Tenet: 'It is not possible to protect everything'

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MSNBC video

Tenet plays 'Hardball' — Part Two
May 7: "Hardball" host Chris Matthews continues his conversation with former CIA Director George Tenet, author of "In the Center of the Storm."

Hardball

MATTHEWS: So what did he accomplish?

TENET: Well, I mean, I think the secretary did a great job.

MATTHEWS: Did he?

TENET: He did a great job around the world.

MATTHEWS: But he was against the war.

TENET: Well, Chris, you know, at the end of the day, the secretary and I served. And we did our best.

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MATTHEWS: OK. Do you wish you had resigned?

TENET: No. No. You know, I have heard people talk about this.

MATTHEWS: It is up to you, I’m just asking.

TENET: No, no, no. And I will tell everybody why. Intelligence and policy on Iraq is a contact sport. We had a war with al Qaeda that consumed me. We had clandestine—we had British and American intelligence officers working to disarm Libya. It worked.

We had an effort under way to take down the A.Q. Khan network, it worked. We were rebuilding...

MATTHEWS: In Pakistan, yes.

TENET: Yes. We were rebuilding the American intelligence community. It was important. We were looking for WMD on the ground in Iraq. It was important. We were working on so many issues.

My days were filled with tough issues. My view was you stay in your job. You do your job. And you do the best you can.

MATTHEWS: Last question. You stay on the job. You have access to all of the intelligence we gather every day at the CIA. You also have people with historic backgrounds who understand the Middle East, understand the culture, no about the Sunni and the Shia long before I did.

TENET: Right.

MATTHEWS: They know the history of what happens to Western governments like the Brits or the French that go into Arabia and what happens to them. They get gobbled up in occupation. They end up having to resort to torture and fighting resistance with counterinsurgency.

All the hell we have going through for the last four years you guys knew was coming, right?

TENET: Chris, what we didn’t know was how we would implement what happened after the conflict, after the invasion phase. We didn’t know that. It’s interesting—

MATTHEWS: It could have been handled better.

TENET: To be certain, it could have been handled better, and there are a number of lessons—you cannot walk into a big country in the Middle East and command an entire country to do what you believe (INAUDIBLE).

MATTHEWS: Whose brilliant idea it was to de-Ba’athicize (ph), to tell the entire government of Iraq, We want you gone, we want the army gone, we’re going to disassemble you, go away, don’t come back, we’re going to rebuild this country from the ground up? Whose idea was that?

TENET: I don’t know whose idea it was, Chris. I do know this—I do know this: the de-Ba’athification and disbanding of the army was never something principals sat around and made a decision on. I know that.

MATTHEWS: Well, who decided it? Doug Feith, at the Defense Department? Who made these calls?

CONTINUED

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