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Advertisement | George Tenet: At The Center Of The StormFormer CIA Director Breaks His SilenceApril 29, 2007 ![]() ![]() George Tenet Interview Pt. 1Former CIA Director George Tenet tells Scott Pelley that he thought the U.S. should attack Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks and he knew Iraq was not involved in the attacks. | Share/Embed (CBS) When it became clear there were no weapons of mass destruction, a rift split the White House and CIA. A former ambassador named Joe Wilson wrote an article debunking the uranium claim that had slipped into the State of the Union address. The White House retaliated, leaking a story that exposed the identity of Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer. "She's one of my officers. That's wrong. Big time wrong, you don't get to do that," Tenet says. "And the chilling effect that you have inside my work force is, 'Whoa, now officers names are being thrown out the door. Hold it. Not right.'" Asked how much damage that did, Tenet says, "That's not the point. Just because there's a Washington bloodletting game going on here and just because her husband's out there saying what he's saying. The country's intelligence officers are not fair game. Period. That's all you need to know." "They didn't seem to know that in the White House," Pelley remarks. "I'm done with it. I've just told you what I think," Tenet says. What Tenet didn’t know was that the next bloodletting would be his. It came in another White House leak, this time to reporter Bob Woodward. An unnamed source described to Woodward a pre-war meeting in the Oval Office. The CIA was showing the president how to present to the public the case for weapons of mass destruction. Woodward wrote “Tenet rose up, threw his arms in the air. 'It’s a slam dunk case!'" "I never got off the couch, I never jumped up, there was no pantomime. I didn’t do my Michael Jordan, Air Jordan routine for the president that morning," Tenet tells Pelley. "What did you mean by slam dunk?" Pelley asks. "I guess I meant that we could do better," Tenet says. "Do better?" Pelley asks. "We can put a better case together for a public case, that’s what I meant. That’s what this was about," Tenet explains. Tenet says the president wasn’t happy with the presentation. So he was telling Mr. Bush that improving the presentation would be a slam dunk. But Tenet says the leak to Woodward made the remark look like the decisive moment in the decision to go to war. "I'll never believe that what happened that day, informed the president's view or belief of the legitimacy or the timing of this war. Never," Tenet insists. In addition to five from the CIA, the only people in the room were the president, vice president, Condoleezza Rice, and Chief of Staff Andrew Card. "Somebody who was in the Oval Office that day decided to throw you off the train. Was it the president?" Pelley asks. "I don't know," Tenet says. "Was it the vice president?" Pelley asks. "I don't know," Tenet says. "Who was out to get you, George?" Pelley asks. "Scott, you know, I'm Greek, and we're conspiratorial by nature. But, you know, who knows?" Tenet says. "I haven't let myself go there, but as a human being it didn’t feel very good." Tenet says, when he saw "slam dunk" in The Washington Post he knew the breach with the White House was total. He called his principal contact in the president’s office. Produced by Graham Messick, Michael Radutzky and Michael Karzis | Advertisement McCain Denies Misstatement On Iraq SurgeAriz. Senator Pushes Back Against Criticism Of Comments Made During CBS News Interview |
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