George Tenet, Former CIA Director, on the Invasion of Iraq

"The sole great power in the world must recognize that there are mountains higher than it can climb," said Mr. George Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in his memoirs while discussing the American invasion of Iraq.

In twenty-five chapters, spanning 531 pages, I read Mr. George Tenet's memoirs — the Greek-origin former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — about his seven-year tenure as CIA Director from 11-7-1997 to 11-7-2004. In his book entitled (At The Center of The Storm), he discusses the years he spent at the CIA, the Agency's role in confronting international terrorism (in his terminology), the events of 11 September 2001, the strategy for hunting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the subsequent American occupation of Iraq. He also addresses topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at Wye Plantation, the Agency's relations with other U.S. intelligence and security organs, the White House administration, and the personal challenges, gossip, and rivalries that ensued — how struggles occurred between major agencies and departments such as the Department of Defense (the Pentagon). The pushing, sparring, and intrigue reached an "Olympian" level in the final year of his leadership of the Agency, according to him.

I will summarize some key points on two main topics from his memoirs: the American invasion of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, where the Director of Central Intelligence played a political role in addition to his core security role during that period.

After the events of September 2001, the American administration sought evidence proving the late President Saddam Hussein and his regime's cooperation with al-Qaeda and possession of weapons of mass destruction. The international inspection teams, guided by the United States, attempted to find any evidence supporting the claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction at that time, but they did not find any such evidence. On the contrary, some of their members resigned from the United Nations — the International Atomic Energy Agency — as a result of immense pressure from the United States on them to produce a report indicating that the Iraqi regime possessed a weapons of mass destruction system, despite the clear results of the inspection rounds that swept Iraq from north to south.

Teams of inspectors and analysts from U.S. intelligence agencies conducted painstaking searches, in addition to employing some local people and agents on the ground in Iraq, and the result — as Mr. George Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, shows in his memoirs — was that there were no indications or evidence that Iraq possessed such a system. Some U.S. administration politicians also tried to obtain from the CIA any intelligence report that would support the narrative desired by American policymakers to justify their invasion and occupation of Iraq, but without any result.

Mr. George Tenet explained in his memoirs that the approximately 16 U.S. intelligence agencies carefully examined the possibility of a cooperative role by state sponsors in the 11-9 events, and U.S. intelligence found no evidence of Iraqi collusion then or now.

In this memoir, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency also ruled out any exchange of interests or cooperation between Iraq under President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Mr. George Tenet explained that in early September 2002, in the context of the vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq, the CIA came under pressure from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to produce a written assessment of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs. They specifically wanted a National Intelligence Estimate to help them decide whether to authorize the President to take the nation to war. Senator Graham, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested on 9-9-2002 the issuance of a National Intelligence Estimate on the status of Iraq's weapons development programs, the organization of their delivery systems, and the state of Iraqi military forces.

Reluctantly, the Director of the Agency (CIA) agreed on 12-9-2002 to produce an estimate, and he directed National Security Council staff to launch an urgent project to issue a National Intelligence Estimate on the status of Iraq's weapons programs. Mr. George Tenet clarifies the nature of U.S. intelligence agencies' work before the White House administration, saying: we do not make policy; our work is to inform those who make it about what we know and what we believe, and it is up to them to decide what they do with that. We offer analytical judgments; we do not present certainties.

Mr. Tenet stated — according to him — that policymakers did not pressure the Agency to influence the outcomes. This was the conflict and the mutual accusations among some agencies at the height of the American administration's desire to invade Iraq, as that administration was seeking cover and a moral and logical justification for invading Iraq. The White House had requested reports on the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship and explanations of what might constitute a "suspicious relationship" between them to serve as a pretext for occupying Iraq after the September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda.

The flawed analysis we assembled in the National Intelligence Estimate, according to Tenet, included some materials that Colin Powell used in his speech at the United Nations on 5-2-2003, which helped marshal public support for the war — despite the subsequent collapse of U.S. credibility after that speech when the materials Powell presented to the UN General Assembly were proven to be false. Mr. Powell later resigned.

Nevertheless, some observers went so far as to imply that the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq showed that senior intelligence officials were inclined toward war, like some senior policymakers. Some American experts also blame the Central Intelligence Agency for weakening President Bush’s position and his argument when 16 words were included in the draft of the State of the Union address. Mr. George Tenet refutes the accuracy of that claim, asserting that he asked his aides to remove the 16 words in question from the speech because they lacked credibility, and two memoranda were sent to the White House requesting deletion of those words. The White House initially denied receiving the CIA memoranda, but George Tenet produced images showing receipt of those memoranda. Therefore, the responsibility lies with the officials who wrote and edited the President’s speeches in the White House and the Vice President’s office, who neglected the matter, and the subsequent recriminations were directed at the CIA and its alleged negligence — which the Agency’s Director, George Tenet, rejected — and he placed the responsibility on the domestic circle of some politicians and experts involved in the campaign to invade Iraq.

Mr. Tenet, in rebutting those observers, says that the information in the report was piecemeal, and that 16 words were inserted into the President’s State of the Union speech regarding uranium residue from the Republic of Niger in Africa, according to British intelligence reports — and Saddam’s ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons (2003). The sixth draft of the speech asserted that Saddam’s regime "was caught trying to buy up to 500 tons of uranium oxide from sources in Africa, a key component in the enrichment process." The report about the Niger uranium purchase was later proven false: the evidence was weak because the intended purchase site was flooded, while the other intended mine was under French control. Those erroneous details were drawn from British intelligence reports at the time, and the CIA asked the White House to remove the information contained in the referenced 16 words. The White House initially denied receipt of Tenet’s cancellation letter, then ignored and neglected the matter.

George Tenet responded to these allegations regarding the report—which was 90 pages long—where the phrase "we do not know" appeared 30 times, and the word "yes" appeared in only 3 instances, in the context of answering questions about the extent of knowledge of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction... saying: that the analysts took the basic judgments from the National Intelligence Estimate, declassified them and placed them at the front of the White Paper, and because phrases appear in intelligence agencies' writings such as "we assess that" and "we judge that"... the White Paper, however, had been drafted in a different style... and when the two were merged, officials chose the style... so the phrases "we" disappeared, and prominent affirmations such as "Saddam possesses" and the phrase "the matter is certain" which George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, said in a briefing with President Bush... which those present considered, after Tenet uttered them, "that the matter was settled, let's go to war" despite the Director's defense that the phrase was said in another context, when the President requested corrective clarifications from the Central Intelligence Agency regarding presenting materials and documents that would strengthen and clarify the subject of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because the assessment could be announced publicly... Tenet asserted "the matter is certain" regarding the existence of such materials... in the agency's teams of analysts.

·       The decision to invade Iraq had been made in advance

George Tenet also explained in his memoirs regarding the invasion of Iraq that the interest of some senior Bush officials in Iraq predated the arrival of the administration; Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle were among the eighteen people who signed a public letter from a group called the "Project for the New American Century" calling for the topple of Saddam, and it is often forgotten that regime change in Iraq was also the openly stated policy of the Clinton administration, and the goal of the Iraq Liberation Act that Congress passed in 1998, which allocated $100 million to the U.S. Department of State for expenditures to seek the removal of Saddam's regime, and the American commitment to remove Saddam remained the law in force in the country after the middle of Clinton's second term until American forces invaded Iraq in March 2003...

In this context, Tenet explained that the decision for war on Iraq had been made well after the events of 9/11, recalling an incident dated 12-9-2001—i.e., one day after the September 11, 2001 events—that indicates the prior decision for war, when George Tenet paused briefly with Richard Perle, one of the patrons of the neoconservative movement, who was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Secretary of Defense; Perle turned to George Tenet and said: "Iraq must pay for what happened yesterday (9/11)—they are responsible."—12-9-2001!!

Tenet explained that he was astonished to hear such words, but he said nothing, as he expected that al-Qaida was behind the attacks, and in the months and years that followed we (meaning the intelligence agencies, which reached 16 agencies) carefully examined the possibility of cooperative involvement by state sponsors, and the intelligence found neither then nor now any evidence of Iraqi complicity...!!

Tenet adds in his memoirs that it became clear that the core of our judgments regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs was wrong... and that our performance fell short of our high standards.!!

In this regard, Tenet explained that an official responsible for the estimates directorate named Mr. Bob Wllyol—the National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Programs—came to him when we assigned him the task of coordinating the estimate, and he appeared worried and said: "I do not believe in this war; some wars can be justified, but not this war..." !!(he meant the war on Iraq)!

Tenet relates in his memoirs an incident that reveals the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, where Senator Edward Kennedy asked Dulfer, the senior analyst of the team of analysts researching weapons of mass destruction, during his testimony in which he presented a report that Saddam did not possess stocks of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, and that he did not have any active program to produce them, and the senator asked him what were the chances that weapons of mass destruction might still be undiscovered... he replied that the chances of finding a large stockpile were less than 5%...!!

Tenet further explained that a senior Middle East expert in the CIA recently told him about a meeting he attended at the White House a few days after 9/11, where a senior official in the National Security Council informed him that the administration wanted to get rid of Saddam... and our analyst said, "If you want to go after Saddam... to settle scores with him, be my guest, but do not tell me he is connected to the 9/11 attacks, or to terrorism, for there is no evidence to support that...!!"

Richard Haas, the former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State, said that Condoleezza Rice told him in July 2002 that "the decisions have been made, and war is inevitable unless Iraq complies with all our demands..!!"

The International Atomic Energy Agency also announced at that time that some of the documents the United States had provided concerning allegations about Iraq's interest in "Niger" uranium were forged, but the report arrived just before the start of the Iraq war and the matter was lost amid the commotion...!!

In an article in the New York Times in May 2003, journalist Nicholas Kristof said that an American envoy sent to Niger had submitted a report to the CIA and the Department of State revealing the falsehood of the Niger uranium story... but that article appeared as the war was ending when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq..!!

In defending his position on the war in Iraq, Tenet explained that many people believe the use by the Director of the CIA of the phrase "the matter is certain" in the minutes of his meeting with others at the White House to present an intelligence briefing to the then-President (President George W. Bush) was the crucial moment that stiffened the President's resolve to remove Saddam Hussein and wage war on Iraq..

Tenet explains that the facts show otherwise: those two words and the meeting held in the Oval Office in December 2002 had no connection to the President's decision to send American troops to Iraq, because that decision had already been made; indeed the Oval Office meeting came 10 months after the President was first shown a viable plan for war in Iraq, and 4 months after the Vice President's speech to veterans on foreign wars in which he said "there is no doubt that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction," and 3 months after informing the United Nations that the Iraqi regime "must immediately and unconditionally relinquish all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and related material and reveal and destroy or render them harmless," and several months after the U.S. military began repositioning the assets it would use in the war to facilities in the Middle East... and two months after Congress authorized the President to use force in Iraq, and two weeks after the Pentagon issued the first deployment order to send U.S. forces to the region. In other words, the American administration had already decided to invade Iraq and did not need cover or justification from the Central Intelligence Agency's analysts... where the decision had been made one day after the events of September 11, 2001, as Tenet's explanations on the matter show.

Tenet explained in his book that the lessons learned from our national nightmare in Iraq are many, and we learned them painfully. I say that the sole remaining superpower in the world must recognize that there are mountains too high to climb, and that military force cannot solve the entrenched political and social problems in other countries; we should enter wars we choose only after considerable hesitation... and only after we are completely honest with ourselves and with the world about the rationale for our undertaking in such missions; it is not enough to know how to win battles, it is equally important to have the knowledge and management to secure the peace.!!

When we entered Iraq, we removed Sunni dominance and the personalization of authority based on tribalism, and we empowered Shiite influence without allowing any Sunni alternative to emerge..—according to George Tenet—.!!

-        11-9-2020