The System Worked On Lake; Will It On Tenet?
(Washington, D.C.): The failure of
Tony Lake’s nomination to become Director
of Central Intelligence (DCI) was not, as
President Clinton and the nominee have
suggested, the result of a
“political circus,” an act of
“political revenge” or
Washington having “gone
haywire.” Such statements
more closely support the criticism that
the Clinton Administration is
politicizing intelligence policy-making
than describe the Lake confirmation
process. This is especially true since it
was the conclusion of the Senate
Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat,
Robert Kerrey, that Tony Lake was unfit
that directly sealed Mr. Lake’s fate.
The truth is that the Lake
nomination failed because the
Intelligence Committee did its job
— evaluating very serious issues that
would, in any other era, have been
universally seen as show-stoppers for a
DCI candidate. Some argue that that job
could have been performed more elegantly
or expeditiously. Given the
still-unfolding nature of the various
Clinton scandals which bore upon Tony
Lake’s fitness to serve as head of the
CIA, however, a time-consuming, thorough
and sometimes messy vetting process was
unavoidable.
Far from deserving criticism for
making the enormous investment of
executive time and energy required to
perform this vetting function, the
Intelligence Committee and especially its
chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby, deserve
every American’s thanks. They have spared
the U.S. Intelligence Community — and
the Nation it serves — a DCI incapable
of providing the leadership so urgently
required.
Enter George Tenet
With President Clinton’s appointment
yesterday of George Tenet as his next
DCI-designate, however, there appears
some danger that the system will not
work the next time around. This
nomination reflects, above all, an
understandable desire on the part of the
President and the Intelligence Committee
— on both sides of the aisle — quickly
to fill the vacancy at the Central
Intelligence Agency and to put the rancor
engendered by the last nominee behind
them.
Unfortunately, it is a mistake
to nominate someone to lead the U.S.
Intelligence Community at this critical
juncture principally because he would
appear likely to be swiftly confirmed.
A report featured on the CBS Evening News
last night, concerning allegations that
Tenet may have leaked information about
sensitive CIA operations to the New
York Times, is a reminder that confirmation
— let alone speedy confirmation
— is not guaranteed simply because the
candidate is well-known to the executive
and legislative branches and has already
been confirmed by the Senate for another
senior position.
Further allegations suggesting Mr.
Tenet’s involvement in leaks that damaged
covert intelligence operations have come
to the attention of the Center for
Security Policy today. On 12 April 1995,
the New York Times’ Elaine
Sciolino published an article disclosing
that the Iraqi National Congress (INC)
was receiving support from the Central
Intelligence Agency. Speculation centers
on Tenet as the source of this leak due
to his apparent sympathy for the
so-called “Accord” (a
London-based anti-Saddam faction) and the
pique of the National Security Council
(on which he served at the time) over
Kurdish/INC probing attacks on Iraqi
forces that had not been authorized by
the U.S.
The leak blew the cover for
clandestine operatives in northern Iraq
and exacerbated what were, by April 1995,
already somewhat adversarial relations
between the “Accord” and the
Iraqi-based INC. This, in turn, served to
undermine the entire Agency effort to
oppose Saddam Hussein, leading in August
1996 to the latter’s incursion that
rolled up the CIA program in the North,
resulting in the murder of numerous
friends of the United States and the
forced evacuation of thousands more.
The Problem with George
Whether or not these reports (or
others likely to emerge) pan out, the
trouble with nominating George Tenet —
or for that matter virtually any
other senior Clinton national
security/justice/law enforcement official
— is that such individuals may well be
implicated in the sorts of controversies
that proved to be show-stoppers for Tony
Lake. With new allegations
emerging practically daily suggesting
that the work of both the National
Security Council and the Central
Intelligence Agency have been improperly,
if not “illegally,” politicized
to accommodate the demands of Democratic
fund-raisers, (1)
it seems obvious that the next
DCI should be drawn from outside the
ranks of this Administration.
The appointment as DCI of Mr. Tenet or
anybody else who may be laden with such
Clinton Administration baggage risks
inflicting still more
controversy and notoriety on the
Intelligence Community at a time when it
can ill afford further morale-sapping
disruptions.
A Missed Opportunity?
Such an appointment also is
regrettable since it represents a
lost opportunity to appoint someone to
the position of Director of Central
Intelligence with the combination of
stature, expertise, independence and
integrity that the U.S. Intelligence
Community so urgently needs at this
troubled moment in its history.
Tenet has largely been the invisible man
during his tenure at the CIA —
overshadowed by his vainglorious former
boss, Director John Deutch, and made
largely irrelevant by the responsibility
Deutch reposed in his controversial and
autocratic Executive Director, Nora
Slatkin, to perform virtually all
day-to-day management functions.
Curiously, even after Deutch’s departure
several months ago, Slatkin has continued
to be the de facto Director.
Tenet has not been an effective force for
either real reform or a restoration of
morale at the CIA.
As the Center observed in the
immediate aftermath of Lake’s withdrawal,(2)
what the Intelligence Community
desperately needs now is a leader who
will not only enjoy an expedited
confirmation process. Much more
importantly, it requires someone who
will, from Day One, have the confidence
of that community’s professionals and
command the respect of Congress, his or
her counterparts in the executive branch,
foreign interlocutors, the public and the
press.
Ideally, such an individual would be
disinterested in further personal
advancement, and therefore unhampered in
making the personal investment —
including, where necessary, taking risks
— necessary to restore the capabilities
of the CIA, its sister agencies and
especially the organizations responsible
for counter-intelligence to perform the
priority missions assigned to them. These
missions are becoming, after all, more
complex and demanding in the
“post-Cold War world” than ever
they were during the “Twilight
Struggle.” He must also be able to
command the President’s attention while
resisting pressure from the White House
to refrain from speaking truth to power.
The Bottom Line
The Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence now faces an unenviable task
in vetting its former Staff Director for
the position of DCI. Personal
ties and professional courtesy must not
be permitted to prevent the Committee
from evaluating George Tenet every bit as
thoroughly and unflinchingly as it did
his former boss, Anthony Lake.
This review must take into account not
only the significant possibility that
this nominee — like Tony Lake — will
not be able to escape altogether
responsibility for what he knew (or did
not know) about odious campaign
fund-raising activities, Chinese
penetration operations and damaging leaks
of classified information by the NSC
and/or CIA. No less importantly, the
Select Committee must also consider
whether this nominee really brings to the
U.S. Intelligence Community the sort of
strong, independent and prestigious
leadership it must have now and over
the next four years.
– 30 –
1. Regrettably, as
noted in the attached
lead editorial from today’s Wall
Street Journal and emphasized
repeatedly by the Center over the past
four years (see such Center products as The
Clinton Security Clearance Melt-Down:
‘No-Gate’ Demonstrates ‘It’s The People,
Stupid’ [
25 March 1994], Before U.S.
Intelligence Can Be Reformed, The Clinton
Administration Must Stop Deforming
It [
6 May 1996], ‘High Crimes And
Misdemeanors’? The Huang Caper Reinforces
Concerns About Clinton Malfeasance On
Security Matters [
1 November 1996], and Fiddling
While The Nation’s Nuclear Weapons
Complex ‘Burns’ Down: O’Leary’s Last
Denuclearization Shot? [
29 November 1996]), the Clinton
Administration’s reprehensible breaches
of personnel and information security
extend far beyond the NSC and CIA.
2. See the
Center’s Decision Brief entitled
In Lake’s Wake, A Higher Standard for
D.C.I. (
March 1997).
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