Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Clown

The WaPo excerpts Bob Woodward's book, and our confidence in George Tenet continues its downward spiral:

Within the CIA's Near East Division, which handled some of the hardest, most violent countries, the Iraqi Operations Group was referred to as "The House of Broken Toys." It was largely populated with new, green officers and problem officers, or old boys waiting for retirement. After taking it over in August 2001, Saul had begun a full review of where the CIA stood with Iraq.

First, can we implore Woodward to check back with his sources - that has got to be "The Island of Misfit Toys", from the old "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" video.

OK, seriously - we went to war with Iraq in 1991, Clinton bombed them in 1998, we had diplomatic tangles with them throughout the 90's, Saddam was viewed as one of the most destabilizing figures in the Middle East, and now we find out that in 2001 the Iraqi Operations Group was a CIA backwater for has-beens and never-weres? What kind of program had Tenet been running these many years?

PENDING: I am intending to put in links to Tenet and his non-meeting meetings with the President in Aug 2001; his non-fiery hair reaction to the "Islamic Extremist Learns To Fly" memo from Aug 2001 (Staff Report 11, p. 7); and something else that is slipping my mind. [The slam-dunk from the Woodward excerpt above? - Maybe, everyone else has it, why be different?].

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan wants to bench Tenet for the slam-dunk. Works for me.

MORE: Kill me now - MoDo is good on this, except where she makes the deplorable comparison to the Millenium threat.

LATE ADD: 'Most everyone loves Tenet, who will leave under his own power next January - Douglas Jehl, NY Times, In the Real Reality TV, the C.I.A.'s Chief Is the Survivor.

Comments

[Brad DeLong]

I share your amazement that Tenet still has a job. What pictures of whom *must* he have?

[IceCold]

If the designation here is correct -- operations -- it possibly different implications than some might assume. Of course operations relates to collection, but it's the intelligence analysis side of the house that would be chiefly responsible for the estimate and judgements therein -- of which the WMD part is the real hook here, presumably.

For a harrowing read on both the Iraqi operations situation early-mid 90s, and the nearly unbelievable state of things in Central Asia a bit later, see Bob Baer's "See No Evil." He has his own perspective, but he seems a clear-eyed source for the actual state of operations where he was stationed, and his account astounding. On Iraq, he recounts the bothched/cancelled/whatever coup attempt he was in Kurdistan to help coordinate -- and how he was summoned forthwith back to Langley and shown to the counsel's office to discuss his possible liabilty for a criminal charge of some sort. I believe the message recalling him -- amazingly -- came directly from NS Advisor Lake. My memory of the details is a bit faded, just get the book and read it, it's a very fast read and a head-shaker.

Naturally the "intel failures" of late have garnered almost everyone's attention, yet few paid attention to the comparable failures on Iraq earlier (status/dimensions of nuke program pre-1991, bioweapons program nearly in its entirety, etc.). It's almost as if there's a pattern -- hard targets are hard, and we usually end up making best-guesses from what we've got. Not that many folks know much about WWII's Ultra, but they seem to assume such spectacular insights into adversaries' plans and actions are the norm.

I always loved that tacky old low-tech animated "Rudolph" Christmas special -- but I wish the common perception and benchmarks for intel weren't about as fanciful.

Oh, and seems there's mostly a low-drama explanation for Tenet's tenure, through, ahem, rather dramatic "events." He's the ultimate staffer, has always bonded with bosses, and in Dubya found not just good chemistry but someone who really doesn't fire staff of that level very readily (apparently!). At least that's what I hear from people familiar with both.