A defiant Tenet delivers farewell address to CIA

The remarks came a day before the release of a Senate report criticizing the CIA.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON -- At a time when U.S. intelligence failures have prompted calls for sweeping reform, outgoing CIA director George J. Tenet delivered a farewell address to agency employees Thursday, urging them to resist unnecessary or unwanted changes.
Striking a defiant tone just days before he is scheduled to step down, Tenet told more than 1,000 CIA employees that they are the "owners" of the agency and are duty-bound to reject unwelcome incursions by outsiders.
"If people want to take us back in the wrong direction, then it is your voices that must be raised to say, 'We know better and we will not stand for it,'" Tenet said. "This institution is your own. We who serve as your leaders are stewards for limited periods of time."
Tenet's remarks amounted to a parting shot before today's scheduled release of a Senate report on intelligence failures that is said to be scathing in its criticism of the CIA and reportedly calls for an overhaul of the way the U.S. intelligence community is run.
About the report
The "Report on Pre-War Intelligence on Iraq," more than 400 pages long, is the culmination of a yearlong investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The probe was launched after it became clear that prewar assessments that Iraq had stockpiles of banned weapons were off the mark.
Describing the contents of the report, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, said Thursday that the CIA and other agencies "will properly be called to account for their failures." The agency's analytic work, Levin said in a written statement, "was way off, full of exaggerations and errors, mainly on weapons of mass destruction."
The report is divided into sections on assessments of Iraq's weapons program, its ties to terrorist groups, its reported efforts to procure uranium from Africa and the hurried process by which the CIA produced a National Intelligence Estimate -- the agency's most authoritative written judgment on a particular issue -- on Iraq in the months leading up to the war.
The agency is faulted for misreading the meaning of intercepts and satellite photos, for placing too much faith in the dubious claims of defectors, and for dismissing data that did not support preformed conclusions.
"They started with an assumption [that Iraq was still assembling banned weapons] and discarded evidence that was inconsistent with that," said a congressional source familiar with the contents of the report. In one case, the source said, the agency used information from an Iraqi scientist who said he had been involved in making a sort of "protein slurry" but insisted that he was unaware of any efforts to make biological weapons. "They just disregarded that part and used him as a primary source to make the case there is a bio-weapons program," the source said.
CIA officials have vigorously defended the agency's prewar estimates.
Alluded to report
During his speech Thursday, Tenet alluded to the forthcoming Senate report, saying: "In the end, the American people will weigh and assess our record -- where intelligence has done well and where we have fallen short. And, aware of the difficulties and limitations we face, they will honor and recognize your service."
Tenet has served as director of the CIA for the past seven years, longer than all but one of his predecessors. His comments urging employees to resist unwelcome reforms came during a passage of his speech in which he was recounting accomplishments during his tenure, including the expansion of the agency's clandestine service and improvements in recruitment, training and operations.
He did not detail what sorts of changes agency employees should block, but in the past he has been critical of proposals to create a new cabinet-level position that would oversee all 15 agencies in the intelligence community and outrank the director of the CIA.
Citing personal reasons, Tenet announced last month that he would step down Sunday.
He will be replaced on an interim basis by deputy director John McLaughlin.
The farewell ceremony Thursday, at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., was closed to reporters, but the agency released the text of Tenet's remarks.
The Senate report, which focuses on the prewar data collection and analysis by the intelligence community, finds no evidence that the agency tailored its assessments in response to political pressure.