The CIA has reassigned two senior officials who oversaw its analysis on Iraq and the deposed regime's alleged banned weapons, a move that a CIA spokesman said was routine but that others portrayed as an "exile."
The officials served in senior positions in which they were deeply involved in assembling and assessing the intelligence on Iraq's alleged stocks of chemical and biological arms.
One of the officials was reassigned last week to the CIA's personnel department after spending the last several months heading the Iraq Task Force, a special unit set up to provide 24-hour support to military commanders during the war.
The other, a longtime analyst who had led the agency's Iraq Issue Group, was dispatched on an extended mission to Iraq. [italics mine] The group is responsible for the core analysis of all the intelligence the United States collects on Iraq.
Harlow, the CIA spokesman, said the woman "is moving on to an assignment in Iraq to support important issues out there." He noted that, as an expert on the country, she welcomed the opportunity to work there. Before Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, he said, "we didn't have positions in Iraq."
This week, the White House put Tenet in charge of the ongoing weapons hunt, a job that had belonged to the Pentagon.
"They handed the whole ball to George," said one intelligence source familiar with the details of the assignment. He said the message being sent to Tenet seemed clear: "You said [the banned weapons] were there. You go find them. [italics mine]"
Great. Now I'm all reassured about this too....