EDITORIAL
CIA's Tenet: It's no routine resignation
A man who has served seven years in the hot seat as director of central intelligence deserves to resign to spend more time with his family, if that's what he wants.
And the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, and his Democratic counterpart, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, issued this joint observation:
"While he steps down during a period of controversy over events leading up to the attacks of 9/11 and the quality of intelligence prior to the Iraq war, we should not lose sight of a simple truth: George Tenet has served his country with distinction and honor during difficult and demanding times."
All that said, however, it's surprising that Tenet's departure didn't come sooner. As Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, observed Thursday: "His resignation was long overdue. There were more failures of intelligence on his watch" than with any other CIA director.
Moreover, it is impossible to ignore two pending reports insiders say will certainly be damaging to Tenet's record at the CIA. It appears the reports have substantial bipartisan support.
Roberts' intelligence committee is preparing a reportedly scathing report on the CIA's prewar intelligence on Iraq, as is the independent Sept. 11 commission. A hint of that latter report comes from the commission's staff report, issued in April, which asserted the intelligence community failed to recognize the "catastrophic threat" that al-Qaida represented.
The reports "are going to be very critical" of Tenet and his agency, Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence who has been leading the CIA's own internal review of its performance, told The New York Times. "I think he was at a point where he thought maybe it was better that he was no longer the person up front on this."
The tradecraft Tenet was known for was in negotiating bureaucratic Washington, and not for spying skills. The timing of his resignation is artful in deflecting some of the heat from the coming reports and especially in protecting President Bush, who himself is refusing to acknowledge mistakes on al-Qaida or Iraq.
But failing to face the real problems of our intelligence committees is a disservice. Even before Tenet's resignation, Roberts said he thought the intelligence community is still "in denial" on the issue.
It's clear the nation can't be satisfied with the pretense that this is just a normal rotation at the helm of the intelligence establishment, which suffers from well-known systemic problems — such as its lack of people who speak the right, if any, foreign languages, and its overreliance on electronics and satellites instead of spies on the ground. Some of these problems Tenet inherited but failed to address.
President Bush must demand one obvious change: that Defense Department hawks, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his aides, end their poisonous competition with the CIA. Under Rumsfeld, the Pentagon created a separate intelligence unit that bypassed the CIA to give Vice President Dick Cheney the darkest possible portrait of Saddam Hussein's capabilities and intentions.
The nation's health and safety depend on a frank and honest discussion of the changes required at CIA. Tenet's replacement must be chosen with an eye toward his ability to be an instrument of change.
