About that slam dunk

The conventional wisdom says it all--George Tenet convinced a skeptical George Bush that attacking Saddam was warranted because it was a "slam dunk" he had WMDs.

Tenet is out on the book circuit explaining that comment and other misperceptions in his memoirs entitled, "At the Center of the Storm" (cleared by Langley of course).

According to the New York Times the book is a not a complete hit-piece on Bush but surely the parts that are will gain the most interest, ie, the slam dunk comment. Tenet described the leak of that as "the most despicable thing that ever happened" to him. So, how did it happen?

Enter Bob Woodward. Again. He broke the comment in his second Bush book, "Plan of Attack", so one might think the Washington Post coverage of this story might be worth checking out. While comprehensive, it doesn't shine much light on Woodward's complicity. Reporter Dafna Linzer did point out that at various times during the past few years both Tenet and his deputy John McGlaughlin have suffered amnesia about those comments (not hard to imagine) but apparently memories can sometimes improve with the passage of time, a phenomenon we also witnessed in the Libby trial.

So, what exactly did the book say?

It all began on page 247 as Hollywood Bob described a December 2002 Oval Office meeting on "the case" (for war) between Tenet and his deputy John McGlaughlin with Bush, Cheney, Rice and Andy Card. It was in this meeting that the CIA laid out the "hard" intelligence they had on Saddam's evilness.

Before beginning, let's keep clear what the Times quotes Mr. Tenet saying in his book,

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years.

OK, on to Woodward's scribblings. He described John McGlaughlin's briefing to team Bush with flip charts, and when finished he quoted Bush as saying,

"Nice try. I don't think this is quite--it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from." He then turned to Tenet and said, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?"

Then came the famous utterance. Woodward described it this way,

From the end of one of the couches in the Oval Office, Tenet rose up, threw his arms in the air. "It's a slam dunk case!", the DCI said.

Bush pressed, "George, how confident are you?" Tenet, a basketball fan who attended as many home games of his alma mater Georgetown as possible, leaned forward and threw his arms up again. "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"

Woodward then mentioned that is was "unusual" for Tenet to be so certain. The famed Watergate reporter ended the section on page 250 with Bush's instructions to Tenet, "make sure no one stretches to make our case".

And that's it. Tenet explains the comment as being in the totality of the entire case against Saddam not just about the WMDs, and he's probably right. But nobody in their right mind would use "slam dunk" to describe the case if they were shaky on the WMD part. This appears to fall under the category of "derriere-coverus maximus".

In retrospect it's doubtful Tenet's comment were the most decisive factor in Bush's decision to attack. Even the left has continually blamed Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans as part of the twisting effect (and part of Dennis Kucinich's articles of impeachment against the Veep) and others have blamed others, who've blamed others. But the slam dunk remark would have to rank pretty high coming from the DCI.

The left wing media will certainly wonder who leaked such a scurrilous thing to Woodward. Once again-- only Bob knows. Will he divulge his source or hold firm like he did with Watergate and the Plame case? For some reason I believe we'll find out soon on this one.

Folks more in the know will probably find Tenet's gesticulations interesting when compared to the previous writings of CIA officials like Michael Scheuer, someone else who was firmly convinced of ties between Saddam and bin Laden until it became unpopular and rather bad for business. Failures tend to do that.

Remember the timeline as well. The slam dunk meeting occurred in December 2002, many months AFTER Joe Wilson's trip to Africa. That should say something about the divisions present at Langley or other more sinister things.

Interesting--after all is said and done Saddam had perhaps the greatest impact on American politics than any other world leader from 1990 onward, and continues to cause gnashing of teeth even in death. He certainly was a threat to politicians and bureaucrats, if nothing else.

RIM SHOT 4/28/07

Here's more on the book from the NY Daily News blog (via Counterterrorism Blog), which suggests there are other double-crosses in the book besides the slam dunk, including Tenet trying to blame the FBI for a few things:

As federal probes have revealed, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar were tracked by CIA from Malaysia to Thailand and then to Los Angeles in January 2000, as detailed in agency cables the following March.

"Everybody assumed the information was passed to the FBI," a source close to Tenet told The Mouth this week. "There was no conspiracy. We weren’t trying to withhold it."

There are a couple of ways to look at this. If Tenet is correct and there was "no conspiracy", just a misunderstanding, it exonerates Bush on charges that 9/11 was an inside job since this occurred in 2000 on Clinton's watch. If Tenet is lying and it WAS part of a conspiracy that implicates Clinton. See how silly?

This is a rather remarkable article. It goes on to say:

In June 2005, the Justice Department's inspector general found in a report that one of the FBI detailees, identified by the pseudonym "Dwight," not only accessed a March 2000 CIA cable that Alhazmi and Almihdhar had flown to Los Angeles from Bangkok, but he also typed up a report for FBI headquarters. Dwight asked his CIA supervisor to okay the report but the DOJ IG found no evidence that the supervisor ever approved it. (None of the FBI detailees at CIA was ever interviewed by the 9/11 commission, a source said.)

Astounding. Recapping briefly, while most of the media has focused on Tenet's incredulous reaction to the slam dunk comment they have (and probably will continue to) ignore his attemps to blame the FBI for not getting a message they never approved sending.

Hindsight warning--it's still 20/20. But anyone who's ever had dealings with the Federal Government should not be the least bit surprised. And if anyone thinks it's a fixable problem they are stark raving nuts.