‘Meet the Press’ transcript for May 6, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  But where, where do you stop enabling the administration and, and start saying, "I don't agree with you in what you're doing?"

MR. TENET:  Well, Tim, Tim, I will tell you that I had many conversations, particularly on Iraq and al-Qaeda, particularly on the terrorism question, where we drew the line as sharply as we knew how. We were very, very clear about our judgments.  We worked very, very hard to make sure that people comported and stayed within the bounds of what the intelligence showed.  At the end of the day, Tim, they also make their own risk calculations.  And is every statement that everybody every uttered perfect?
No.

MR. RUSSERT:  Colin Powell went before, as you know, the United Nations, a pivotal time, and he was someone who was seen as not particularly interested in the war in Iraq...

MR. TENET:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...or as supportive as others.

MR. TENET:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  He was kind of pivotal in that regard on the world stage.  He came to you and sat with you and your closest advisers...

MR. TENET:  For over three nights.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...three nights.  He went before the United Nations and said this:

(Videotape, February 5, 2003)

SEC'Y OF STATE COLIN POWELL:  Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.  These are not assertions.  What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  He now says that that presentation was inaccurate and that it's a blot on his career.

MR. TENET:  And we let the secretary down, and we undermined the credibility of the United States because we, we worked very hard for three nights.  We believed we put together a presentation that we thought was good and solid. And we know that once we got on the ground, and we know that once we started learning things, that that presentation didn't stand up.  So, you know, I sat behind, I sat behind the secretary of state.  We sat there for three and a half days trying to make sure that he said what we believed.  We worked very, very hard.  We started with a draft that wasn't our own.  We spent two and a half days trying to figure out where, where half the stuff came from.  You know, the notion that we would walk the secretary of state out on the world stage and knowingly let him say there--things that were wrong--you know, someone I was close to, someone I had an enormous amount of respect for, it was a dark moment for all of us, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT:  Is it a blot on your career?

MR. TENET:  Well, well, well, Tim, yes, of course.  We, we, we, we collectively cleared a speech that the secretary gave.  Nobody regrets this more than I do.

MR. RUSSERT:  Before we take a break, I want to clear up one situation in the front of your book about Richard Perle.

MR. TENET:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  You open the book with these words:  "Wednesday, September 12, 2001, dawned as the first full day of a world gone mad.  As I walked beneath the awning that leads to the West Wing, [I] saw Richard Perle exiting the building just as I was about to enter.  As the doors closed behind him, we made eye contact and nodded.  I had just reached the door myself when Perle turned to me and said, `Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.' I looked back at Perle and thought:  Who has [he] been meeting with in the White House so early in the morning on today of all days?"

Perle yesterday sent MEET THE PRESS this statement:  "George Tenet tells his readers that on
September 12, 'today of all days' I told him that Iraq was responsible for the attack of" September 11. "This false claim is an obvious attempt to escape the responsibility for the intelligence failures of the agency he headed.  But more important, it shows that even five years later he fails to understand that the decision to remove Saddam was based on the danger posed by Iraq, especially Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction--the certainty of which was repeated in every intelligence report and briefing I received from the CIA and other intelligence agencies.  I was out of the country on" September 11, "unable to return until September 15. When I did run into Mr.  Tenet at the White House a week later, we had already concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for" September 11.  "I never made the remark Tenet attributes to me, or anything like it."

MR. TENET:  We, we, we had not concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for September 11.  That conversation may have, may have occurred days later.  It is the conversation that I--that, that occurred, and I stand by what happened that day.

MR. RUSSERT:  He said those words to you.

MR. TENET:  Yes, he did.  And so for him to say that we had concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, well, I'd like to know who made that conclusion.

MR. RUSSERT:  When you say "yesterday" and "today of all days"?

MR. TENET:  Well, Tim, I, I obviously--this is a jumbled, very difficult period of time.  I may be off by a few days.  What he said seems to be corroborated by what he said to another journalist.  Mr. Novak has said he was called on September 17, and Mr.  Perle said something like, "Well, aren't enough--there aren't enough targets in Afghanistan; let's go to Iraq.' And it's--it also is corroborative of the fact that he sent a letter to the president on September the 20 that mirrors those feelings.  So I may have been off on the day, but I'm not off on what he said and what he believed.

MR. RUSSERT:  We're going to take a quick break.  We are talking to George Tenet.  He headed up the CIA during and leading up to September 11, and during the lead-up to the Iraq war.  His new book, "At the Center of the Storm." We'll be right back.

                               (Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  More with the former director of central intelligence George Tenet and his new book after this station break.

                               (Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we are back.

I want to go back, leading up to September 11.

MR. TENET:  All right.

MR. RUSSERT:  In March, you went in to see Stephen Hadley, who was then Condoleezza Rice's deputy of the National Security Council, and said, "I want to expand my authorities."

MR. TENET:  Well, we were asked to send them those authorities.

MR. RUSSERT:  And you brought them in?

MR. TENET:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  The next day, you got a call saying, "Can you take these back because we want--or roll back the clock, we don't want to have to be set to this timetable."

MR. TENET:  Tim, in fairness, I also said, "You've got to get your policies in order.  You've got to consider covert action thoughtfully in a policy context." They weren't quite ready to get those policy deliberations done. we're not ready to receive those authorities yet.

MR. RUSSERT:  So you took them back?

MR. TENET:  Yes, sir.

MR. RUSSERT:  You regret taking them back?

MR. TENET:  No.  It's, you know, authorities is--the policy process determines when covert action is going to be used.  They did send them back, and, and they deliberated.

MR. RUSSERT:  Then in June, a briefer of the CIA named Rich B gave a conclusion saying, based on all the reporting we've seen, that "bin Laden is going to launch a significant terrorist attack against U.S." Israeli "interest in the coming weeks." July 10 you got another briefing so alarming that you picked up the phone, said to Condoleezza Rice, "I want to come see you now," jumped in the car with some of your key advisers, went to see her.  Rich B, he gave her a briefing package.  Opening line, "There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months!" And then you--and later July, Rich B sitting at the CIA, said, "They're coming here." When he told you that, what did you think?

MR. TENET:  It was a moment I'll never forget.  We, we were sitting there trying to rack our brains, trying to figure out what we were up against at that moment.  And you know, Rich, Rich said that, it hung over the room.  We had no texture.  We took it seriously, you know, but we had no texture at that moment.  Of course, this is a, this is a human being who's been following this for many years, and he's giving us an instinctual call.

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