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TechnoratiWhy Didn't George Tenet Just Resign?
Does this sound familiar? A senior Bush administration official plays a key role in selling the Iraq war debacle to the American public, resigns a few years later, and then tries to distance himself from Bush and the war by writing a book or talking to Bob Woodward, portraying himself as a poor, hapless victim who knew the truth at the time and really, really wanted to tell it, but, somehow, just had no choice but to go along.
What else could he do? Each story shares the same fatal flaw. It requires that the remedy that was readily available -- resignation -- did not exist.
The latest in this tawdry lineup is George Tenet.
Poor George Tenet. Flogging his book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, on 60 Minutes, Tenet tells Scott Pelley about how his phrase "slam dunk" was misused by the Bush administration. Tenet, you see, didn't mean that Hussein had WMD, he only meant it was a "slam dunk" that a public case could be made that Hussein had WMD.
I can't really see that the distinction matters, but Tenet apparently does. "I became campaign talk," Tenet tells Pelley, "I was a talking point. 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth."
Great -- except he's about four years too late. Tenet seems to believe there's a major distinction between lying and standing by silently while others lie, and then proudly receiving a Medal of Freedom from the liars.
He could have simply resigned and freed himself to "tell the truth." Tenet acts as if resignation were not an option. But it was. And the passion and anger he displays now in the service of book sales could have been used then in the service of his country.
"It's the most despicable thing I've ever heard in my life," Tenet tells Pelley. "You don't do this... You're gonna throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection? Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me."
The problem is, the honorable train left the station a long time ago, and Tenet wasn't on board.
But others were. Like John Brady Kiesling, a career U.S. diplomat, who resigned from the State Department. And wrote in his resignation letter to Colin Powell:
"I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."
That, Mr. Tenet, is how it's done.
It's now too late for George Tenet. But can someone please remind Paul Wolfowitz and Alberto Gonzales, as they are pathetically fighting tooth and nail to cling to their jobs, that there is another option.
And how long do you think it's going to be after the end of the Bush administration before we are treated to General Petraeus' memoir explaining how the surge would have worked "if only he had been given the troops he needed to implement it properly."
So here is a plea to all Bush administration officials: Now is the time. If, like John Brady Kiesling, you're finding it hard to reconcile what you see going on around you with what you know to be the truth, do the right thing and resign. While it matters.
As Tenet says on 60 Minutes: "At the end of the day, the only thing you have is trust and honor in this world. It's all you have. All you have is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor. And when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go."
George Tenet and I are both Greek and there is a great word for it: filotimo.
There are still lives to be saved if a few administration officials have the guts to do what they know is right now -- instead of five years from now while flogging their books.
Any takers?
Arianna Huffington is editor of HuffingtonPost.com
© 2007 Huffington Post
21 Comments so far
Show AllWhy Didn't George Tenet Just Resign?
My question also!
Now he's prancing around the media circus', finger-pointing, shedding crocodile tears, while attempting to plug a book; crying, who, me.
What a self-serving bafoon, typical of the other peas in the same pod. He should be forced to give the proceeds of his, so called, book to the lives he and secret government have devastated.
Maat, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
I am confused about the loyalties of people working at the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon. If you go through the list of the declassified documents for the last 50 years you will notice a trend - that is the government always declassifies documents after a good 20-30 years when it deems it safe to open up the truth to the public. So we received Vietnam war documentation only in the 90s; a good 30 years later. My question is, does the law have any provision to prosecute people who were involved in deception and lies and no longer in service? An example is the CIA measures to dismantle the Cuban government. The list of declassified docs show falsehoods, lies to the extent of shooting down our own airplanes painted in cuban colors so we could attack cuba under a false pretext. Ironically, the last memo leaked out about Bush revealed his plan to fly drones over Iraqi airspace, hoping that Saddam would shoot them down and then revving up the media to prepare for war.
Today on democracynow Ray McGovern talked about Tenet. He mentioned how these people say that they were sworn to secrecy and hence could not speak against the deception however, every government official is first sworn to upholding the constitution. Its just a matter of abandoning a sinking ship for people like Tenet calling himself the fall guy to garner some sympathy!
I am absolutely sure Tenet is telling the truth about his honorable government service, regardless of how he looks and would never try to cover his ass with lies.
Elvis and the space aliens that abducted me told me and it was confirmed by the tooth fairy.
Who says "the bad guys never win?"
Tenet is just one example of the Bush cabal... retired fairly young, with a nice pension, a "Medal of Freedom" and a substantial book advance.
Sure he'll take some heat in the media... has already... but he GOT HIS... as many others in the Bush cabal will when all is said and done.
How about the Armstrong family of Halliburton fame? (The little quail ranch where Cheney shot his friend... consists of 50,000 ACRES! If that were square, it would be 81 miles by 81 miles!)
I agree that the "slam dunk" distinction Tenet proposes really makes no sense. The issue is that the phrase was used to show the Bush cabal that Tenet was "in" the game of selling the war, regardless of the intelligence. Tenet could have gone one step further. Yes he could resign. But naybe better: He could have stood on principle, supported his colleagues at the CIA, and persuade the cabal that there was no good to come from this war for the Iraqi and American people no matter how much his cronies may prosper. Perhaps the fact that Tenet, and previous directors, got drawn in because they meet with their presidents every morning. It seems as if that symbiotic relationship brings out a sense of loyalty that transcends the purpose of the CIA. Tenet says that he simply provided the president with the best his department could do. Then the president acts as though Tenet is simply a pliable member of the team. Perhaps the president would be better served by being briefed by a CIA liaison officer, with the CIA director remaining less a part of anyone's "team." As hesitent as I am about patronizing Tenet by buying his book, his thoughts, versus his ultimate actions, could serve a useful purpose by making a forensic analysis of the dynamic between the Director and any president. He/She will never be able to resign or tell the emperor that he/she has no clothes, with the current kind of intimate arrangement. This could be an object lesson for We the People to make some important changes regardless of whether the President is a public servant or, like the present, a fascist tyrant! Keep intelligence seperated from the policy group so that the intelligence is pure and less susceptible to politics. Cheney's many trips to Langely should be against the law. No politician should ever be allowed to do what he did!
But others were. Like John Brady Kiesling, a career U.S. diplomat, who resigned from the State Department. And wrote in his resignation letter to Colin Powell:
"I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."
That, Mr. Tenet, is how it's done.
And I would add the name of Lt. Col Ann Wright, who resigned before the Iraq war and occupation and has tirelessly been speaking out with her friends at Code Pink, After Downing Street.org, etc. She had 29 years serving this country, and when it needed her services even more she did the right thing and not only resigned but began working for change.
Surely the CIA doesn't torture because they can outsource it when they render a prisoner to another country. Just another facet of the "Military Industrial Complex" that includes the sub-contracting of information extraction from prisoners.
"As Tenet says on 60 Minutes: 'At the end of the day, the only thing you have is trust and honor in this world. It's all you have. All you have is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor. And when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go.'"
Upon hearing this did you:
1)find yourself suddenly nauseated,
2)laugh out loud, or
3)throw the TV out the window (or want to)?
Any of these, it seems to me, would be healthy, sane responses. More or less, the alternative is Doublethink (ala` 1984). Who's kidding who? No doubt many good and patriotic people work at the CIA, but Hey! the CIA's bread and butter is deception. And they are expert's experts at it.
As far as I can see from Mr. Tenet --- lies and more lies --- (no doubt for the sake of "Patriotism"/and/"Homeland.)"
It's getting a bit old: "the pretending we're not pretending..."
I think a growing number of folks are suddenly finding themselves getting Very Sick of the bulls**t (gee, I just self-censored! We're all ******* hypnotized!).
Denizens of the US of A - feeling Very reality-deprived and simply craving truth.
As John Lennon sang: "Just gimme some truth!"
Arianna--
I take back all the disparaging thoughts I have had about you being a latter day continental bimbo ala' Zsa Zsa Gabor. You have succinctly stated what everyone (including Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes) should have asked and kept on asking till they got a reasonable answer.
Like other contributors to this site, I would PREFER to see justice served now; however, to the degree these dangerous self-serving tyrant fools seem to walk away scott free, once again, let me say that every religion has its own perception of the law of karma. There IS no free pass. The difficult part is that when citizens use all the means at their disposal (would that impeachment go forward) and still see no results, they should not assume that offenders of great magnitude are in fact getting away with murder. Einstein said that matter could neither be created nor destroyed. Our bodies decline, but the ineffable substance of our spiritual essences does continue; and most Eastern religions believe that entity returns to a body. Let me say on behalf of the MANY authors, masters and teachers that I have made it my life study to learn from, that these people are setting up enormous debts to mankind that will be paid. The premise of forgiveness is based on the individual fully owning what harm they have done to others and modifying their behavior accordingly. "Go and sin no more." These SHITS are going to cover each other's asses on THIS plane, to the extent Bush's presidency is NOT marked null and void, he will do his utmost to pardon all those who fell on their swords so that he and his circle could keep up the pretense of national defense, etc. as cover for the rape of Iraq and its assets. Unfortunately, our nation has also incurred karma and I pray that all those who saw the truth and did what they could to avert these outcomes, will not be in any direct line of suffering. America has pursued a policy of empire for some time, Bush just made it raw and openly obscene. He took it all past the limit, but maybe that's how a nation drunk on violence gets eventual therapy. Sooner or later equalizing forces emerge for everyone else on this planet, none too happy with US bases abounding (shades of Darth Vader's death star apparatus) has a right and wish and will to live, too.
skeezyks April 30th, 2007 2:45 pm
With tongue in cheek, may I suggest it's maybe time for a book-burning?
That would be quite a spectacle, a book-burning by the Left. And the TV camera just love such a story. Any takers?
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Ha Ha !!!!!! BRILLIANT !!!!
Thank you skeesyks :-)
the real problem with all these resignations that we scream for and those which we gladly accept and those who so sweetly "depart" from this planet (rumsfeld, powell, k. lay, etc), is that there is no accountability. first, hold them accountable, second, prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, third, retribution, and then, accept their resignation(s). resignations and "deaths" are all fine and dandy, but they get off scott-free. the suffering continues. hey, write a book. better yet, make a movie. even better, fake a death while you sit on some exotic island, martini in hand, with a fat ass from a pilfered nation.
Why does he insist that the CIA doesn't torture people? This is a CYA job.
I was wondering what Tenet was drinking in that "water" bottle he swiged on during the 60 minutes interview. Surely water wasn't making him so hyper, maybe lying was.
I found Tenet's theatrics on 60 Minutes utterly nauseating. The little spiel about "We don't torture" was quite chilling. Of course the "harsh treatment" is justifiable, in Tenet's view, because it has elicited information that has "saved lives." Prove it, please. And how do we know how many more lives could be saved by not torturing, by not feeding hatred against the US. His point that we can criticize the use of these tecniques in five years, presumably when the threat is over, was especially revealing of the continued blindness of these people. Perhaps if the US gave up its imperialist ways, we wouldn't have to worry about terrorists. But that would put the Tenets of the world out of a job.
Mr. Tenet may not use the word honor. He gave up his right to do so when he declined his opportunity to behave correctly.
Men who behave dishonorably are discharged from our military; why not discharge our elected servants for dishonorable behavior as well?
I have a problem with the unimaginative titles of these mea culpa books by characters like McNamara and Tenet. I'd go with: Sorry About All The Dead People.
With tongue in cheek, may I suggest it's maybe time for a book-burning? Stage a media event at which a speaker cites "chapter and verse" the lies and distortions of a particular hack. Then bystanders toss their copies onto the bonfire. On to the next hack's tell-all, etc. etc. etc.
That would be quite a spectacle, a book-burning by the Left. And the TV camera just love such a story. Any takers?
It would have taken honor to do the right thing. He has none.
In the same theme of a show of john stewarts a few months ago, this guy tenet has some big balls, why didnt he open his big mouth when it counted, now he wrote a book , geeze whats next, is bush gonna write a book after he is out of office saying he was thrown under the bus too, but coudnt say anything back than when it counted, "what could i do, i was merely the president"
all i know is these guys have pretty big balls, and they think we are all schmucks, and if his book sells, than he is right we are.......
arianna is right: if there is anyone with a conscience in the administration, let that person resign and explain why. now, not when the book gets printed. then let the media cover these resignations.