIA produced another paper with detailed warnings that, in hindsight, were eerily accurate.

It forecast violent conflict among domestic groups and formation of an alliance of former members of Saddam's regime who would be able to fight a deadly guerrilla war. It predicted that Islamist extremists would gain traction among the population. And it warned that anti-U.S. sentiment would fuel militants' popularity and deadliness.

60 Minutes [/b]

[burritos]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Apr 30 2007, 05:23 PM) [snapback]432816[/snapback]</div>

Pretty damning indictment of the Bush administration:

Highlights:
[/b]

Too little too late.