[eDebate] the tenet nightmare

[Jack Stroube]

washington is surrounding the stupid president who ran on a platform that 
denounced "washington politics".   bend over dubya, cuz it ain't gonna be pretty, 
the tenet nail in the coffin:

http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=21917 

"Tenet will no doubt be pressed to truthfully answer what he said to George W. 
Bush in the weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon. Owing to his perjury before the 9/11 Commission, Tenet has also 
forfeited his qualified immunity on topics relevant to his meetings with the 
President in August and early September 2001. This will give potential 
prosecutors enormous leverage. In exhange for his true testimony about this, 
and what he knows about the Bush White House's illegal outing of undercover 
CIA officer Valerie Plame, we should expect Tenet to ask for and receive 
immunity from prosecution. 
? 
Tenet's perjury and resignation presents Congressional investigators and a 
special prosecutor with an unexpected opportunity later this summer to finally 
get to the truth of what the President was actually knew and when he knew it. 
This is also, of course, the Bush White House and the Republican's worst 
nightmare."

here's the entire article and of course, ms. dowd leads the press to bury the 
drunk:

WASHINGTON -- Reporters for the major papers may have missed the first page 
of the biggest story since the 9/11 attacks. When his resignation becomes 
effective July 11, 2004, CIA Director George Tenet will no longer be covered by 
Executive Privilege. He may then be compelled to testify about what he as a 
Director of Central Intelligence told the President regarding several matters 
about which both he and Bush have thus far displayed a startling lack of candor. 
? 
Tenet will no doubt be pressed to truthfully answer what he said to George W. 
Bush in the weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon. Owing to his perjury before the 9/11 Commission, Tenet has also 
forfeited his qualified immunity on topics relevant to his meetings with the 
President in August and early September 2001. This will give potential 
prosecutors enormous leverage. In exhange for his true testimony about this, 
and what he knows about the Bush White House's illegal outing of undercover 
CIA officer Valerie Plame, we should expect Tenet to ask for and receive 
immunity from prosecution. 
? 
Tenet's perjury and resignation presents Congressional investigators and a 
special prosecutor with an unexpected opportunity later this summer to finally 
get to the truth of what the President was actually knew and when he knew it. 
This is also, of course, the Bush White House and the Republican's worst 
nightmare. 
? 
The widely-known but as yet unspoken truth in Washington is that Tenet 
committed perjury in his April 14 statements before the 9/11 Commission. The 
CIA Director raised his right hand and was sworn-in before that official inquiry. 
He stated repeatedly he had not met with President Bush in August 2001. When 
given several opportunities by Commission members to correct or retract his 
story during his sworn testimony, he did not do so. It wasn't a momentary 
memory lapse or slip of the tongue. Tenet lied repeatedly under oath. That is the 
very definition of perjury. But, within hours it was apparent that public records 
contradicted Tenet's statement about his meetings with Bush. CIA aides called 
reporters later that afternoon and offered that Tenet had "misspoken." The 
alternative explanation given was that Tenet had "temporarily forgotten," and 
that is what was reported in the newspapers. The story was all but buried. 
? 
The Washington Post put the story on page A12 as, Forgotten Briefings of 
August 2001. [Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
A12951-2004Apr14.html] 
? 
AP reported it as a two-inch story, Tenet Misspoke About Not Meeting Bush. 
[Available at: http://www.khou.com/sharedcontent/nationworld/
washingtonprint/041404cckttwwashTenet911.1265794e4.html] 
? 
The New York Times did a somewhat better job, squeezing it into the middle of 
front-page story. [April 15, 2004, Philip Shenon and Eric Lichblau, THREATS 
AND RESPONSES: THE OVERVIEW; Sept. 11 Panel Cites C.I.A. For Failures in 
Terror Case] NYT columnist Maureen Dowd is the only major journalist to have 
followed up with a comment. In her column on the op-ed page the next day, 
"Head Spook Sputters", Dowd wrote: 
? 
" I'm not sure whether Mr. Tenet - a mystifyingly beloved figure even though he 
was in charge during the two biggest intelligence failures since Pearl Harbor 
and the Bay of Pigs - has a faulty memory, which is scary. Or if he's fuzzing 
things up because he told the president more specifics than he wants to admit. 
But in a town where careers are made on face time with the president, it's fishy 
that the head spook can't remember a six- hour trip to Crawford ... " [Available at: 
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=
FA0717FA3F5F0C768DDDAD0894DC404482 ] 
? 
* The story doesn't end there. It turns out that the CIA compounded Tenet's lie 
with a misrepresentation of its own, and everybody who is anybody in the 
national media missed that fact. Later in the afternoon of April 14th, Agency 
spokespersons, Bill Harlow and Anya Guilsher, gave information to reporters 
that omitted a key Tenet-Bush meeting held on August 24, 2001. They told the 
media that Agency records showed Tenet met Bush only on August 17 and 31, 
and then on at least six occasions in September prior to Tuesday, the 11th. [AP 
report reproduced below, available at: http://www.khou.com/sharedcontent/
nationworld/
washingtonprint/041404cckttwwashTenet911.1265794e4.html] 
? 
Nonetheless, no one in the major media, except Ms. Dowd, even tried to 
connect the dots. As Dowd points out, the FBI arrested the so-called 20th 
hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui on August 17, the first of the dates Tenet "forgot". 
But, even that isn't the whole truth. 
? 
In a previously overlooked August 25 White House transcript, the President 
referenced meeting with Tenet "yesterday" to discuss "a very important subject" 
at Bush's Crawford, TX ranch. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/
08/20010825-2.html] The fact is, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Rice, and and the newly 
appointed Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Myers were all present with the 
President on August 24. [Also, see, White House press posting for August 24: 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010824.html ] 
? 
Here's the kicker: the Flt. 77 hijackers had been watchlisted on 8/23, the day 
before Bush had the previously undisclosed 6-hour roundtable with his national 
security team in Crawford. In a verbatim transcript, the President is quoted 
during an impromptu walking tour of Bush's Crawford, TX ranch that he had met 
the day before with CIA Director and newly appointed members of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Rice 
were also present at a Presidential press conference in Crawford on the 24th, 
according to the White House press notice issued that day. 
? 
In the August 25 transcript, the President Bush states to reporters and visitors: 
? 
THE PRESIDENT: " ... Yesterday, we spent -- well, they arrived at 10:00 a.m. It 
took a while to get the press conference. We got back here at about 11:30 a.m. 
and met until 5:15 p.m. I think they left. That's the longest meeting I've had in a 
long time, on a very important subject ... 
? 
Q When you have those business meetings, like the Joint Chiefs briefing, do 
you like to keep it separate from the living quarters on the ranch? 
? 
THE PRESIDENT: Actually, you know, what we call the governor's house, the 
place where you all came out during the -- that's where we went. Condi and 
Karen Hughes stayed there. And right across the street from that is a -- it's a nice 
looking government doublewide. (Laughter.) And that's where the mil aide, the 
nurse, the WHCA head, the doc, they stay. 
? 
The CIA briefings, I have on our porch, the end of our porch looking out over the 
lake. When Tenet came up, that's where we visited, out there. 
? 
You know, everybody wants to see the ranch, which I'm proud to show it off. So 
George Tenet and I -- yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went right 
up the canyon. [emphases added]" 
? 
* The "very important subject" discussed for almost six hours by Bush with his 
core national security team would likely have been the CIA's action the day 
before placing four wanted Al-Qaeda terrorists on the "watchlist" of persons to 
be detained if located in the US. On August 23 the Agency sent "cables to the 
State Department, the FBI, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 
requesting that 'four bin Laden related individuals' including Almidhar and 
Alhazmi, be placed on the watchlist." (Washington Post, A8, September 21, 
2002) Two of those - Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi - subsequently led the 
hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon. 
? 
The pair had been the subject of CIA-directed surveillance since at least late 
1999, when they were followed by the CIA to an Al-Qaeda planning session in 
Kuala Lumpur, at which they were observed meeting with a ranking terrorist 
operations director and Mohamed Atta's roommate, Ramzi Binalshibh, who 
subsequently wired money to them from Germany. Binalshibh also sent funds to 
Zacarias Moussaoui, who in August 2000 stayed at the same Al-Qaeda 
safehouse in Malaysia while on his way to the United States. On August 17, 
2001 Moussaoui was arrested by the FBI at a Minnesota flight school. 
? 
If Tenet did not take the opportunity of his meetings to discuss Al-Qaeda with the 
President, he committed one of the worst acts of derelection of duty in CIA 
history. Former DCI George Tenet is generally held to be a thorough and 
responsible intelligence executive. It is simply implausible that Tenet and Bush 
did not discuss the 9/11 hijackers when they met in Crawford on August 17 and 
then, again, on August 24, both dates coinciding with important developments in 
the Al-Qaeda operation. 
? 
A special prosecutor needs to be appointed to investigate CIA Director Tenet's 
apparent perjury on April 14 and the Agency's material misrepresentation of fact 
in its statement the next day. The former CIA Director and the President need to 
reveal publicly, and under oath, what was discussed at their numerous 
meetings in the weeks before 9/11, and why there has been an effort to conceal 
this. 
? 
Ironically, when Tenet misspoke, he opened the door to answering the question: 
"What did George W. Bush know, and when did he know it?"

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