Tenet Quits as CIA Chief

One was beginning to wonder if anyone in the Bush administration would ever take responsibility for anything that has happened in the last three and a half years. It was a great relief to see that the one Clinton hold-over, Director of the CIA George Tenet, finally left office for "personal reasons." Perhaps, he can start a fad in Washington among those who have failed in their duties to own up to the failure and depart.

The failures of the CIA since 1997 when Mr. Tenet took over include not only the non-existence of WMD in Iraq, but also Washington's surprise at the nuclear tests in 1998 by Pakistan and India, the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy during the Kosovo war, or the strike on Sudan's Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory which wasn't making chemical weapons after all. And there is the entire question of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Whether these were failures of structure, of personnel, or of imagination is irrelevant -- they were clearly not successes. Every individual and organization has ups and downs, but the CIA under Mr. Tenet is guilty of malpractice, not just off-days.

The fun now starts in finding a successor. The administration will have to find a candidate who will maintain that everything about the Iraq war was done properly while at the same time reforming what is clearly a broken agency. And all of this will be done in full view of the media on election-watch. Grandstanding congressmen, backside-covering bureaucrats and White House "experts" like Andrew Card (who may be intelligent but knows little of intelligence) will fill the TV screens with their blather.

There is a silver lining to all of this, and that is the opportunity that exists to reform the US intelligence-gathering community. To look at its post-World War II structure is to see that what worked in the past is not suited to the future. CIA, DIA, NSA and the rest of the alphabet soup need a top-to-bottom rethink. The enemy does not have 40 divisions poised to roll across the Rhine. It has 40 suicide bombers looking for C4 and timers.

While the country is in election mode, the ideal solution is no solution at all. The DCIA job should remain empty while deputy director John McLaughlin runs things. After the election, a full reorganization can occur either as a second-term initiative from Mr. Bush or a clean-up for Mr. Kerry.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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