304 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 115 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
OpEdNews Op Eds   

Did Tenet Hide Key Info on 9/11?

By       (Page 1 of 3 pages)   2 comments

Ray McGovern
Message Ray McGovern
Become a Fan
  (176 fans)

This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

With few exceptions, like some salacious rumor about the Kennedy family, the mainstream U.S. news media has shown little interest in stories that throw light on history -- even recent, very relevant history. So it comes as no surprise that, when a former White House counter-terrorism czar accuses an ex-CIA director of sitting on information that could have prevented a 9/11 attack, the story gets neither ink nor air. 

Bulletin for those of you who get your information only from the New York Times, the Washington Post and other outlets of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM): Former White House director for counterterrorism Richard Clarke has accused former CIA Director George Tenet of denying him and others access to intelligence that could have thwarted the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11.

Deliberately withholding critical intelligence from those who need it, and can act on it, is -- at the least -- gross dereliction of duty. The more so if keeping the White House promptly and fully informed is at the top of your job jar, as it was for Director of Central Intelligence Tenet. And yet that is precisely the charge Clarke has leveled at the former DCI.

In an interview aired on Aug. 11 on a local PBS affiliate in Colorado, Clarke charges that Tenet and two other senior CIA officials, Cofer Black and Richard Blee, deliberately withheld information about two of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 -- al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. The two had entered the United States more than a year before the 9/11 attacks.

Clarke adds that the CIA then covered it all up by keeping relevant information away from Congress and the 9/11 Commission.

Lying by senior officials is bad enough, and there is now plenty of evidence that former CIA Director George Tenet and his closest agency associates are serial offenders. Think for a minute about the falsehoods spread regarding Iraq's non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" stockpiles.

But withholding intelligence on two of the 9/11 hijackers would have been particularly unconscionable -- the epitome of malfeasance, not just misfeasance. That's why Richard Clarke's conclusion that he should have received information from CIA about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, "unless somebody intervened to stop the normal automatic distribution" amounts, in my view, to a criminal charge, given the eventual role of the two in the hijacking on 9/11 of AA-77, the plane that struck the Pentagon.

Tenet has denied that the information on the two hijackers was "intentionally withheld" from Clarke, and he has enlisted the other two former CIA operatives, Cofer Black (more recently a senior official of Blackwater) and Richard Blee (an even more shadowy figure), to concur in saying "Not us; we didn't withhold."

Whom to believe? To me, it's a no-brainer. One would have to have been born yesterday to regard the "George is right" testimony from Black and Blee as corroborative.

Tenet's Dubious Credibility  

Tenet is the same fellow who provided the "slam dunk" on the existence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, as well as the "artist renderings" of equally non-existent mobile laboratories for developing biological warfare agents, based on unconfirmed information from the impostor code-named (appropriately) "Curveball."

It was Tenet who, under orders from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, ordered up and disseminated a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate on WMD in Iraq, the purpose of which was to deceive our elected representatives out of their constitutional prerogative to authorize war. No small lies.

After a five-year investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Chairman Jay Rockefeller described the intelligence adduced under Tenet to "justify" attacking Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, and non-existent." Good enough to win Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom, though. The corruption of intelligence worked just fine for the purposes of Bush and Cheney, thank you very much.

It is a actually a matter of record that Tenet lies a lot -- on occasion, displaying what I would call chutzpah on steroids. Recall, for example, Tenet in April 2007 snarling at Scott Pelley on "60 Minutes" -- five times, in five consecutive sentences -- "We do not torture people."

Even Under Oath  

Tenet has lied about 9/11, too. The joint statement from Tenet, Black and Blee -- orchestrated by former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow -- concludes: "We testified under oath about what we did, what we knew and what we didn't know. We stand by that testimony."

Almost made me laugh ... almost.

In his sworn testimony to the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, Tenet said he had not spoken to Bush -- even on the telephone -- during the entire month of August 2001.

But Tenet did fly down to see the President in Crawford -- not once, but twice during August 2001, and briefed Bush again in Washington on the 31st.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Must Read 1   News 1   Valuable 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Ray McGovern Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for 27 years, and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). His (more...)
 
Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

What's Hayden Hidin'?

Asylum for Julian Assange -- Former Awardee for Integrity

Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War

Obama Stands Up to Israel, Tamps Down Iran War Threats

Note to Nancy Pelosi: Colin Powell Got Snookered at CIA, too

Mullen Wary of Israeli Attack on Iran

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend