This makes me think less of everyone involved. Reading between the lines, it’s clear what happened: the WH speechwriters and the NSC staff put the b.s. assertion in, the CIA folks said it had to come out, the WH bludgeoned them into accepting the silly compromise where the false assertion was attributed to the Brits. So the White House folks make the CIA take the rap for not standing up to the White House, and Tenet goes along with it. Amazing!
Note that “the CIA never briefed the Vice President” doesn’t mean “the CIA never reported back to the VP’s office on the investigation the VP had asked for.”
I don’t know how the Bush White House manages to make seemingly self-respecting people crawl like this: first DiIulio, now Tenet. But it’s pretty disgusting.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman