More on George Tenet

This is from an article by Joe Conason, in which he points out the obvious fact that Tenet shares some of the blame for the bad intelligence.

As a group of former intelligence officers observed in a letter they sent to Mr. Tenet upon the publication of At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, his supposed outrage over the misleading propaganda that led to the war is belated and utterly self-serving. During the critical months between September 2002 and March 2003, in the midst of that White House campaign, he was nothing but the useful tool of those he now criticizes.

From the beginning, Mr. Tenet knew that his colleagues in the White House and the National Security Council were concocting a case for war that went far beyond any reliable intelligence about Saddam Hussein's arsenal and intentions.

It is an interesting conundrum. Tenet is providing a valuable service just now. He's providing a window into the process that led us into this war, and he's confirming for those few people who don't realize this yet, that the Bush Administration fudged the truth just a little in the run up to the war.

Naturally Bush partisans are in a hurry to trash him, and to a certain extent he should be defended from their attacks; but he really did play along. When he had a chance to do something aobut the current problems he took a pass.