WASHINGTON – CIA Director George Tenet – who got it all wrong about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – resigned yesterday for “personal reasons,” but insiders noted he walked the plank just days before the release of a damning congressional report.
The announcement from the 51-year-old spymaster and native New Yorker that he was quitting after seven years at the helm caught much of Washington by surprise.
It comes two weeks before the Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to publicly release its report on massive U.S. intelligence failures before the Iraq war – including the CIA’s conclusion that Saddam Hussein had WMD.
The Senate probe is “devastating” in its blistering criticism of Tenet, ABC News reported.
It was Tenet who reportedly personally reassured President Bush on the eve of the Iraq war that it was a “slam dunk” case that Saddam had WMD.
Sources said Bush and Tenet had agreed for some time that the CIA boss would quit this year and arranged “a graceful exit” for him.
Tenet timed the announcement to fall in between the recent bad-news testimony of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence bungling and the release next month of the final report of the commission, as well as the upcoming Senate report.
The CIA was aware of the Senate report’s contents because the agency is declassifying information so it can be released on June 17.
Tenet’s twin brother, William, a Queens doctor who has spoken with his brother frequently this week, told The Post that he had been wrestling with his “very difficult decision.”
Tenet notified Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card on Wednesday that he needed to see the president when he returned from the Air Force Academy graduation ceremonies that day.
The CIA chief informed Bush during a 45-minute talk later that day, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said.
McClellan insisted the president hadn’t been trying to ease Tenet out – but he indicated Bush didn’t try to talk him out of leaving.
Bush told reporters yesterday, “I will miss him.”
“He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I’m sorry he’s leaving. He’s done a superb job on behalf of the American people,” the president said.
Tenet’s decision comes as two other intelligence gaffes are under the spotlight – the alleged release of top secret data to Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi and the leak of a CIA operative’s name.
But an agency spokesman said Tenet’s resignation was “absolutely not” connected to those issues.
Bush, a friend of Tenet – who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton – broke the news to Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and senior staffers yesterday morning in the Oval Office.
Tenet emphasized the personal nature of the decision in a farewell address to CIA colleagues.
“And while Washington and the media will put many different faces on the decision, it was a personal decision and had only one basis in fact: the well-being of my wonderful family,” Tenet said.
“Nothing more and nothing less.”
His brother William said Tenet “would teach and do some writing” and spend more time with his family. Tenet scheduled his departure for July 11, the seventh anniversary of his taking the job.
Critics were quick to recall Tenet’s mistakes, including the botched WMD claims. Chalabi charged Tenet’s “policies caused the death of hundreds of Iraqis.”
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated suspicion over Tenet’s timing.
“I find it somewhat curious that the resignation occurs in the midst of the controversy over Mr. Chalabi,” she added.
Sen. Charles Schumer said, “Director Tenet is an honorable and decent man who has served his country well in difficult times and no one should make him a fall guy for anything.”
Bush said that Tenet’s deputy, John McLaughlin, will replace him temporarily.
With additional reporting by Andy Soltis and Jeremy Olshan
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George Tenet’s and the CIA’s worst 10 intelligence failures:
* Admitted last February that the CIA was never able penetrate Saddam Hussein’s inner circle and relied on second hand information for its assessments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
* Confidently assured a skeptical President Bush in a critical White House prewar meeting that it was a “slam dunk” that Saddam had WMD stockpiles
* Prepared Secretary of State Colin Powell for his presentation last year to the U.N. Security Council about Iraq’s weapons; Powell recently fumed that the sources of his information “were inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading.”
* Goofed by allowing Bush to falsely declare in his State of the Union Address last year that Iraq tried to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger.
* Persuaded Bush to launch a “decapitation” missile strike on Saddam and his two sons before the war; Tenet then called White House and said, “Tell the president we got the SOB.” Hours later, Saddam appeared on Iraqi TV.
* Failed to notify the FBI or INS that two known terrorists the CIA was tracking (and who eventually would take part in the 9/11 attacks) were trying to enter the country – and later, that they had entered
* Received a briefing paper in August 2001 about the arrest of alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, but did not act on the information or inform the White House
* Despite knowing of three cases in the 1990s in which terrorists planned to hijack airliners and fly them into buildings, never regarded the issue as a major threat or passed warnings onto local lawenforcement agencies
* Caught completely by surprise when India conducted a test of a nuclear bomb in 1998