At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
Encyclopedia
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA is a memoir
co-written by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
George Tenet
with Bill Harlow, former CIA Director of Public Affairs. The book was released on April 30, 2007 and outlines Tenet's version of 9/11
, the War on Terrorism
, the 2001 War in Afghanistan
, the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, rough interrogation and other events.
. Tenet outlined the content of his book including allegations that are contrary to the George W. Bush administration
positions.
Reviews:
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
co-written by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence . The Director is assisted by the Deputy Director of the Central...
George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
with Bill Harlow, former CIA Director of Public Affairs. The book was released on April 30, 2007 and outlines Tenet's version of 9/11
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
, the War on Terrorism
War on Terrorism
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, the 2001 War in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
, the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, rough interrogation and other events.
60 Minutes interview
On April 29, 2007, Tenet was interviewed about his memoir on 60 Minutes60 Minutes II
60 Minutes II was a weekly primetime news magazine television program that was intended to replicate the "signature style, journalistic quality and integrity" of the original 60 Minutes series.It aired on CBS on Wednesdays, then later moved to Fridays at 8 p.m...
. Tenet outlined the content of his book including allegations that are contrary to the George W. Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
positions.
Criticism
- Tenet faced accusations of hypocrisy from former espionageEspionageEspionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
officials on the book's release date, for not speaking out earlier against the White HouseWhite HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
's push to invade IraqIraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. - Former Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Condoleezza RiceCondoleezza RiceCondoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
disputes Tenet's claim that the Bush administration, before the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, never had a serious debate about whether Iraq posed an imminent threat or whether to tighten existing sanctions. - CIA veteran, Michael ScheuerMichael ScheuerMichael F. Scheuer is a former CIA intelligence officer, American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies...
, states, "Sadly but fittingly, 'At the Center of the Storm' is likely to remind us that sometimes what lies at the center of a storm is a deafening silence." - Robert BaerRobert BaerRobert "Bob" Booker Baer is an American author and a former CIA case officer assigned to the Middle East. He is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Baer is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to...
, author and former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle EastMiddle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
states, "It's not that Tenet is responsible for getting us into Iraq. It's that he failed in not making a full disclosure to CongressUnited States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
and the White House that we were taking a leap into a bottomless black abyss. He should have resigned when he realized BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
would use bad intelligence to deceive the American people. This is what we get when we have a politicizedPoliticsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
CIA director." - Douglas FeithDouglas FeithDouglas J. Feith served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush from July 2001 until August 2005. His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense relations...
, the former Under Secretary of Defense for PolicyUnder Secretary of Defense for PolicyThe Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is a high level civilian official in the United States Department of Defense. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is the principal staff assistant and adviser to both the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense for all matters...
, whom Tenet criticizes in his book, states: "The problem with George Tenet is that he doesn't seem to care to get his facts straight. He is not meticulous. He is willing to make up stories that suit his purposes and to suppress informationInformationInformation in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
that does not." In reference to Tenet's error regarding Richard Perle (see below), Feith wrote that "The date, the physical descriptions, the quotation marks are all, in the words of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Mikado,' merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative." The memoir, Feith said, "...does offer insight into Mr. Tenet. It allows you to hear the way he talked -- fast, loose, blustery, emotional, imprecise, from the 'gut.' Mr. Tenet proudly refers to the guidance of his 'gut' several times in the book -- a strange boast from someone whose stock-in-trade should be accuracy and precision."
Erratum
- A key conversation with then PentagonThe PentagonThe Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
advisor Richard PerleRichard PerleRichard Norman Perle is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government, a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970’s...
on September 12, 2001, in which Tenet claims Perle told him that "Iraq had to pay for the attack" could not have occurred as Perle was stranded in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and did not return to Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
until three days later, however in an interview with CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's Wolf BlitzerWolf BlitzerWolf Isaac Blitzer is an American journalist who has been a CNN reporter since 1990. Blitzer is currently the host of the newscast The Situation Room and was the host of the Sunday talk show Late Edition until it was discontinued on January 11, 2009...
during an episode of The Situation RoomThe Situation RoomThe Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer is an afternoon/early evening newscast on CNN and CNN International hosted by Wolf Blitzer that first aired on August 8, 2005. The show replaces three politics and hard news programs: Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics, Crossfire and Wolf Blitzer Reports.At first,...
Perle admitted that the two men indeed crossed each other one morning, as claimed by Tenet, but only later in the same week and not on September 12.
See also
|
Homeland Security Act The Homeland Security Act of 2002, , 116 Stat. 2135 was introduced in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and subsequent mailings of anthrax spores. The HSA was cosponsored by 118 members of Congress. It was signed into law by President George W... Iraq and weapons of mass destruction During the regime of Saddam Hussein, the nation of Iraq used, possessed, and made efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction . Hussein was internationally known for his use of chemical weapons in the 1980s against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War... Iraq disarmament crisis The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when U.S. President George W. Bush demanded a complete end to what he alleged was Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq comply with UN Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to areas those... Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq A dispute exists over the "legitimacy" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The debate centers around the question whether the invasion was an unprovoked assault on an independent country that may have breached international law, or if the United Nations Security Council authorized the invasion A dispute... Plausible deniability Plausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,... Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq The Rendon Group, a Washington, DC based public relations firm with close ties to the US government, and which has had a prominent role in promoting the Iraqi National Congress, was alleged by some journalists to be planning to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a careful public relations... |
The UN Security Council and the Iraq war In March 2003 the United States government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US insisted it possessed... Unlawful combatant An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.The Geneva Conventions apply in wars... USA PATRIOT Act The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001... Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq The events surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq have led to numerous expressions of opinion with respect to the war. This page contains links to several topics relating to views on the invasion, and the subsequent occupation of Iraq.American views... Waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over the face of an immobilized captive, thus causing the individual to experience the sensation of drowning... |
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External links
- Excerpt of 60 Minutes interview with George Tenet at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. - HarperCollins book description.
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