Former intelligence agents hold Tenet accountable.

Larry Johnson posts at TPM Cafe the letter he and colleagues sent to George Tenet via his publisher. One has to consider not only how different the history of this country would have been if Tenet had had the integrity to resign and speak out before the war but also the effect if he had come clean before the 2004 election. Some excerpts:

Dear Mr. Tenet:

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.
[...]
It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community--a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge. Curiously, you focus your anger on the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, but you decline to criticize the President.
[...]
The reality of Iraq, however, has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous. The damage to the credibility of the CIA is serious but can eventually be repaired. Many of the U.S. soldiers maimed in the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad cannot be fixed. Many will live the rest of their lives missing limbs, blinded, mentally disabled, or physically disfigured. And the dead have passed into history.

You can read the whole letter here.

UPDATE:

AP has more information on the Tenet book which is to be published tomorrow.

The former CIA director offers a litany of questions that went unasked:

-'What impact would a large American occupying force have in an Arab country in the heart of the Middle East?'

-'What kind of political strategy would be necessary to cause the Iraqi society to coalesce in a post-Saddam world and maximize the chances for our success?'

-'How would the presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, and the possibility of a pro-West Iraqi government, be viewed in Iran? And what might Iran do in reaction?'

Tenet laments that 'there seemed to be a lack of curiosity in asking these kinds of questions, and the lack of a disciplined process to get the answers before committing the country to war.'

Tenet assigns his own agency part of the blame, saying the intelligence community should have strived to answer the questions not asked by the administration.

Boggles the mind! And not just the lack of curiosity or Tenet's complicity. Those are critical questions that a lot of us were asking during the run-up to the war. In fact, we had a very good idea of what the answers were without a big intelligence agency behind us. But, of course, that required some knowledge of history, culture, and getting information from sources other than the pathetic US media.