George Tenet Quotes
We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America. Period.
Tenet, George. Interview by Scott Pelley. 60 Minutes, CBS, 29 Apr. 2007.
He had continuously been accused of not going after the infamous terrorist who people were suspecting was hiding in Pakistan. The President had heard these reports but maintained that he did not know where bin Laden was. On this occasion he challenged his challenger.
36 days later, September 11, he did strike. See {617467} for some of the specific contents. The memo was kept secret by the Bush administration until public pressure as a result of the 9-11 Commission hearings forced the declassification and release. At that point it became clear that there was no reason that the memo could not have been released much earlier except that it was embarrassing. See {637530} and {637533} for two other Bin Laden Warnings that Bush and his team ignored.
Bush claimed he did not remember the conversation. His incoming National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was also briefed about bin Laden by the Clinton anti-terrorism director, Richard Clarke. The Bush Administration ignored the warnings until bin Laden struck on 9-11
No civilian planes were allowed to fly the day after the 9-11 attack except one—a Saudi Arabian Charter plane that carried the Saudis, who had assisted the terrorist hijackers, to Saudi Arabia. Some of them were members of the Saudi Royal family. As a result, none of them was made available to the FBI, the Justice Department or the Presidential Commission investigating the attack. The United States seemed not to have used much pressure to interrogate these Saudis, and someone in the White House must have made the exception for this airplane. This quotation is a concise statement of the major open question about the 9-11 attack. Some in the large Saudi Royal Family and other wealthy Saudis have, under the guise of Islamic charities, provided much money for support of terrorists and terrorist organizations.
George John Tenet is a former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
