Chain of Command
By Shane Harris sharris@nationaljournal.com July 23, 2007
Weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, George Tenet, then the director of Central Intelligence, was convinced that al Qaeda had planned an imminent strike on the United States, and that President Bush should authorize the CIA to take covert action against the terrorists.
Tenet said so to Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, in a hastily arranged meeting on July 10, 2001. At its conclusion, Tenet felt relieved. "We had gotten the full attention of the administration," he writes in his memoir, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (HarperCollins, 2007).
History now tells us Tenet was wrong. He has absorbed blame for not doing more to prevent the attacks. But since his book's publication, Tenet has been ripped for not sidestepping the president's advisers -- namely Rice -- and personally warning Bush about al Qaeda.
What was his job, or for that matter, the job of any presidential intelligence adviser? Scott Pelley of CBS' "60 Minutes" asked Tenet in an interview why he didn't ask Bush directly to take action. His response has cast him as a classic, and for many, unfortunate, bureaucratic actor.
"Because the United States government doesn't work that way," Tenet said. "The president is not the action officer. You bring the action to the national security adviser and people who set the table for the president."
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