The Wrong Man at Langley

SEVERAL months ago I asked the CIA’s chief spokesman, Bill Harlow, whether CIA director George Tenet had ever offered to resign after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After all, the attacks represented a fundamental failure of strategic intelligence. Harlow’s response was an indignant “no.” In Tenet’s view, 9/11 was not an intelligence failure. Tenet told the Senate in February 2002 that not only was there no failure, he was actually proud of the CIA’s record: “It is a record of discipline, strategy, focus, and action. We are proud of that record. We have been at war with al-Qaeda for over five years.”

Precisely what that war really meant, however, was disclosed by Eleanor Hill, the staff director of a joint House-Senate inquiry looking into the intelligence failures of 9/11. She revealed in congressional testimony that the war declared by Tenet was not being waged with a massive devotion of CIA resources. Tenet didn’t even inform the FBI that he—in a 1998 memo to CIA managers after the al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—had declared war on Osama bin Laden.

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Bill Gertz

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SEVERAL months ago I asked the CIA’s chief spokesman, Bill Harlow, whether CIA director George Tenet had ever offered to resign after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After all, the attacks represented a fundamental failure of strategic intelligence. Harlow’s response was an indignant “no.” In Tenet’s view, 9/11 was not an intelligence failure. Tenet told the Senate in February 2002 that not only was there no failure, he was actually proud of the CIA’s record: “It is a record of discipline, strategy, focus, and action. We are proud of that record. We have been at war with al-Qaeda for over five years.”

Precisely what that war really meant, however, was disclosed by Eleanor Hill, the staff director of a joint House-Senate inquiry looking into the intelligence failures of 9/11. She revealed in congressional testimony that the war declared by Tenet was not being waged with a massive devotion of CIA resources. Tenet didn’t even inform the FBI that he—in a 1998 memo to CIA managers after the al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—had declared war on Osama bin Laden.