Tenet Says “Slam Dunk” Comment Taken Out of Context

Former CIA Director George Tenet’s infamous “slam dunk” assessment of Iraq’s prewar WMD capabilities was taken out of context and twisted by White House officials to support their case for invasion, Tenet says in a book to be publicly released Monday (see GSN, March 2).

Tenet made the comment in a December 2002 meeting with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office.  The New York Times acquired a prepublication copy of his book, “At the Center of the Storm.”

Tenet says his comment was not meant to describe the CIA’s confidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, but rather was in reply to a Bush request to make a more persuasive case to the public.

“I told the president that strengthening the public presentation was a ‘slam dunk,’ a phrase that was later taken completely out of context,” Tenet says.  “If I had simply said, ‘I’m sure we can do better,’ I wouldn’t be writing this chapter — or maybe even this book” (Shane/Mazzetti, New York Times, April 27).

“We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant,” he elaborated in a television interview to be broadcast Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes” (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press/Time, April 26).

Tenet complains that his remark was used as a major justification for the war, when other factors were also important.  He comments on watching Vice President Dick Cheney cite the “slam dunk” statement during a television interview last year.

“I remember watching and thinking, ‘As if you needed me to say ‘slam dunk’ to convince you to go to war with Iraq,’” he says in the book (Shane/Mazzetti, New York Times).

“I'll never believe that what happened that day informed the president's view or belief of the legitimacy or the timing of this war. Never!” he said in the television interview (Shrader, Associated Press).

Tenet says the administration failed to seriously consider other options to deal with Iraq.

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” he says.  In addition, there was never “a significant discussion” over containing, rather than invading, Iraq.

Tenet, who retired from the agency in 2004 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom later that year, accepts responsibility for an assessment of Iraq’s WMD programs that was circulated to members of Congress as the White House sought support for an invasion.

He says he had no doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the National Intelligence Estimate describing those capabilities was “one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.”

“In retrospect, we got it wrong partly because the truth was so implausible,” he says.

Looking to the future, Tenet says he is uncertain whether U.S. forces can contribute any longer to Iraqi security.

“My fear is that sectarian violence in Iraq has taken on a life of its own and that U.S. forces are becoming more and more irrelevant to the management of that violence,” he says.

He also says he is uncertain why al-Qaeda has not ordered “suicide bombers to cause chaos in a half-dozen American shopping malls on any given day” since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“I do know one thing in my gut,” he says. “Al-Qaeda is here and waiting” (Shane/Mazzetti, New York Times).

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said Wednesday that he knew Bush administration officials were making erroneous statements about Iraq’s WMD capabilities before the war, but could not act because his knowledge was based on classified information.

Durbin said he received classified briefings as a member of the intelligence committee, but was not allowed to discuss them, the Washington Times reported.

“The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Durbin on the Senate floor.

“I was angry about it.  [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy.  We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress,” he added.

The White House denied his charges.

“We all understand today that there were intelligence failures, but there was no effort to mislead either members of Congress or the American people,” said spokesman Tony Fratto (Sean Lengell, Washington Times, April 27).

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