Why Does Tenet Have Tenure?
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Why Does Tenet Have Tenure? Clinton's CIA chief is alive and well as a Bushie. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES LESS THAN TWO WEEKS after what many consider the worst intelligence failure in U.S. history,...
...When Deutch left, the agency had been through four directors in five years...
...President Clinton nominated Tenet to run the CIA and the intelligence community in the spring of 1997...
...He'd just walk into the cafeteria and say, 'Hey, do you mind if I join you for lunch?'" says a CIA analyst...
...The computers are coming from the Germans, and getting parts from the Italians, and we say to the Italians, let us put in these devices that in six months will screw up arms production at this North Korean facility...
...And if there aren't then some visible successes, George Tenet's tenure could finally come to an end...
...The FBI, after all, is responsible for domestic counterterrorism measures, and many of the hijackers had lived in the United States for years...
...How can you be sure these computers are going to a weapons plant and not an airport...
...The good relationship with Congress that helped Tenet win his position four years ago is helping protect it now...
...In 1998, early in Tenet's tenure, CIA headquarters was renamed the George Bush Center for Intelligence...
...The two men hit it off...
...Everyone shares that blame...
...Tenet went to the CIA intent on changing that, and by most accounts he did...
...The nature of the threat has changed—from communism to terrorism—and the post-Cold War years have brought something of an identity crisis to the CIA, but its mission is still to provide intelligence and strengthen national security...
...There's a reason...
...George H.W...
...I'm not speaking to the job he's doing, but the agency needs continuity and he enjoys the president's confidence...
...Can-nistraro, the former CIA counterter-rorism chief, faults the agency "for not penetrating al Qaeda—for not even trying...
...This is not the time to second-guess...
...When he came in and tried to restore morale, he embraced the bureaucracy," says Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA analyst specializing in the Middle East (and a frequent contributor to this magazine...
...It's the border piece, it's the air-safety piece, it's the visa piece, it's the law enforcement piece...
...Often, too, inertia takes over...
...Eddington adds, "His congressional affairs shop is very slick, and I admire them for that...
...Tenet presented no such problems...
...And at the time he was nominated, Tenet had been serving as acting director since the departure of John Deutch at the end of 1996...
...And it failed...
...Though Bush's opinion matters more than anyone else's, it is not unique...
...He had worked in the Senate for nearly a decade before taking a top intelligence position at the White House in Clinton's first term...
...The job is to deter terrorism," he says, "not make arrests after the action...
...Several CIA sources believe another reason Bush still backs his intelligence chief derives from the warm relationship between Tenet and the first President Bush...
...Let me give you an example," says a current CIA official, emphasizing that it is only hypothetical...
...George was probably the right person at that time," says Vincent Cannistraro, former counterter-rorism chief at the CIA...
...so why does George Tenet get praised by the president and still have a job...
...When you've just taken a torpedo in your ship is not the time to be changing the captain of the ship," said Sen...
...He calls its response to the terrorist challenge "very passive...
...Clinton's first choice, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, had sparked a fierce battle in the senate and eventually had withdrawn from consideration...
...Deutch never wanted to run the CIA, and many inside and outside the agency viewed him as aloof and ineffective...
...He made a point of being accessible and approachable...
...He talked to people walking the halls...
...How do you know they're not going to cause planes to crash rather than screw up arms production?' The lawyers say, 'I don't think we can do this.' Tenet's attitude is usually, 'Let's not take the chance.'" Tenet's critics say this risk-aversion and morale-boosting may have come at a cost, or at least outlived their usefulness...
...The Immigration and Naturalization Service had trouble just putting together a list of the hijackers and their visa dates—and that was after the attacks...
...Graham...
...But friendly relations with the Hill wouldn't be enough to save Tenet if all the blame for the recent intelligence failure were properly his...
...One further factor that now favors Tenet—but could turn against him— is timing: Nearly everyone who has spoken out in favor of Tenet has made this argument...
...CIA sources describe Tenet as generally conservative, a manager who listens to his subordinates...
...With a few notable exceptions—Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Richard Shelby chief among them—members of Congress continue to express their support for the CIA director...
...Let's say we want to put some bugs in computers headed to a weapons facility in North Korea...
...Those are big problems that have little to do with the CIA...
...The Italians say okay, but the Office of General Counsel [at the CIA] says, 'Wait a minute...
...This may seem strange...
...Morale was at an all-time low...
...Is that important...
...The senior Bush, who had been bitterly disappointed not to retain the intelligence job under Jimmy Carter, has argued for years that continuity is crucial in CIA leadership...
...In case anyone missed the message of the trip, the president was explicit...
...Instead, accountability must be spread among several agencies...
...He knew how to get the best out of people...
...He showed up at retirement parties for even mid-level CIA employees...
...Florida Republican Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his senate counterpart Bob Graham, a Democrat also from Florida, have both publicly supported Tenet...
...George and I have been spending a lot of quality time together," he said at the photo-op...
...He's the right person, in the right place, at the right moment," he says...
...Many Americans who have never given more than five minutes' thought to the CIA and its mission are wondering what is going on...
...He remembered names...
...I'd say it is...
...Tenet has been "tremendously effective [at] feeding and caring on Capitol Hill," says Patrick Eddington, a former CIA analyst who works in government relations...
...I've got a lot of confidence in him, and I've got a lot of confidence in the CIA...
...All of them relate to Tenet's career in intelligence...
...failures that permitted the september 11 attacks, and Tenet's relationship with Bush's father...
...And when a bureaucracy runs away, often the least competent officers rise to the top...
...After all, the agency, established in 1947, exists largely to prevent national security disasters...
...At some point, though, attention will turn to the job Tenet—and the CIA—are doing...
...It's the collective responsibility of the government, and maybe even society," says Porter Goss...
...history, George W. Bush went to CIA headquarters to give George Tenet a hug...
...But Tenet's first three years running the agency were satisfactory enough to George W. Bush to make Tenet the only Clinton cabinet member to retain his position in the new administration...
...There are several reasons, notable among them Tenet's good relations with Congress, the difficulty in assigning blame for the multiple Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Even Goss, who has repeatedly spoken strong words of support for Tenet, offers a telling qualifier...
...This doesn't happen by accident...
...Bush—who was director of central intelligence in Gerald Ford's last year in office—got to know Tenet at the CIA briefings every director holds for all living former CIA heads...
Vol. 7 • October 2001 • No. 7
