Slam Dunk on ‘60 Minutes’
Tune in to CBS “60 Minutes” this Sunday for some primo schadenfreude. Ex-CIA Director George Tenet will be on, telling us that when he said “It’s a slam dunk case,” he wasn’t referring to a belief on his part that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq possessed usable weapons of mass destruction. Oh no, he’s not that dumb. What he meant by “slam dunk” was that it would be easy to claim the existence of WMDs and convince an uninformed public.
Tenet seems genuinely affronted that (1) somebody leaked what he said in a top-secret meeting to reporter Bob Woodward and (2) that the “slam dunk” comment made him a scapegoat for everybody else’s lies.
“It’s the most despicable thing that ever happened to me,” Tenet says. “You don’t do this. You don’t throw somebody overboard just because it’s a deflection. Is that honorable? It’s not honorable to me.”
Some might argue that lying about WMDs isn’t tremendously honorable to begin with, especially when it results in a catastrophic war. But Tenet denies that his assessment of Iraqi weapons capabilities was the reason for Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Will he tell us the real reason? Probably not.
Then Mr. Honorable goes on to brag about all the valuable information he says the CIA gained by “enhanced interrogation techniques” (please don’t call it torture, that would be impolite) used on so-called high value detainees.
The High Value Detainee program uses “enhanced” techniques said to include sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, and water boarding, in which suspects reportedly are restrained as a steady stream of water is poured over their faces, causing a severe gag reflex and a terrifying fear of drowning.
What information was gained? Tenet can’t tell us, it’s secret. Are the reports of waterboarding correct? Not gonna talk about it.
UPDATE: According to the New York Times, in his new book Tenet says he actually believed in the nonexistent Iraqi WMDs.
Mr. Tenet takes blame for the flawed 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s weapons programs, calling the episode “one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.” He expresses regret that the document was not more nuanced, but says there was no doubt in his mind at the time that Saddam Hussein possessed unconventional weapons. “In retrospect, we got it wrong partly because the truth was so implausible,” he writes.
UPDATE: I watched Tenet on “60 Minutes” tonight. He forcefully stated, over and over, “we do not torture.” Then he admitted to Scott Pelley that he never observed any of the interrogation sessions of high value detainees. So he really doesn’t know, it’s the WMDs all over again.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
All part of the play. Act V.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:07 am
The only guy who got it right was Paul O’Neil who’s 60 minutes appearance illuminated the fools in the white house until disappearing from the media shortly after. His book, “The Price of Loyalty”, is still the best insider account to date, in my opinion.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:10 am
“Slam Dunk!”
Why don’t these guys go play Football, Baseball or Basketball and get the hell out of the white house.
April 27th, 2007 at 7:58 am
I was shocked to discover that George Tenet actually thought the WMDs existed. Scott Ritter knew they didn’t. Mohamed ElBaradei knew they didn’t. The CIA interrogated Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel (who was in charge of Iraq’s moribund WMD effort before he defected). Why didn’t Tenet know the truth?
April 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Hell, Richard, I knew they didn’t, and I’m a simple ‘hayseed’ from Utah who knows where to go for real news -and it ain’t to the main stream media. The B.S. called the ‘run-up to war’ was just the msm doing thier part. It became apparent to me that the msm was a republic tool, a wholey owned subsidary of the coming regime about three days into the Clinton admin. when they just couldn’t accept that the previous Bush / Reagan stain might be headed for the laundry. Well now they’re back, with thier act so polished that we’re all talking about the end of democracy as we know it, thanks in part to the attention paid to the bogus source for news. The MSN. Let em shrivel, who needs crap propaganda and wrong-headed motivation?
April 27th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Let me confess that prior to the invasion, I did not believe Scott Ritter even though I regarded him as credible and knowledgeable. It was hard to accept that Saddam’s regime had no usable chemical weapons at all. If only because they’re so hard to dispose of, I thought there must be a stockpile of artillery rounds someplace. I felt sorry for all our soldiers who had to wear protective suits for weeks in the desert.
However, I did not think for a minute that Saddam had WMDs that posed a threat to the US homeland, or any intention of developing them. That was the biggest lie of all. Remember “the smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud”?
April 27th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
There is something important that I remember from the period immediately proceeding the invasion of Iraq. There were people in the administration saying that the inspectors couldn’t do their job because while the inspectors were going in the front door of the weapons storehouses, the Iraqi’s were taking the weapons out the back door.
Saddam agreed to let aircraft fly over the territory to insure this wasn’t happening. Am I imagining this or did it happen? I remember the administration getting unjustifiably defensive and stepping things up right after this.
It seems that Saddam must have been working overtime to insure there were absolutely NO WMD’s in Iraq, or they would have found something, wouldn’t they?
April 29th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
The Bushies like to claim Saddam kicked out the UN inspectors, but actually they left Iraq of their own accord just before the invasion to avoid being bombed by the USA.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:29 am
If Iraq did not have a nuke before the US invasion, they sure must be certain to get some now.