Drumheller: 'Caught up in the march to war'

DRUMHELLER:  Yes.  Another important thing that in the war on terror is that the resources that were taken out of Afghanistan, the guys that Gary needed for Iraq, really did hurt. 

MATTHEWS:  Why is George Tenet so supportive of the Bush family and not supportive of the agency he was leading?  Why doesn’t he admit that he was given a report and the report was going back to the vice president after he triggered that inquiry about a deal with Niger to buy nuclear materials?  Why didn’t the vice president tell the president you can’t claim a nuclear threat from Iraq, we just found out from a former ambassador, Joe Wilson, that there is nothing to the case?  Why didn’t the paper trail go to the president?

DRUMHELLER:  I think George Tenet was caught up in the march to war, just like everybody else.

MATTHEWS:  Was he under orders? 

DRUMHELLER:  No, I don’t really think, I don’t think they pressured intelligence.   They never came and said do this and do that.  The direction to go was very clear.

MATTHEWS:  What did he mean when I asked him "why didn’t the vice president get a report back from the trip to Africa by Joe Wilson?"  That would have cleared this whole thing up.  He said to ask him.  What does that mean? 

DRUMHELLER:  I think it means that George didn’t want to answer because he knew what the answer was.

MATTHEWS:  Which was he got a report. 

Why didn’t all of this intelligence work by you pros to try find out the threat about the real threat from Saddam Hussein, before, after, during the war, why didn’t it get to the American people through the president and vice president?  Why was there a wall separating us from the truth? 

BERNTSEN:  I think that the agency was trying to provide the intelligence to policymakers, that’s our role, to policymakers, not to the American public.  What the president does with that information is his business. 

MATTHEWS:  In this case, he didn’t give us the full scoop, right? 

BERNTSEN:  Apparently. 

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