CIA Director George Tenet tendered his resignation to President Bush on Thursday, ending the tenure of a powerful and influential spymaster who steered the nation’s intelligence community through some of the most disastrous and triumphant moments in its history.
Calling it “the most difficult decision” of his life, an emotional Tenet told employees gathered at CIA headquarters near Langley, Va., that he was resigning for “the well-being of my wonderful family–nothing more and nothing less,” according to a videotape released by the CIA.
The only senior official from former President Bill Clinton’s White House to thrive under Bush, Tenet had deftly survived calls for his resignation following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which critics called the greatest intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor.
Thursday’s surprise announcement, first made in a two-minute statement delivered by Bush on the South Lawn of the White House, came as the Senate Intelligence Committee prepares to release a scathing, bipartisan report on faulty prewar estimates of Saddam Hussein’s arsenal of illicit weapons.
Intelligence detailing Iraq’s supposed caches of weapons of mass destruction, which have not materialized, was used as the primary justification for drawing the nation into a war that has been far more deadly and more costly than most predicted.
Tenet reportedly told Bush before the war that his case against Hussein was a “slam dunk.”
The timing of the Tenet’s resignation led to widespread speculation here that the 51-year-old spymaster who had survived seven years of bruising battles, including those over the failure to head off Sept. 11, did not relish yet another Washington fight.
But insiders also noted the extraordinary personal burden of Tenet’s job, which includes trying to decipher a maze of never-ending terrorism threats steadily flowing into the agency and the ongoing insurgency in Iraq, to point to just a couple.
The head of the agency’s clandestine service, James Pavitt, was also expected to announce his retirement Friday–a decision the 31-year CIA veteran made weeks ago, before he knew of Tenet’s decision, a CIA official told The Associated Press.
Having resisted earlier pressures to quit, Tenet, the second-longest serving director in the CIA’s 57-year history, had recently been expected to stay until at least after the November presidential election.
Bush `sorry’
“He told me he was resigning for personal reasons,” Bush said during Thursday’s hastily arranged announcement. “I told him I’m sorry he’s leaving. He has done a superb job on behalf of the American people.”
Bush, whose strong personal loyalty to Tenet has been cited as one of the CIA director’s greatest assets, had given no hint of the impending news minutes earlier as he took questions from reporters in the Rose Garden with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
After heading into the White House and re-emerging on the South Lawn, Bush said Tenet formally delivered his resignation letter Thursday.
He also praised Tenet, saying, “He has been a strong and able leader at the agency . . . he has been a strong leader in the war on terror, and I will miss him.”
Bush’s aides said the president met with Tenet for about 45 minutes Wednesday night in the White House’s living quarters.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said aboard Air Force One on Thursday that Bush never signaled to Tenet that he wanted him to quit.
McClellan also noted that Tenet said in his resignation letter that he had been talking with his family for the past several months about leaving.
Asked if Bush tried to talk Tenet into staying, McClellan said, “I think the president understood his reasons for leaving.”
Bush said John McLaughlin, Tenet’s deputy, would temporarily take over as the nation’s spymaster when Tenet steps down in mid-July.
It was unclear Thursday whether Bush would move to find a permanent replacement so close to the presidential election, albeit at what could be one of the most crucial times in history for the intelligence community. Terrorist threats worldwide have not abated, Osama bin Laden is still taunting the U.S., insurgents are wreaking havoc in Iraq on the eve of a hand-over of authority to Iraqis and other threats continue to emerge, including nuclear arms programs in North Korea and Iran.
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Officials confirmed Thursday that Tenet recently received a still-classified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the war intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs before the war. A declassified version is expected to be released in a couple of weeks.
Several people familiar with the report independently characterized its assessment of the intelligence community’s performance under Tenet as “devastating,” “blistering,” “white hot” and “ghastly.”
Tenet himself acknowledged lapses but vigorously defended his staff during a speech he delivered at Georgetown University, his alma mater, Feb. 5.
“They never said there was an `imminent’ threat,” Tenet told the audience of his analysts, pointing a finger back at policymakers. He also said history would show the agency was neither completely right nor completely wrong.
But some Democrats and Republicans familiar with the Senate review said privately Thursday that they believed it would be difficult for Tenet to survive its release.
Others Thursday doubted the Senate report was enough to push Tenet out.
“It’s pretty critical, there’s no question about that,” said Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), a member of the intelligence panel.
But Bayh also said: “George Tenet has worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week, 364 or 365 days a year for almost 10 years now. That is a grueling job. And if you get everything exactly right, people never know about it. If you get it wrong, you’re on the front page of all the papers and you get hauled before Congress.”
Tenet survived for so long, at least in part, because of the personal bond he forged with Bush, a bond that was strong despite the men’s dramatically different backgrounds and Tenet’s history with Clinton.
Tenet is the son of a Greek immigrant who operated a diner in Queens. Bush grew up in one of America’s most privileged families.
But both men share a common swagger, as well as a warm, personable and folksy manner. Bush met with Tenet nearly daily, and the CIA director, who started his career as an aide on Capitol Hill, was adept at personal politics.
Some victories too
Despite the controversies Tenet faced and the nation’s devastating loss on Sept. 11, the CIA also won some of its greatest victories during his tenure.
The agency played a crucial role in directing a campaign that saw U.S. forces and their Afghan allies roll over the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. U.S. and British officers also cracked a worldwide nuclear black market and stole the secrets necessary to persuade Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to give up his nuclear arms program.
A CIA spy also orchestrated the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda operations chief and mastermind of the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks.