Ex-CIA Officers Among Tenet Critics
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
George J. Tenet's close friends said he anticipated criticism for some of the claims and anger he expressed in his new memoir about his former life as director of the CIA. He did not expect, they said, that his detractors would include former CIA and military officers, or that he would be blamed for the deaths of U.S. troops fighting a war in Iraq that he knew had been badly planned from the start.
As his book, "At the Center of the Storm," debuted yesterday, six former CIA analysts called on Tenet to donate a significant portion of royalties to families of service members killed or wounded in Iraq. They also called on him to return the Presidential Medal of Freedom he was awarded in December 2004.
The signed letter chastised Tenet for bottling up criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war for three years and then publicly focusing on how the White House may have sullied his reputation. The letter -- written by officers who have been vocal in their opposition to the war -- was widely circulated by e-mail to CIA and military veterans groups and blogs. Several former CIA officers who worked closely with Tenet in the run-up to the war said they agreed with the letter but did not want to become embroiled in a public fight with their former boss.
"What about the 3,000 Americans who are dead in Iraq?" asked a former senior CIA officer who left the agency shortly after Tenet resigned in 2004. "Where's George's sympathy for them? I think he is a guy that did care and tried to do the right thing, but he didn't have the moral courage to stand his ground when you need to."
