Thief's Den

Reactions to George Tenet's Speech on WMD's

(All quotes are from my hastily scribbled real-time notes or from memory.) [UPDATE: All quotes have now been checked and corrected against the CNN transcript..]

1. I picked up on something in Tenet's tone of voice; I don't know if it was anger or frustration or exasperation. But he clearly sounded as though he was fed up with something. He made several disparaging references to pundits and how "they don't know what they're talking about," both with regards to knowing about Iraq's WMD's and with regard to our human intelligence capabilities.

2. Tenet also made it very clear what intelligence is and isn't; in his words, "Intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden." In his view, the point of collecting intelligence about Iraq was not to prove an imminent threat, for in intelligence one is "neither completely right nor completely wrong." The point of collecting intelligence on Iraq was to eliminate the risk of surprise. "Did the strands of information weave into a perfect picture? Could they answer every question? No, far from it. But taken together, this information provided a solid basis on which to estimate whether Iraq did or did not have weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. It is important to underline the word estimate because not everything we analyze can be known to a standard of absolute proof. (Recall that the origins of the CIA and the Intelligence community lay in the intelligence failure that led to Pearl Harbor in 1941, a textbook case of strategic surprise.) Tenet seemed to imply that this overreaction was acceptable given our rude awakening about the state of Iraqi WMD in 1991 after the First Gulf War.

3. Tenet made frequent mention of debates that occurred during the analysis process among the 14 different agencies that make up the intelligence community. Some analysts saw things different from others, which is only natural. All of these debates and positions were included in the analysis products, including the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. "Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate. They never said there was an imminent threat. Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policymakers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to decieve and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests. No one told us what to say or when to say it."

4. Another point Tenet hammered home repeatedly was that the intelligence community and its analysts would have to have been ignorant in order to believe that Iraq did not have or was not seeking WMD. "To conclude before the war that Saddam had no interest in rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction programs, we would have had to ignore his long and brutat history of using them... To conclude before the war that Saddaam had destroyed his existing weapons, we would have had to ignore what the United Nations and allied intelligence said they could not verify... And to come to conclusions before the war other than those we reached, we would have had to ignore all the intelligence gathered from multiple sources after 1998." Tenet even said that the UN inspection work was the "baseline" for most of the CIA's work, despite Saddam's known "cheat and retreat" tactics),

5. Tenet also discussed human intelligence, something which he said was being unfairly criticized. "The blatant indictment of our human intelligence is dead wrong." Tenet said that he has been intimately involved in rebuilding our clandestine service over the last five years, and that the Clandestine Service academy is now graduating more recruits than ever before. Although Tenet said the process would take another five years, he pointed to the successes of human sources in the captures of Al-Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Nashiri, the Al Qaeda operative who planned the bombing of the USS Cole, and Hanbali, the mastermind of the Bali bombing in Indonesia.

6. There was also reference to two other U.S. intelligence successes. With regards to Libya, Tenet noted that "only through intelligence did we know each of the major programs Libya had going. Only through intelligence did we knww when Libya started its first nuclear weapons programs and then put it on the back burner for years. Only through intelligence did we know when the nuclear program took off again. We knew because we had penetrated Libya's foriegn supplier network. And through intelligence lat fall, when Libya was to recieve a supply of centrifuge parts, we worked with the foriegn partners to locate and stop that shipment. Intelligence also knew that Libya was working with North Korea to get longer-range ballistic missiles." Libya actually went to the CIA and the British MI6 to open negotiations, according to Tenet, "because they knew we could keep a secret;" Tenet even noted that for a long while several CIA officers conducting these negotiations were the only American presence in Libya. Tenet even recounted that "when the Libyans said they would show us their SCUD-Bs [missiles], we said, Fine. We want to exame your longer range SCUD-C's." (One word: OWNED.) The other major success Tenet cited was a major blow to a "private proliferation" network he informed Congress about a year ago; essentially, freelance "nuclear brokers" selling nuclear technology and know-how to the highest bidder. It turns out that the leader of this ring was none other but Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former chief of Pakistan's nuclear program. Thanks to our intelligence, Tenet noted, "Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow and several of his senior officers are now in custody. Malaysian authorities have shut down one of the network's largest plants...we pieced together the picture of the network, revealing its subsidiaries, its scientists, its finances and manufacturing plants on three continents." Tenet also cited successes in Iran and North Korea, but did not go into great detail.

7. A few Georgetown students asked rather tendentious questions. Mr. Tenet promptly schooled them. One asked why other foreign intelligence services "were not able to reflect the same judgement call and make similar decisions?." "Well, I'd say you're incorrect about that, because none of the countries and allied services we were working with in the time saw this any differently," said Tenet, citing intelligence from British, European, and Middle Eastern intelligence services. Tenet also made a very salient point: "Just as we build military coalitions and diplomatic coalitions, there is a coaltion of intelligence services with like-minded intersts around the world who are tying to get to the truth." Reminded me of one of Rumsfeld's best quotes, "If you're looking at the same sheet of music, you tend to sing the same tune."

8. Another student referred to Mr. Tenet's role a few years ago under Clinton in negotiation an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, and asked if our efforts to isolate Arafat had really solved the problem and made us safer. Tenet said "First, I'm glad I'm no longer involved in this issue and I'm never really excited to speak about policy." (Go back and re-read that. That statement alone single-handedly boosted Mr. Tenet's credibility with me enormously. Why? Intelligence is intelligence, and policy is policy, "and never the twain shall meet." The fact that Tenet did not like doing policy stuff is a good sign.) Tenet said that in order for there to be negotiations, people had to come together with common objectives, otherwise it's not going to work. "Unless we get a commitment to stop terrorism and to seriously talk about not just the aspirations of the Palestinian people, but the security of the Israeli people in a way where we have two parties firmly committed to a common objective, we're not going to get anywhere."

9. One especially smug student, quoting a Mother Jones article, gave a song and dance about the Office of Special Programs (a unit in the Pentagon created before the Iraq war), called it a group of "Prominent neoconservatives with direct ties to Dick Cheney and members of the adminstration," which had "a clear political agenda, to have influenced people in the intelligence community, and defintely used 'gross intelligence' to promote their cause." He asked, "Can you confirm or deny the esitence of such a Pentagon group? And if so, how can we prevent small ideological groups from influencing intelligence estimates?" Tenet's response, (and it was good): "I haven't read Mother Jones in a while. But I will say this. I'm the Director of Central Intelligence. The President of the United States sees me six days a week, every day. I tell him what the American Intelligence community believes... I can tell you with certainty that the President of the United States gets his intelligence from one person and one community: me. And he has told me firmly and directly that he's wanted it straight and he's wanted it honest and he's never wanted the facts shaded/ And that's what we do every day. The rest of it, I don't know.. (Applause.)

10. Best line of the speech: Question from a Georgetown student about Malaysian involvement with Dr. Khan. Answer: "I said in my statement that the Malaysian government has closed the facility. That's about as far as I can go here today in the open. You want to take another question? You might get a better answer." Guy asks another question about the involvement of Dr. Tabhir, whoever he is. [Transcript says "Dr. Todd here," but I know what I heard.] Tenet's response: "See, you're 0 for 2 and a walk. Let's go."

11. Finally, Tenet went to great lengths to defend the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community. Quotes:
On Intel in general: "We will always call it as we see it. Our professional ethic demands no less...We fear no fact or finding, whether it bears us out or not."
On the current intelligence inquiries: "When the truth emerges, we will report it to the American people, no matter what."
On responding to the critics: "We have a record and a story to tell, and we want to tell it to those who are willing to listen."
On the Intelligence Community's job: "Our analysts, at the end of the day, have a duty to inform and warn, and they did so honestly and with integrity when making judgements about the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein."
And most important, his closing line: "At no time will we allow our willingness to make tough calls to be questioned."

Bottom Line: The CIA is an independent agency that tells policymakers the best truth possible in an unclear and uncertain world, without bias or prejudice, without ever minimizing or dismissing any point of debate. We did this with respect to Iraq. The critics are full of it.

P.S. I overheard that some students were going to try to heckle Tenet as he gave his speech. Fortunately, these moonbats had also heckled Wolfowitz some months before, and so Georgetown's police made sure they didn't get the chance (i.e. did not allow them into the auditorium.) Nice try, dumbasses.

Comments now open. And pictures will follow shortly.

UPDATE 2-5-03 2:15 PM: Picture is finally here. (For all you intel people, this is called a 'bona fide.')

I also repent of my earlier criticism of Mr. Tenet. He may be a Clinton appointee, but if what he said about Human Intelligence reform, the difference between intelligence and policy, and the absolute need for integrity in the Intelligence Community is really true, then maybe he does deserve the job after all.

UPDATE 2-5-03 4:00 PM: Winds of Change got the full transcript. I will be redoing his quotes from the transcript shortly.

UPDATE 2-5-03 7:00 PM. Post checked and corrected against transcript.

Posted by Thief at February 5, 2004 11:42 AM