George Tenet on MTP this morning demonstrated the fine art of utterly evading responsibility for one's own failures. Even moreso than his belligerent '60 Minutes' interview, Tenet used his full hour with Tim Russert to put forward the stunning case that he did everything humanly possible to make clear to the administration that the facts didn't support a case for Iraq being involved in 911, and that he was not an enabler of the Cheney wing's push to war. Tenet has this interesting quirk of using "we" when answering questions about failures by the CIA to "get the intelligence right" on Iraq, forgetting that the "we" in question -- career CIA analysts and professionals -- weren't responsible for conveying key judgments on intelligence to the White House, and for correcting the White House when it publicly misused intelligence: he was. He was the top political appointee at the CIA, and therefore, if intelligence judgments were twisted by the administration, "we" weren't responsible -- George Tenet was. Tenet only used "I" during his chat with Russert when trying to convince the listener that much was done right in the run-up to both the war and 9/11.
Tenet is so utterly unbelievable, that he is actually losing the swearing match with dark pre-war provocateur Richard Perle over what Perle actually said to him on September 12 or 15, depending on whether Perle was at his French chalet or stalking the halls of the West Wing whipsering Saddam Hussein's name into everyone's ears. My tendency is to call them both liars -- Tenet is wrong on the date, which comports with his apparent history of politically feuled, sycophantic incompetence. But Perle is lying when he claims he never tried to pin 9/11 on Saddam. Perle had been badgering politicians to overthrow Saddam since the Clinton administration, after all. And then there's the matter of that letter... written to President Bush on September 20, 2001, and signed by Perle and other neocons, which stated:
[E]ven if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
So Perle, too, is a rat attempting to jump ship on the Iraq invasion, as he did this past week with his friend Wolf Blitzer on CNN.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
