Friday, July 11, 2003

Tenet takes the fall

Via CNN, Tenet'sstatement:

"First, CIA approved the President's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my Agency. And third, the President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President. "

"The President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound"? No. Since Cheney had to know.

Cheney had to know
How can Tenet the fall when Cheney had to know too? Newsweek:
Claiming that Iraq tried to buy uranium from the African country of Niger wasn’t a judgment call. By the White House’s own admission, it was a fraud, a lie. The envoy sent to investigate the intelligence in February 2002, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, sought out the information and informed the administration. The only question is how high up the food chain his report got. Did it stop at low-level officials as the White House claims, or did it go all the way to the president and vice president?

CIA director George Tenet sent Wilson to Niger after Vice President Cheney asked for an investigation. Wilson asks why Cheney’s office would demand this inquiry and not want to know the result. If Bush really was misled, wouldn’t he want to know who embarrassed him? Who made him a liar? In a White House as obsessed with loyalty as this one, the fact that no heads rolled strongly indicates this could go all the way to Cheney, if not to Bush himself. Who knows how much Cheney tells the boss. Bush is not a detail guy. He may not have wanted to know.

16 words
Seems like the "only one sentence" meme is rapidly mutating into the "16 words" meme. AP:

''These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president,'' Tenet said in a statement released after Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, blamed the miscue on the CIA and members of Congress called for someone to be held accountable.

Count in the aluminum tubes. More than 16...

Who signed off?
Who signed off on the speech? Tenet, like everyone else in this story uses the passive voice -- "should never have been included."

OK, they shouldn't have "been included." Who signed off on the speech? What was the paper trail.

Honestly, it's like dealing with a six-year-old.

"It broke!" (passive voice)
"Well, who broke it?"

"It got included..."
Well, who included it? Where does the buck stop?

NOTE: And remember the big picture: It's the pattern of deceit that matters, not playing Gotcha! with each and every lie. Just like with a six-year-old.