Now James Pavitt, deputy director for operations, who was in charge of the agency's spies, has announced his resignation.
The cover story is that this was decided weeks ago, but in order to create the appearance of complete confusion, they decided to announce it right after the Tenet surprise. OK, that is not exactly the explanation, but it certainly fits. And yes, since he was outed by the 9/11 Commission, perhaps a step-down really has been in the works.
Mickey K, perhaps in a bid to find his mojo, is encouraging irresponsible speculation, and guesses a link to the Plame affair. Fred Kaplan does the same.
This old post has some useful background on the Tenet-Bush relationship in the Plame case. Apparently, Tenet let out the story that he had not brought up the affair with Bush, and that Tenet was not aware of the criminal referral prepared by the CIA. Plausible?
It was certainly useful PR cover for Bush (well, I thought so at the time, although my confidence in Bush's delegated management style is fading). If the spectre of a grand jury is jogging Tenet's memory, perhaps Bush encouraged him to take a walk.
And how might James Pavitt connect to this? If he was reponsible for operations and spies, Ms. Plame would have been under his umbrella, at least in her youth (she had moved to an intelligence liason function, and someone meeting her in her new capacity might have innocently, but irresponsibly, outed her, as Fred Kaplan surely knows).
So, are they both stepping down (or getting pushed out) because their testimony is about to put a significant strain on their professional relationship with the President? Dems will keep hope alive!
MORE: Good links to the Plame debacle at Alex Parker's site; my thoughts on motive, Ms. Plame's status, and what went wrong.
File Under "Gonna Walk (Before They Make Me Run)" - the NY Times describes the bad news that had been coming Tenet's way.
The prosaic news management theory may account for Tenet's departure. Rove and Co. are planning for June to be a good news month for Bush - the jobs report, the European trip, the meeting with the Pope, and so on. The schedule doesn't really allow for a series of news cycles triggered by these ghastly reports on CIA misadventures that culminate in headlines such as "Embattled CIA Chief Steps Down". Pre-emptive strike!
Pavitt, has been outed before, in the Washington Post, about 5 years ago. when he was the previous
DDO's deputy; so has his deputy, who actually has
fairly recent experience in the Middle East, details in the German successor to Agee's
CounterSpy
Posted by: narciso | June 04, 2004 at 03:57 PM
They actually managed to keep this a secret; for a while anyways; Hugh Turner, was the candidate
I had in mind.
Posted by: narciso | June 05, 2004 at 11:57 AM