One Cheer for the Hot New Memoir

FORMER CIA director George Tenet’s new book is the most effective bipartisan initiative of the year. His At the Center of the Storm has been clobbered by the Left and the Right, and rightly so. The Left criticizes him for not speaking up when he was in power if he had so many misgivings about the Iraq War. The Right objects to his after the-fact criticisms of Bush-administration figures and his neglect of the CIA’s clandestine service-a neglect that played a major role in the intelligence disasters over which he presided. And both Left and Right recoil at Tenet’s self-justification, which is extreme even by the standards of a Washington if-only-they-had-listened-tome memoir.

Yet there is a kernel of good in Tenet’s book. Underneath the excuse-making and the score-settling, Tenet’s portrayal of the pre-Iraq War intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs dispels key contentions of the “Bush lied, people died” crowd. He captures the essential nature of intelligence-that it’s usually fragmentary and uncertain-and reminds us of the post9/11 environment, in which policymakers were inclined to put the worst interpreta-tion on incomplete information, lest they encounter another nasty surprise. Rather than undermine the case for war, Tenet’s book-no matter how he has tried to market it during high-profile interviews—tends to support it.

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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FORMER CIA director George Tenet’s new book is the most effective bipartisan initiative of the year. His At the Center of the Storm has been clobbered by the Left and the Right, and rightly so. The Left criticizes him for not speaking up when he was in power if he had so many misgivings about the Iraq War. The Right objects to his after the-fact criticisms of Bush-administration figures and his neglect of the CIA’s clandestine service-a neglect that played a major role in the intelligence disasters over which he presided. And both Left and Right recoil at Tenet’s self-justification, which is extreme even by the standards of a Washington if-only-they-had-listened-tome memoir.

Yet there is a kernel of good in Tenet’s book. Underneath the excuse-making and the score-settling, Tenet’s portrayal of the pre-Iraq War intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs dispels key contentions of the “Bush lied, people died” crowd. He captures the essential nature of intelligence-that it’s usually fragmentary and uncertain-and reminds us of the post9/11 environment, in which policymakers were inclined to put the worst interpreta-tion on incomplete information, lest they encounter another nasty surprise. Rather than undermine the case for war, Tenet’s book-no matter how he has tried to market it during high-profile interviews—tends to support it.