John LeBoutillier
Monday, Oct. 6, 2003

Simply stated, we do not know why. But we do know that President Bush is fiercely loyal to this life-long Democrat who named CIA headquarters after former President George H.W. Bush. And we know that in several TV and print interviews since 9/11 the former president - himself a former CIA director – has spoken out on behalf of Tenet's performance at CIA.

Of course, the actual record of the 'intel community' under Tenet's stewardship has been a total and complete disaster:

1. Failure to 'get' Osama bin Laden several times during Clinton's last two years in office.

2. Failure, of course, to prevent the devastating 9/11 attacks – or to sufficiently warn the nation in advance that "something was imminent."

3. Failure to catch or kill Osama bin Laden since then – despite the president's "dead or alive" promise. The longer we go without finding Osama, the more he taunts us with new audiotapes threatening new attacks.

4. Failure to prove with sufficently credible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war began. This failure caused our government to be incapable of rounding up sufficient allies, the way the first President Bush did in 1990-1991.

5. After the war ended in April, our intelligence community has been unable to find, capture of kill the biggest weapon of mass destruction of them all: Saddam Hussein himself.

6. We have also been unable to find even one shred of evidence of WMD.

7. The still-unfolding flap over yellowcake uranium from Niger, the now-infamous 16 words in the State of the Union address and the White House leak story now consuming D.C..

With such an abysmal intelligence record, we all have to wonder why Team Bush doesn't lop off Tenet's political head?

The reason he doesn't may be quite simple: George Tenet is an expert – not so much in intelligence matters as he is in schmoozing and buttering up a very inexperienced president.

Since the day after the 9/11 attacks, George Tenet has tried to see the president daily, often doing the 8 a.m. daily intelligence briefing himself. He must figure that as long as he is in the room with the resident, no one can undercut him.

Yes, in June Mr. Tenet fell on his sword to protect Mr. Bush when he took the blame for the 16 words in the State of the Union speech. Insiders believe that curried Big Favor with Team Bush.

Chief of Staff Andy Card, in a New York Times interview over the weekend, offered a rare insight into the personal relationship between the president and Director Tenet:

"Mr. Card said the director took time out from the grimness of the intelligence reports to talk about a subject dear to the president. 'Baseball,' Mr. Card said.

"As a C.I.A. official summed up Mr. Tenet: 'He's not liked by everybody in the administration, but the president loves him.'"

Tenet is soon to become the second-longest-serving CIA director in our history. Only the legendary Allen Dulles served longer.

There is something wrong about a bureaucrat with a lousy record of performance continually buttering up a president and thus escaping blame for his poor record.

Unless and until the White House discards this last remnant of Clinton, they are going to suffer continuing failures.

John LeBoutillier, a former U.S. congressman, is an author and columnist. E-mail him at lebout@newsmax.com

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al-Qaeda
Bush Administration
George W. Bush
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
War on Terrorism

Editor's note:
Gerald Posner reveals how Bill Clinton could have prevented 9/11 - Click here for details!