The CIA Director Speaks

by Debra J. Saunders - May 9th, 2007 - Townhall.com

War critics may want to believe Tenet's beef with Bush reflects the fact the Tenet did not believe Iraq WMDs were a "slam dunk." Wrong. Tenet objected to the Bushies' suggestion that the "slam dunk" answer provided "the seminal moment for steeling the president's determination to remove Saddam Hussein and to launch the Iraq war." As Tenet wrote, the "slam-dunk" meeting occurred in December 2002 -- three months after Bush told the United Nations that Hussein should remove or destroy his WMD, and two months after Congress voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq. Tenet will accept the blame for WMD intelligence that turned out to be wrong -- but not for nudging Bush into war.

This is a prefect example of how our national dialog has become corrupted. The public is duped about what is being said by a liberal press with a duplicitous agenda.

George W. Bush apologized for including the reference to British Intelligence believing that Iraq sought yellow cake in Niger in his state of the union address. The press turned this into a supposed admission that Iraq did not seek yellow cake and Bush lied. In fact Bush merely apologized for including it in the speech because it had not been properly vetted. That subtle difference was lost in the bombardment of lies from the liberal press. British intelligence still believes that Iraq did seek yellow cake. There is still strong evidence Iraq did. However using that as a factor in going to war is unacceptable to liberals including their minions in the press. So both what Iraq did and the truth about what Bush apologized for have been totally misrepresented. The public thinks George Bush apologized because Iraq did not seek yellow cake. That impression is totally wrong.

A new lie is being created as we speak. George Tenet is now being portrayed as not having believed that Iraq had WMDs. That is not what his book says. The claim in his book is that he disputes the comment was the compelling argument that changed Bush's mind about going to war. The problem for the press is simple. They have portrayed the argument for so long that Bush never had any doubts and that he arranged the war, they cannot now acknowledge that there was a process by which Bush logically determined that it was necessary to reactivate the war with Iraq (we were at war since 1991 and only had a cease fire which Iraq constantly violated . . we were already at war when Bush went into Iraq).

So the press has changed the meaning of what Tenet said in his book to conform to their agenda. They are bragging that Tenet now agrees with them that Bush did not use a logical process to decide to go to war and are attacking Tenet for being a part of the group that knew there were no WMD. The press argues he said it to give Bush cover for his manipulating us into war. That is totally false.

This discussion is bizarre. The White House is arguing that Tenet's comment was a deciding factor in Bush's decision process. Tenet is saying it was not the deciding factor but that he believed they had WMD. FYI, what we learned in Libya's later surrendered Nuclear Bomb program proved that Iraq was still working on Nuclear Bombs secretly. However the press continues to insist Iraq had no WMD, was not seeking them, Bush knew this, Tenet knew this . . . and they both lied. There are three totally unrelated arguments being presented to the public in a way that it is almost impossible to follow what is being said.

From comments made by some friends who have been following this controversy, what Tenet said (as noted above) and what it means, are simply not a part of the pubic discussion. Bizarre is the only word that can describe the current state of the discussion.

Who can make sense of the discussion when the three parties are not even talking about the same thing? When is the press going to help understand what is happening instead of intentionally obfuscating the truth?