| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Bring on Giuliani |
| 2004-06-05 |
| Just as every assassination in history is murky, so the resignation of the director of central intelligence is always surrounded by fantasy and speculation. In Washington today, no more than 1 percent of the population believes that George Tenet resigned, really, for "personal reasons," if by personal reasons one means what we normally mean in everyday life: bad health, want to spend more time with the family, grandchildren arriving, not getting any younger, and so forth. And so, from the belly of this great national digestive tract have emerged two main theories: One, that "he quit because" and two, that "he was fired because." As we paddle through all this detritus, keep in mind that nobody knows anything real. It’s all being filtered through the thumb of the theorist. Theory One: He Quit Because . . . My favorite is that he quit because he knows he’s about to be savaged in the forthcoming 9/11 Commission report, and he was going to leave after the elections anyway, but he thought it would look really bad if he quit under siege, so he quit now. It’s better for him, better for the president, better for the agency. Then there’s the Marxist explanation: He quit now because his market value is plummeting and he’ll get more money now in his next job, for his memoirs, as an NFL analyst, whatever, than he thinks he would six months from now. Notice this also assumes, I think correctly, by the way, that he always intended to leave after the elections. Then there’s the simpleminded version: His health really is bad, his doctor told him that his blood pressure is out of control, he’s fat and his skin tone is gray-to-transparent, he has atrial fibrillation--most everyone who’s anyone in Washington has atrial fibrillation, by the way, which often made me wonder why people rely on polygraphs so much, since heart rhythm is one of the "indicators of prevarication"--and he really shouldn’t wait another five or six months. Theory Two: He Was Fired Because . . . One: In keeping with my announced preference for the first theory above, my favorite "He Was Fired" is that the White House knew he was going to be savaged in the forthcoming 9/11 Commission report, and wanted to steal a beat on the press by getting rid of him now. That way, if he’s savaged, he’ll be out there on his own, and the administration can say, "What do you want from us? We fired him." Two: He was fired because of the Ahmad Chalabi fiasco. On this line of thumb-sucking, he was kicked out because it’s becoming clearer with every passing day that Mr. Chalabi was framed, and that the intelligence community framed him, and somebody’s got to pay for this blunder, and that somebody is the DCI. Theory Three (a variation on the first two): He was fired because, when you sit down and look at all the intelligence that the community has provided on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, it’s very meager gruel, and the president decided it was time for a decisive change. In this view, Mr. Tenet’s departure is only the first among many, with the head of operations, the head of analysis, and several others headed out the door in the next month or two. As I say, nothing is known, so any one of these theories is as good as any other. What we can, indeed, say is that it comes nearly three years too late. I wrote on September 11, 2001, that Mr. Tenet should have been replaced right then and there, quite aside from his personal qualifications. (I hasten to say that Mr. Tenet has done many excellent things, people both inside and outside the community really like him, and the president obviously esteems him. But that is beside the point.) Rarely has there been such a manifest intelligence failure as the one exposed on September 11, and good leadership requires fast, clear, and dramatic punishment of those atop the community. Mr. Tenet should have resigned, and, lacking that, Mr. Bush should have fired him. What now? We need a new director of central intelligence quite quickly, and the new director should come from outside the Beltway. The president should take this as a real opportunity to shake up intelligence, and that cannot be done by an insider. Mayor Giuliani is exactly the right sort of person, as is Bobby Knight, the basketball coach at Texas Tech (only kidding, but he’s got the perfect personality for it). The president’s advisers will undoubtedly tell him that he needs someone really knowledgeable in "spycraft," but I think that’s entirely wrong. The intelligence community has performed badly for years, indeed, for decades, and badly needs a great leader with the total trust of the president, an unbreakable will to win this war, and total intolerance for failure. Faster, please. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 Yeah - crossing Vince Lombardi with Adm Bobby Ray Inman - that would be my ideal "reformer" CIA Director. Just Bobby Ray would be great if the Agency wasn't in dire need to de-Clintification -- or is that deChurchification? I think it would be apropos to dig up Frank Church, mummify what's left, and stand him in the corner of the Director's office. What a grandstanding asshole. I wonder how ol' Bobby Ray's doing... still kicking around Austin? |
| Posted by: .com 2004-06-05 2:52:58 PM |
| #1 Ledeen writes well. Mayor Giuliani is exactly the right sort of person, as is Bobby Knight, the basketball coach at Texas Tech (only kidding, but he’s got the perfect personality for it). Knight is like a neolithic version of Rumsfeld. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-06-05 2:46:02 PM |