Tenet, Iran and the nukes

Wonder how many people will ignore George Tenet's book? Just guessing, I'd say a lot, since he's one of the few public figures who's managed to create animus on both sides of the political fence. His recent TV appearances didn't help much, unless the goal was rank publicity.

But not everyone will look away. Terrorism researchers like Thomas Joscelyn are sifting through the book and removing morsels amidst the half-truths, conjecture and opinion. Stuff like this:

Tenet repeats a common explanation offered for al Qaeda’s presence in Iran: the terrorists are supposedly under a “loose form of house arrest.” But how meaningful is this “detention” if they are openly discussing the acquisition of nuclear weapons? Obviously, it is not very meaningful at all

You might want to check out his full page when visiting, taking note of another Tenet story where he claims AQ in Iraq phantom leader al-Masri was a lieutenant of Ayman al-Zawahiri and was likely in Baghdad before the invasion.

In the meantime we'll all have to chew on Zawahiri's latest razz:

"We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson."

We await responses from Congress to perhaps include mild hand slapping for rubbing in the fact that he's won the war. Not very polite.

Thinking about this a little brings some confusion since we don't have that many combat forces deployed in Iraq. He's either stupid or is talking about killing Iraqis along with us. Conceivably such a large amount of people could be eliminated over weeks, months, years, or killed all at once therefore taking a cue from Joscelyn the atom-smashing method immediately comes to mind, but it's certainly not a lock that AQ has such technology and if they do, whether they would roast their own neighborhood. Still, anytime talk centers on mass casualties we probably need to take note. It could be a warning to devout Muslims to stand back.

All of this sparked some curiosity and after a few seconds of soul-searching (which involved checking my online bank balance) I decided to spring for the book. Yep, I'm contributing to Tenet's retirement fund but hopefully he can help tie up some loose ends, perhaps without even trying.