George Tenet why did you say that regarding my idol?!!


WASHINGTON (April 27) - A senior White House counselor on Friday
dismissed former CIA Director's George Tenet portrait of a Bush
administration that rushed to war in Iraq without serious debate.
"The president did wrestle with those very serious questions," Dan
Bartlett said.

Asked about Tenet's upcoming book, excerpts of which were reported
Friday in The New York Times, Bartlett called the former CIA chief a
"true patriot" but suggested he might have been unaware of the breadth
of the prewar debate that led Bush to dismiss other options, such as
diplomatic means, for reining in Saddam Hussein .

"I've seen meetings, I've listened to the president, both in
conversations with other world leaders like (British Prime Minister)
Tony Blair as well as internally, where the president did wrestle
with those very questions," Bartlett said on NBC's "Today" show. "This
president weighed all the various proposals, weighed all the various
consequences before he did make a decision."

Tenet complains that his now-infamous "slam dunk" phrase, used at a
2002 White House meeting, has been misrepresented and used to shift
blame to him. Explaining his remark for the first time in an interview
taped to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Tenet said he was referring
broadly to the case that could be made against Saddam - not the
presence of his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Tenet said the administration misrepresented his comment and used it
to shift blame as the debate heated up about the legitimacy of the
Iraq invasion. Tenet, who served as CIA chief from 1997 to 2004,
called the leak of the remark to journalist Bob Woodward "the most
despicable thing that ever happened" to him.

Bartlett played down the significance of the "slam dunk" remark,
saying the decision to go to war was shaped by intelligence reports
and "a whole body of evidence and behavior by Saddam Hussein that led
President Bush to believe that he had to be removed by force."

As to Tenet's take on the remark, Bartlett said, "I am a bit confused
by that because we have never indicated the president made the sole
decision based on that slam dunk comment."

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