George Tenet wrote a book and -- surprise! -- it attacks the Bush Administration. Now isn't that novel. According to New York Times reviewers, Tenet complains that there was never a serious debate about the imminence of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
The 549-page book, "At the Center of the Storm," is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president's inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.
"There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat," Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, "was there ever a significant discussion" about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
Although accused of it by Democrats and the anti-war left, the administration never argued that Iraq posed an imminent threat. In fact, Bush argued in his 2003 State of the Union speech that it would be folly to wait until Iraq became an imminent threat.
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Bush conceded that Iraq was not an imminent threat. Why debate it? Is it just me, or does it seems odd that a former director of the CIA could miss that bit of intelligence. The review closes with another revealing bit.
Mr. Tenet expresses puzzlement that, since 2001, Al Qaeda has not sent "suicide bombers to cause chaos in a half-dozen American shopping malls on any given day."
"I do know one thing in my gut," he writes. "Al Qaeda is here and waiting."
Here's a guess. Maybe al Qaeda got more than they bargained for when America invaded first Afghanistan and then Iraq. Here's Charles Krauthammer on the subject of Nancy Pelosi's bill to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq so that they can "focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan."
Al-Qaeda has provided the answer many times. Osama bin Laden, the one whose presence in Afghanistan (or some cave on the border) presumably makes it the central front in the war on terror, has been explicit that "the most . . . serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq." Al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri, has declared that Iraq "is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era."
And it's not just what al-Qaeda says, it's what al-Qaeda does. Where are they funneling the worldwide recruits for jihad? Where do all the deranged suicidists who want to die for Allah gravitate? It's no longer Afghanistan but Iraq. That's because they recognize the greater prize.
George Tenet is puzzled. I'm puzzled. How in hell did he manage to stay so long at the CIA?
Update: Captain's Quarters has a Michael Scheuer's take on the book. Scheuer has unkind things to say about Tenet and the Captain seems to feel they're justified.
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