Former CIA Director Tenet, Slam Dunk, WMD

The Death of CBS News: Anatomy of the George Tenet Interview

By Anthony Oluwatoyin

Monday, May 7, 2007

CBS News refuses to die with dignity. Over two years after the Dan Rather debacle that culminated in the celebrity-anchor's departure, the network is again deep in disdain with shameless liberal abandon.

Just this past Sunday, it was the not so well-veiled paean to one of the most foul Bush-bashers of the current crop, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. A week ago, it was that disastrous George Tenet interview. Both interviews were on 60 Minutes, once the flagship program of CBS.

Former CIA Director Tenet, forced out in the aftermath of the Liberation of Iraq, has responded in kind, with the most retaliatory memoir since Mommie Dearest.

So naturally, in interviewing Tenet, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley tried to match vindictive wit with the man, going full distance on a can of half-truths and buckets of suppressed questions at the cross-roads of disputed details and throwaway assumptions.

Tenet, now a Georgetown University Professor, lavishes himself, if not quite his audience, with articulations of the "great granularity" of occasion and circumstance as well as this or that "galvanizing moment." Pelley, determined not to be left behind, goes straight for the jugular, dredging up Tenet's infamous "slam dunk" case for the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that the subsequently executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was supposed to have.

Tenet went ballistic – with Beltway apologetics, exclaiming that he did not jump off the couch into the air, in a "Michael Jordan, Air Jordan routine," as celebrity-reporter Bob Woodward had claimed in one of his innumerable page-turner rags.

"What did you mean by slam dunk?" Pelley persisted. When Tenet referred to chemical and biological weapons, Pelley snapped, "But there was no hard evidence." Now just what evidence could be more "hard" than Saddam's 1988 Halabjah Kurdish attack with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents killing thousands? Pelley does not say. Nor does Tenet elaborate. In fact, it took U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, to remind Americans that the whole world believed that Saddam had WMD.

A true reporter would at least ask: Why did the whole world believe that Saddam had WMD? It would even be allowable to ask: Did the whole world believe that Saddam had WMD because America, the CIA specifically, induced a global MSD (Mutually Shared Deception)?

As for Tenet's mention of WMD "technical data" with which, he said, "You're not gonna win a criminal case," but "You might win a civil case," Pelley was driven to a feigned dismay worthy of the Queen of Manufactured Exasperation, his 60 Minutes colleague, Lesley Stahl. "We are going to war," Pelley squealed with unqueenly decorum, "Tens of thousands of people are going to be killed. And you're telling me you had evidence to prove a civil case, not a criminal case?"

Now remember that the generic standard for civil litigation is "preponderance of the evidence," – to be sure, not in the same league as "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal prosecution, but not to be sniffed at either. With Saddam's model secrecy of the closed society, it is a simple wonder there is any evidence of anything like WMD? In such a case, "preponderance" is not quite shy of a complete triumph.

Tenet pled. He spoke of "national intelligence estimates," adding, "You don't make this kind of stuff up." Pelley couldn't wait. Having convinced himself – certainly not his audience – of scoring a TKO, he dismissed the groveling Tenet: "Wait a minute, you did make this kind of stuff up."

Well, CBS ought to know about making stuff up. In spite of Tenet's protestations to the contrary, Pelley insisted that Tenet confess that America engages in torture ("Come on George"). Tenet explained that the CIA deals with people "that will never, ever, ever tell you a thing. These are people who know who's responsible for the next terrorist attack. These are hardened people that would kill you and me 30 seconds after they got out of wherever they were being held and wouldn't blink an eyelash …."

A true journalist would at least ask: "But should we resort to torture?" In case you think that sounds too much like a question of policy or normative principle that goes beyond a reporter's factual inquiry, consider that Pelley had no problem asking, "Did anyone at the White House, did anyone in the defense department ever ask you whether we should go to war in Iraq?"

Ah. How we give ourselves away. Yes. The liberal media's favourite question of the day. Should we have gone to war in the first place? A question loaded to elicit the most war-phobic naïveté short of actually being brain-dead. No hesitation with that meta-journalistic dialectic!

Whereas, just broaching the question: "Why torture?" on the other hand, might – just might – lead to an honest discussion of trade-offs, of juggling necessary evils in desperate times.

Not to worry. The Queen is back on her throne. Not the one just now visiting the U.S. Rather, Queen Lesley whose feigning could give Cleopatra a run for her fainting spells in the art of seduction. Lesley Stahl salutes Lou Dobbs ("he's an incredibly tough debater") then turning to his endless Bush attacks, goes for her vintage: "I'm sitting here saying to myself, "This man runs a news show? … and you can just tell me you don't like the president. Woo." Of course we know she and her gang just really, really love Ol' Dubya, eh?

Woo.