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| 5/17 |
| 2004/6/3 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others] UID:30563 Activity:very high |
6/3 Tenet resigns:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12296-2004Jun3.html
\_ Yup, looks like the administration is siding with Chalabi. Also
interesting timing with Bush consulting a lawyer over the whole
Plame thing.
\_ Can you please connect-the-dots for those of us not frothing or
tinhat fashionable enough to see what Chalabi has to do with
Bush seeing a lawyer for some other issue? Also, if we held it
against every President who talked to a lawyer, they'd all be in
prison.
\_ It's a stretch to connect this with "siding with Chalabi", even
though I personally think Chalabi was framed (or the CIA screwed
up another one -- saw what they wanted to see).
\_ Just curious, why do you think Chalabi was "framed" even
though there is overwhelming evidence that the guy is just a
crook? He was a well known crook even before the Pentagon
adopted him. Who's the one wearing the tinfoil hat here,
again?
\_ I don't know if "framed" is the right word, but the timing
of the raid on his office was mighty convenient: it
allowed the Prez to pretend to be distancing himself
from a crooked thief and liar.
\_ Scenario 1: Chalabi told Iran's Baghdad intelligence
station chief that the U.S. cracked their code and is
reading all Iranian intelligence messages. Iran's Baghdad
station chief sends a *detailed* message (including the
part about the drunken American) to headquarters using
same code.
This part of the story sounds highly implausible; I have
read no explanation for this.
Scenario 2: Chalabi just told you, as station chief, that
the code encrypting all your intelligence communications
has been cracked by the Americans. You know Chalabi will
get royally fucked if he is revealed as the source, so he
must want some reward or have a great interest in helping
Iran. You travel to Iran and personally disclose this to
HQ, and then send a dummy message to confirm that the
Americans have cracked your code.
Scenario 3: Iran wants Chalabi out. Iran knows the CIA
wants him out. Iran has known for a while the U.S. has
"that" code cracked. Intelligence chief pens the frame-up
story to HQ, knowing this is what the CIA most wants to
hear. Chalabi represents a secular Iraq, and has strong
ties with Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz, Defense Department. Whack
the Americans' best bud.
The simplest answer here is scenario 3, a frame-up.
Scenario 1 is what the CIA wants you to believe; scenario
2 is how it should have happened if it were true.
I also am skeptical about Chalabi's "crook" labels.
I'm going to stick with "distrust" from the State
Department and CIA.
Simplest answer Part Deux: Evidence surfaces that the
CIA just got duped again, and involving the idiot Chalabi
of all people. Tenet resigns.
\_ So Chalabi's white collar criminal convictions mean
nothing? The guy is a well known crook and has
zero credibility with just about everybody at this
point. Your "frame up" scenario is far less
plausible than anything else I've heard thus far.
Sorry!
\_ I know it's a little hard to believe the CIA could
be so wrong.
Some history: What happened in Jordan was that
Chalabi used a lot of personal connections to move
money into the bank. However, he also loaned a lot
of money to family, and these loans defaulted. He
speculated, and lost all the bank's money.
He ran, Jordan had to cover all the costs, and they
convicted him in absentia.
He also fed people to Rumsfeld saying Saddam's had
an active WMD program. He fucked that up too.
But I tend to disbelieve the whole "Chalabi was
a spy the whole time!"
But I tend to disbelieve the "Chalabi was a spy the
whole time!" theory.
In any case, please offer an explanation for the
big hole in Scenario 1. |
| 5/17 |
|
| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12296-2004Jun3.html Bush Administration CIA Director Tenet Resigns Bush Says Tenet Will Leave in Mid-July for Personal Reasons By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 3, 2004; Bush and CIA officials said the resignation was for personal reasons. The CIA officials denied that Tenet quit or was pressured to leave because of criticism of US intelligence over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or missed clues to the Sept. "He told me he was resigning for personal reasons," Bush said. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people." Bush said he had accepted Tenet's letter of resignation, which Tenet submitted at a White House meeting Wednesday night. Speaking to reporters briefly before leaving on a trip to Europe, Bush said Tenet would serve as CIA director until mid-July, then give way to the current CIA deputy director, John E McLaughlin, who will take over as acting director. Bush did not indicate who would be Tenet's permanent successor. "George Tenet is the kind of public servant you like to work with," Bush said. "He's strong, he's resolute, he's served his nation as the director for seven years. He's been a strong leader in the war on terror, and I will miss him." Bush said he looks forward to working with Tenet until he leaves the agency. McLaughlin, a 32-year veteran of the CIA, has served as deputy director under Tenet since 2000. Tenet, 51, has come under fire in recent months for having assured Bush before last year's invasion of Iraq that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction, a key justification for the decision to go to war. According to a new book by Bob Woodward, "Plan of Attack," Tenet told Bush before the war that it was a "slam-dunk" that Hussein possessed the banned weapons. The director also has been grilled on US intelligence failures before the 2001 terrorist attacks by members of Congress and the bipartisan Sept. Some of his inquisitors have charged that clues to the plot could have, if acted upon, led to the disruption of the terrorist plan. Tenet testified that it would take five years to correct the agency's shortcomings in intelligence gathering, a statement that alarmed some panel members. In testimony before the commission on April 14, Tenet acknowledged that CIA "made mistakes" in failing to detect the terror plot that left 3,000 people dead. But he denied that the agency did not take the al Qaeda threat seriously. "We all understood bin Laden's intent to strike the homeland but were unable to translate this knowledge into an effective defense of the country," Tenet testified. The timing of Tenet's resignation came as a surprise in Washington, and its rationale was greeted with a measure of skepticism. |