Well, since Swing Dangler never answered me, I looked up the transcript myself, and not that surprisingly, there's more to it than just that one section. Before I go any further, I would like to request to any mods reading this post that the posts relating to this subject be moved to a new thread, as they have no relation to the OP; thank you. That being said, I have read the transcript and I've found a few things that would seem to contradict the idea that George Tenet thinks we had everything we needed to prevent 9/11. I also found a few quotes from other members of the administration that would seem to support my current opinion that many people view George Tenet as more of a golddigging opportunist than a brilliant man who's always right. Case in point:
KING: Six former CIA officers write a highly critical open letter to you, among other things, describing you has[sic] having been the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community. One of those officers, Larry Johnson, spoke with CNN earlier today.
Here's some of what he had to say.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "AMERICAN MORNING")
LARRY JOHNSON: I think George Tenet owes the soldiers and their families who have died or have been killed or wounded in Iraq part of the proceeds of his book, because now -- he could have stood up and spoke out when he had the chance, when he had the job. He could have changed the course of American history.
Instead, he kept silent and now he wants to get a $4 million payday and $50,000 speaking engagements. The man is profiting from the blood of American soldiers and I think he owes America -- Americans more than just an "I'm sorry."
That's at least one individual who would seem to support my idea of what the IC thinks of Mr. Tenet. His response would also seem to support what I have been arguing all along; that simply because we have intelligence that is obvious in retrospect does not mean we would have automatically been able to prevent anything.
TENET: Well, Larry, when -- when Mr. Johnson attacks your integrity that way, there is a lot of things you can say. But I'd like to say a couple of things.
First of all, our job -- my job -- I -- I viewed my job to protect American soldiers, to make them safe. The notion that we -- I have blood on my hands is just -- just something I will never accept.
Now, let's get down -- let's get down to issues for Mr. Johnson.
The implication, of course, is I knew how bad this was all going to be and didn't speak up.
Well, Larry, nobody had that kind of wisdom. I wasn't prescient. I will say this, we called them as we saw them when we got on the ground in Iraq. When we understood how badly a post-war plan would be implemented, we spoke truth to power.
We always did our best to tell people what we thought, why we thought and made it as clear as possible. We were wrong on weapons of mass destruction. We were not wrong on what happened in the post-war Iraq environment. And the notion -- and the notion that I didn't look at my job as a sacred responsibility to protect those soldiers, to warn them, to make sure that when they were put in harm's way, we didn't give them the best intelligence, well I -- I just can't agree with that.
Now granted, this is more about the war in Iraq than 9/11, but it's still relevant to show my point. Mr. Tenet is saying that just because we have the intelligence, doesn't always mean we know exactly what it's telling us. A lot of the time we have to go with what amount to "gut feelings" when making determinations. They're based on patterns and other factors, but they're still basically a "best guess".
Moving on to the 9/11 quotes; I'll repost what Swing Dangler had in his post and then respond.
TENET: Well, you know, Larry, I'm more critical at the back end. I'm more critical about when we saw data that came forward, when we understood what this insurgency looked like, we under -- when we understood the implications of de-Baathification, when we understood the implications of disbanding of the Iraqi Army, when we took the Sunnis and basically shoved them off, when we looked at what was happening on the ground, I think that we had a lot of data in our possession, data that we faithfully reported that we all should have done a better job at.
The NSC should have done a better job by itself.
Look, these are tough jobs and -- and I think -- and I think particularly in the post-war environment, I think we looked at data. I think that data was available. I think the intelligence was clear. I think the course should have been changed.
KING: Did you warn her or threat -- did you warn her that a threat was imminent?
TENET: You're talking in the run-up to 9...
KING: Yes.
TENET: ... to 9/11?
Well, you know, we provided, I think...
KING: You knew there was a threat imminent.
TENET: Well, sure. There was -- we had a meeting on July 10th and we -- we, you know, I jumped in the car and went down to see the national security adviser. We believed that there were -- the threat was imminent, there would be multiple spectacular...
KING: What did she do?
TENET: Well, she got it. She understand the nature of the threat. She turned around, she had the deputies convene. Other things happened around that time. We had asked for -- we had asked for specific authorities to help us get into Afghanistan. We had asked for those in the spring. This all came a little bit slowly.
But, Larry, everybody now wants to look at was one person responsible?
Look, look, policymakers and law enforcement intelligence, all of us in this owed the families of 9/11 better than they got. Human beings make mistakes. There's no silver bullet in any of this.
So having the game of who did what and what happened, look, this was the most painful day of our lives.
So did we provide strategic warning?
Yes.
I would like to note that the transcript actually has TENET and not Larry King asking as well as answering that last question; it wasn't Larry asking the question and Tenet answering, as Swing Dangler's post seems to show, but as that is probably an honest mistake, I won't harp on it. I will however point out another important part of this response that wasn't highlighted before; namely that there was "no silver bullet" as I've highlighted, and also that he is more critical "at the back end"; or, in other words, in retrospect. And it should be noted that there's a big difference between offering a strategic warning and telling someone "this is exactly what will happen". I would also like to post a few more quotes from Tenet from the same interview:
KING: Was there fear?
TENET: Well, of course there was, Larry.
I mean, you know, the homeland in the United States was -- was struck. You know, it -- during the millennium, in the year 2000, we told the president of the United States to expect between five and 15 attacks against the United States either here or overseas. We told President Clinton, you know?
And if you look back historically, one thing -- one thing that didn't happen was that fellow in -- in Vancouver who came over on the ferry who was going to bomb the Los Angeles airport. A very alert woman on the border picked that guy up.
In hindsight, when you go back and look at that, it was the first hint -- they're coming here.
So, the moral of the story?
The moral of the story, people -- people are now inconvenienced when they go to the airport. People don't like the fact that we have to be vigilant.
Well, the country was absolutely unprotected on 9/11 -- borders, visa policies, how we did airline security, how we thought about securing the country.
We all thought terrorism was over there, not here.
TENET: Look, the country is saver[sic] than it once was. We put in -- you know before 9/11 we didn't have any of the security measures we have in place. That creates a huge deterrent. You have to keep working at it every day with great religion, OK.
What are they counting on? You're going to get lazy. You're going to get sloppy. The longer you get away from the event; Americans will lose their appetite for protection, security, and other kinds of -- it's not pleasant. It's not pleasant. While we work at this overseas and try and get new plot lines and while the FBI works at it here and tries to develop more leads, you need to protect the country and be vigilant about it. And you can't get lazy about it.
KING: Was, in retrospect, 9/11 preventable?
TENET: Larry, you know, we probably -- we probably sat around and thought about that. I wish I could tell you there was a silver bullet. One thing that would have happened that would have made it so. I can't. If you go looking through the literature, you looking through everything that happened, you know there are multiple places where everybody should have done better. I can't point at one thing that, said, "God, if we'd only done this."
KING: What's the biggest failing in government? What's the biggest problem in getting things done, making things happen?
TENET: Well, Larry, everybody believes -- the biggest failure about how we're thought of is everybody believes that everybody's in this -- everybody knows everything, everybody has perfect judgment. We've got hundreds of things going on everyday. When you come back and look at something and put the spotlight on it, you and everybody else believes, well, my God, how could you miss something like this, when the pressure you were under and things you were doing. So there's a lack of patience and tolerance. There's a lack of understanding of risk. There's a lack of understanding of the fact, human beings make mistakes. We all do all the time. You can't design a perfect mousetrap.
It would seem even TENET doesn't think we did anything horribly wrong as regards our actions prior to 9/11. That while we had the intelligence (which no one disputes, I might add; the only thing we dispute is that we understood it unfailingly) we can't honestly say that if we'd just sat up and done this thing or that thing, that 9/11 would have been prevented. Even that PDB about bin Laden only said that they thought he would attack either in or out of the US; it didn't say anything about when, how, how bad it could be, etc. "Spectacular attacks" isn't very specific; dramatic yes, specific, no. Every intelligence professional I've spoken to since beginning to work in the IC has said they felt that, while the intel was there, it wasn't specific enough to raise the kind of red flag that would be needed to have prevented 9/11. So if you're asking me if I feel that we did everything we could to prevent 9/11, the answer would be no, but only because I can look back in retrospect and see what is now obvious when you look back at it. The recent report released by the CIA would seem to support that stance. However, that does not automatically translate to the idea that we knew what was happening and either chose to let it happen or orchestrated it ourselves. As for Tenet, he doesn't seem as solidly on the side of "the warnings were completely specific" like some truthers would have you believe, if this interview is any indication. Rather he accepts that mistakes were made, that things were obvious with hindsight, but he recognizes that the pervading issues within the IC and the entire country, to some extent, contributed to being unable to prevent the greatest tragedy this country has known since the Civil War, and every member of this administration including him, from the lowliest aide all the way up to the President, bears some of the blame and guilt for letting it happen. And he is, ultimately, in my opinion, right. However, I still think he's a golddigging opportunist.
ETA: Almost forgot two things; first, if you want to read the transcript yourself (I highly recommend it; it's very interesting) you have to search it on Google yourself, as the link I found is the same one Swing Dangler posted that didn't work when I clicked on it for some odd reason. I have no reason to believe my link will work any better, so just Google "Larry King Live transcripts George Tenet" and it should be the first link posted there. Second, as this post is in response to Swing Dangler and not anything from the author of this thread, I would like to respectfully request that said author not respond to this post, as I have no intention of feeding his need for attention. Thank you.
