<snip>

In the midst of the al Qaeda threat, Tenet says he was astonished and mystified when the White House turned its aim to Iraq.

Tenet told 60 Minutes the war in Iraq is "a national tragedy." He says he realized it was the end of his career when he picked up The Washington Post and saw that he was being blamed for the decision to go to war. In classic Washington fashion, someone had leaked a story suggesting that the president decided to attack after Tenet said the evidence against Iraq was a "slam dunk."

In our interview, Tenet admits the CIA's mistakes and his own. But what makes him angry now is how the White House ignored CIA warnings, cooked the books on intelligence, and then used "slam dunk" to brand him with the failure.

"The hardest part of all of this has just been listening to this for almost three years. Listening to the vice president go on 'Meet The Press' on the fifth year of 9/11, and say, 'Well, George Tenet said, slam dunk.' As if he needed me to say slam dunk to go to war with Iraq," Tenet tells Pelley. "And they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. You know, 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth."

The truth of Iraq begins, according to Tenet, the day after the attack of Sept. 11, when he ran into Pentagon advisor Richard Perle at the White House.

"He said to me, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday, they bear responsibility.' It’s September the 12th. I’ve got the manifest with me that tell me al Qaeda did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way shape or form and I remember thinking to myself, as I'm about to go brief the president, 'What the hell is he talking about?'" Tenet remembers.

"You said Iraq made no sense to you in that moment. Does it make any sense to you today?" Pelley asks.

"In terms of complicity with 9/11, absolutely none," Tenet says. "It never made any sense. 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."

"The president, in October of 2002, quote: 'We need to think about Saddam Hussein using al Qaeda to do his dirty work.' Is that what you're telling the president?" Pelley asks.

"Well, we didn't believe al Qaeda was gonna do Saddam Hussein's dirty work," Tenet says.

"January '03, the president again, [said] quote: 'Imagine those 19 hijackers this time armed by Saddam Hussein.' Is that what you're telling the president?" Pelley asks.

"No," Tenet says.

The vice president upped the ante, claiming Saddam had nuclear weapons, when the CIA was saying he didn’t.

"What's happening here?" Pelley asks.

"Well, I don't know what's happening here," Tenet says. "The intelligence community's judgment is 'He will not have a nuclear weapon until the year 2007, 2009.'"

"That's not what the vice president's saying," Pelley remarks.

"Well, I can't explain it," Tenet says.

Tenet says he sometimes warned the White House its statements were false, but he admits that he missed a big one in the 2003 State of the Union address, when the president said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The CIA had knocked down that uranium claim months before. The agency even demanded it be taken out of two previous presidential speeches. How did it get through the third time?

"I didn't read the speech. I was involved in a bunch of other things," Tenet says.

"Wait a minute, the president’s State of the Union," Pelley remarks. "You didn't read that?"

"Right, I didn’t, farmed it out, got it at a principal's meeting, brought it down the hall, handed it to my executive assistant. I said, 'You guys go review this, and come back to me if I need to do anything,'" Tenet remembers.

"Nobody comes back to you?" Pelley asks.

"And therein lies why I ultimately have to take my share of responsibility," Tenet says.

"Did anyone at the White House, did anyone in the defense department ever ask you whether we should go to war in Iraq?" Pelley asks.

"The discussions that are on-going in 2002 in the spring and summer of 2002 are 'How you might do this?' Not whether you should do this," Tenet says.

"Nobody asks?" Pelley asks.

"Well, I don't remember sitting down in a principles committee meeting and everybody saying, 'Okay, there's a deep concern about Iraq. Is this the right thing to do? What are the implications?' I don’t ever remember that galvanizing moment when people sit around and honestly say 'Is this the right thing to do?'"

Still, at CIA headquarters, Tenet's team was about to make a historic blunder of its own. The CIA produced its evaluation of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in a secret report called a "National Intelligence Estimate."

"The first key judgment in the national intelligence estimate says, quote, 'Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons.' Period," Pelley says.

"High confidence judgment," Tenet replies.

How could he make such a bold statement? Says Tenet, "We believed he had chemical and biological weapons."

"But there was no hard evidence," Pelley remarks.

"No, no. There was lots of data. There's lots of technical data," Tenet says. "So you put all of this together, it's not evidence in the court of law. Remember, when you write an estimate, when you estimate, you’re writing what you don't know. You might win a civil case. Huh? You're not gonna win a criminal case, in terms of evidence."

"We are going to war. 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?" Pelley asks,

"Well, as you know, hindsight is perfect. The public face on this what we wrote on weapons of mass destruction and for professionals, who pride themselves on being right, this is a very painful experience for us," Tenet acknowledges.

</snip>

Full story here (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/25/60minutes/main2728375.shtml).

In the midst of the al Qaeda threat, Tenet says he was astonished and mystified when the White House turned its aim to Iraq.

No matter what evidence you bring to the table, sedan, the Rightwing zombies will keep their heads firmly planted in the sand. I have spoken to many of them in person, and they are willfully blind to B*sh's and his Administration's lies to an extent that is simply beyond belief.

There is nothing you can do, nothing you can say that will make them admit the truth; that B*sh and his people first decided to go to war against Iraq, and THEN began to try to find ways to promote such a policy and sell it to a gullible Public.

In the midst of the al Qaeda threat, Tenet says he was astonished and mystified when the White House turned its aim to Iraq.
Mr. Tenet wasn't the only one. It made no sense to me then and it makes no sense to me now.

There is nothing you can do, nothing you can say that will make them admit the truth; that B*sh and his people first decided to go to war against Iraq, and THEN began to try to find ways to promote such a policy and sell it to a gullible Public.
Very scary to think about that.

It reminds me of when Rosie O'Donnell was talking about how historically governments have incited incidents to plunge a nation into war.

So the rehabilitation of Tenet has now begun.

He has found the path to popularity and power in much the same way it was discovered by John Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington and Michael Moore.
All of these people had achieved some modicum of success but absolutely took off when their attacks and criticism took on a more specific target.

Perhaps everything he's saying is true, but talk about going from zero to hero......

So the rehabilitation of Tenet has now begun.

He has found the path to popularity and power in much the same way it was discovered by John Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington and Michael Moore.
All of these people had achieved some modicum of success but absolutely took off when their attacks and criticism took on a more specific target.

Perhaps everything he's saying is true, but talk about going from zero to hero......

How is this different from Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh..?

How is this different from Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh..?
Michael Moore rose to a little temporary fame with Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine but what sky-rocketed him tp fame?
John Stewart was a standup comedian for many years, appeared in a Muppet Movie and hosted the Daily Show for a year or so before the format of the Daily Show turned toward a specific agenda.
Olbermann? Maher? Franken?
What made them all suddenly so famous in the last couple years after toiling with middling fame for so long?

Are you saying that those conservatives you've named changed their focus and rode it to fame? Limbaugh and Hannity always had a pronounced right wing slant and focus that was evident in what they said (I don't know too much about Ann Coulter).

Perhaps everything he's saying is true......

Isn't this the point that really matters?

Before the anti-war crowd gets all hot and bothered about Tenet they do well to consider the comments of a former colleague. Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, long-time opponent of the war, and clearly no friend of the admin had this to say about his former boss Tenet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702052.html

...we shouldn't buy his attempts to let himself off the hook.


At a time when clear direction and moral courage were needed, Tenet shifted course to follow the prevailing winds, under President Bill Clinton and then President Bush -- and he provided distraught officers at Langley a shoulder to cry on when his politically expedient tacking sailed the United States into disaster.

"I was talking to the national security adviser and the president and the vice president every day," Tenet told the commission during a nationally televised hearing on March 24, 2004. "I certainly didn't get a sense that anybody was not paying attention to what I was doing and what I was briefing and what my concerns were and what we were trying to do." Now a "frustrated" Tenet writes that he held an urgent meeting with Rice on July 10, 2001, to try to get "the full attention of the administration" and "finally get us on track." He can't have it both ways.

Since 2001, however, several key Clinton counterterrorism insiders (including NSC staffers Richard A. Clarke, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon) have reported that Tenet consistently denigrated the targeting data on bin Laden, causing the president and his team to lose confidence in the hard-won intelligence. "We could never get over the critical hurdle of being able to corroborate Bin Ladin's whereabouts," Tenet now writes. That of course is untrue, but it spared him from ever having to explain the awkward fallout if an attempt to get bin Laden failed. None of this excuses Clinton's disinterest in protecting Americans, but it does show Tenet's easy willingness to play for patsies the CIA officers who risked their lives to garner intelligence and then to undercut their work to avoid censure if an attack went wrong.

He comes across as a politician, more interested in going along to get along than somone with an actual story to tell.

What made them all suddenly so famous in the last couple years after toiling with middling fame for so long?

Gee, I dunno. Could it be that the public, which heretofore has been subject only to right-wing talk-show types, woke up to the fact that the conservatives have been lying to them since forever? Maybe the citizenry realized that liberals have do something truthful and valuable to share, and decided to listen to them, instead...

It's pretty easy to figure out when you put the liberal pundit ascendency timeline next to the BushCo lying-about-everything timeline.

:rolleyes:

Perhaps it also explains why Condoleeza Rice has become so reticent to testify before Congress. I understand the Executive Privlege principal, and realize the valid reasons for the refusal at times. It just seems strange that she was quite willing to appear when Republicans controlled Congress, and Administration officials could appear informally without being sworn to tell the truth, but now that Democrats control the Congress, and oaths must be sworn, it is a matter of Executive Privlege.
I'm sure that swearing an oath must have damaged Alberto Gonzalez's brain. Suddenly a guy who was intelligent, forceful, and combative in his previous unsworn testimony to Congress couldn't remember much of anything about what he did as Attorney General. Funny how swearing an oath to tell the truth will do that to a person.
Perjury charges are a problem for the liars amongst our leaders, just ask Bill Clinton and various members of the Nixon Administration.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brooks
Perhaps everything he's saying is true......


Isn't this the point that really matters?

Actually not to me. The point that matters to me is that he didn't say it before when he was in a position to do something. Now that he's out he's doing nothing but trying to make a name for himself and make a fast million off the people willing to listen to him. If he knew about all this when he was in PUBLIC office and did nothing or said nothing, I say lets make him really famous and put him on trils for being an accomplice to deceiving the american people. And if it isn't a law thats on the books let's put it there and rein these politicians in a bit. Repuclican, Democrat, Independent, they are all liars and will continue to be until we don't take it anymore. Until then stop being surprised by anything any one of them do.

So the rehabilitation of Tenet has now begun.

He has found the path to popularity and power in much the same way it was discovered by John Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington and Michael Moore.
All of these people had achieved some modicum of success but absolutely took off when their attacks and criticism took on a more specific target.

Perhaps everything he's saying is true, but talk about going from zero to hero......I don't think you have to worry about Mr. Tenet gaining heroic stature anytime soon:

Officers: Ex-CIA chief Tenet a 'failed' leader
POSTED: 10:16 p.m. EDT, April 29, 2007

(CNN) -- In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership."

The writers said Tenet has "a moral obligation" to return the Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush.

They also called on him to give more than half the royalties he gets from book, "At the Center of the Storm," to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and families of the dead. (Watch Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice talk about Tenet's book)

The letter, signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael, said Tenet should have resigned in protest rather than take part in the administration's buildup to the war. (Read the full letter)

Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000. McGovern is a former CIA analyst.

Cannistraro is former head of the CIA's counterterrorism division and was head of intelligence for the National Security Council in the late 1980s.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/tenet.letter/index.html

29 April 2007
Mr. George Tenet
c/o Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
8th Floor
New York City, New York 10022
ATTN: Ms. Tina Andredis

Dear Mr. Tenet:
We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the "damage to your reputation". In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.

We agree with you that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials took the United States to war for flimsy reasons. We agree that the war of choice in Iraq was ill-advised and wrong headed. But your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.

You are not alone in failing to speak up and protest the twisting and shading of intelligence. Those who remained silent when they could have made a difference also share the blame for not protesting the abuse and misuse of intelligence that occurred under your watch. But ultimately you were in charge and you signed off on the CIA products and you briefed the President.

This is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking. You helped send very mixed signals to the American people and their legislators in the fall of 2002. CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq. This intelligence was ignored and later misused. On October 1 you signed and gave to President Bush and senior policy makers a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)--which dovetailed with unsupported threats presented by Vice President Dick Cheney in an alarmist speech on August 26, 2002.

You were well aware that the White House tried to present as fact intelligence you knew was unreliable. And yet you tried to have it both ways. On October 7, just hours before the president gave a major speech in Cincinnati, you were successful in preventing him from using the fable about Iraq purchasing uranium in Africa, although that same claim appeared in the NIE you signed only six days before.

Although CIA officers learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, you still went before Congress in February 2003 and testified that Iraq did indeed have links to Al Qaeda.

You showed a lack of leadership and courage in January of 2003 as the Bush Administration pushed and cajoled analysts and managers to let them make the bogus claim that Iraq was on the verge of getting its hands on uranium. You signed off on Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. And, at his insistence, you sat behind him and visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset--credibility."

You may now feel you were bullied and victimized but you were also one of the bullies. In the end you allowed suspect sources, like Curveball, to be used based on very limited reporting and evidence. Yet you were informed in no uncertain terms that Curveball was not reliable. You broke with CIA standard practice and insisted on voluminous evidence to refute this reporting rather than treat the information as suspect. You helped set the bar very low for reporting that supported favored White House positions, while raising the bar astronomically high when it came to raw intelligence that did not support the case for war being hawked by the president and vice president.

It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community--a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge. Curiously, you focus your anger on the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, but you decline to criticize the President.

Mr. Tenet, as head of the intelligence community, you failed to use your position of power and influence to protect the intelligence process and, more importantly, the country. What should you have done? What could you have done?

For starters, during the critical summer and fall of 2002, you could have gone to key Republicans and Democrats in the Congress and warned them of the pressure. But you remained silent. Your candor during your one-on-one with Sir Richard Dearlove, then-head of British Intelligence, of July 20, 2002" provides documentary evidence that you knew exactly what you were doing; namely, "fixing" the intelligence to the policy.

By your silence you helped build the case for war. You betrayed the CIA officers who collected the intelligence that made it clear that Saddam did not pose an imminent threat. You betrayed the analysts who tried to withstand the pressure applied by Cheney and Rumsfeld. Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States. Instead of resigning in protest, when it could have made a difference in the public debate, you remained silent and allowed the Bush Administration to cite your participation in these deliberations to justify their decision to go to war. Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq, which has killed more than 3300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

If you are committed to correcting the record about your past failings then you should start by returning the Medal of Freedom you willingly received from President Bush in December 2004. You claim it was given only because of the war on terror, but you were standing next to General Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer, who also contributed to the disaster in Iraq. President Bush said that you:

played pivotal roles in great events, and [your] efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty.

The reality of Iraq, however, has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous. The damage to the credibility of the CIA is serious but can eventually be repaired. Many of the U.S. soldiers maimed in the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad cannot be fixed. Many will live the rest of their lives missing limbs, blinded, mentally disabled, or physically disfigured. And the dead have passed into history.

Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.

Sincerely yours,

Phil Giraldi
Ray McGovern
Larry Johnson
Jim Marcinkowski
Vince Cannistraro
David MacMichael

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-c-johnson/an-open-letter-to-george-_b_47193.html

Isn't this the point that really matters?It's one of them.
But I also think all the people in the media and on these Forums should feel a little dirty after deriding Tenet, and the President for supporting him, and then giving him new found credibility.

Maybe the citizenry realized that liberals have do something truthful and valuable to share, and decided to listen to them, instead...
Maybe. I'm not arguing that.
All I was saying is that these individuals rode a wave and cynically tailored their acts to tap into what they thought would bring in the big bucks.

Michael Moore rose to a little temporary fame with Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine but what sky-rocketed him tp fame?
John Stewart was a standup comedian for many years, appeared in a Muppet Movie and hosted the Daily Show for a year or so before the format of the Daily Show turned toward a specific agenda.
Olbermann? Maher? Franken?
What made them all suddenly so famous in the last couple years after toiling with middling fame for so long?

Are you saying that those conservatives you've named changed their focus and rode it to fame? Limbaugh and Hannity always had a pronounced right wing slant and focus that was evident in what they said (I don't know too much about Ann Coulter).

I think guys like Maher and Stewart would be just as successful if they made fun of liberals.

I think guys like Maher and Stewart would be just as successful if they made fun of liberals.

Being a regular viewer of both, I can say with certainty that they do make fun of liberals also. Especially if they are their guests.

Being a regular viewer of both, I can say with certainty that they do make fun of liberals also. Especially if they are their guests.

Oh definitely, I think Stewart is really fair with his guests...but there's a pretty blatant liberal bias on the show.

But I also think all the people in the media and on these Forums should feel a little dirty after deriding Tenet, and the President for supporting him, and then giving him new found credibility.Then I think all the people in the media and on these Forums who have been cheerleaders for Bush and his disastrous war should feel like they're drowning in a septic tank.

Seriously, Brooks, I'd like to hear your examples of who derided Tenet but now is giving him credibility.

I think guys like Maher and Stewart would be just as successful if they made fun of liberals.
What a coincidence then.

Seriously, Brooks, I'd like to hear your examples of who derided Tenet but now is giving him credibility.
The following quotes are all from well known liberals on these boards (who shall remain nameless).
"Despite sharp critiques from the president's commission and the Senate intelligence committee, no major reprimand or penalty has been announced publicly in connection with the intelligence failures, though investigations are still underway at the CIA. George J. Tenet resigned as CIA director but was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by Bush."

"Role In Going To War: As CIA Director, Tenet was responsible for gathering information on Iraq and the potential threat posted by Saddam Hussein. According to author Bob Woodward, Tenet told President Bush before the war that there was a “slam dunk case” that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Tenet remained publicly silent while the Bush administration made pre-war statements on Iraq’s supposed nuclear program and ties to al Qaeda that were contrary to the CIA’s judgments. Tenet issued a statement in July 2003, drafted by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, taking responsibility for Bush’s false statements in his State of the Union address. [CNN, 4/19/04; NYT, 7/22/05]
Where He Is Now: Tenet voluntarily resigned from the administration on June 3, 2004. He was later awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. [Washington Post, 6/3/04]"

And in a thread titled "Efforts to examine intel were blocked" comes the following:
"Senators Roberts and Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Tenet expressing in strong terms that he should provide documents that have been requested and make individuals available."
"Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Tenet asking for documents related to the interaction...."
"Senator Rockefeller sent a letter to Director Tenet asking for compliance...."
"Senator Rockefeller sent yet another letter to Director Tenet asking for compliance...."

"After a CIA briefing on the spy data on Iraqi weapons, Bush said the intelligence would leave the public unconvinced. But CIA Director George Tenet described the case against Iraq as a "slam dunk.""

"George "slam dunk" Tenet, the one who sweetened the CIA report on WMD's in efforts to justify the initial attack on Iraq.
the yes men get the medals."

What ties have been alleged between Iraq and al-Qaeda?
In October 2002, CIA Director George Tenet announced that the CIA had received uncorroborated reports that:....."

"Wow, it would seem that someone who presided over the CIA during one of the worst intelligence blunders in our history, actually did a "superb" job."

Now although this is anecdotal, you have to admit, George Tenet was not well respected after September 11th.

But now he will be.

Now although this is anecdotal, you have to admit, George Tenet was not well respected after September 11th.

Ok.


But now he will be.

What makes you think he'll be "respected" now? I'm with sedan on this one. You've shown that Tenet wasn't respected much after 9-11, can you show where he is resepcted now?

He couldn't get arrested two months ago. Now he's a brave whistle blower who got a huge, free commercial on 60 Minutes.

And I'm sure there are more to come.

Very scary to think about that.

It reminds me of when Rosie O'Donnell was talking about how historically governments have incited incidents to plunge a nation into war.

WTF is with you and your rosie odonnel infatuation? If she said the sun revolved around the earth would you believe her?

"well this reminds me of the time Rosie said...."

WTF is with you and your rosie odonnel infatuation? If she said the sun revolved around the earth would you believe her?

"well this reminds me of the time Rosie said...."
Yes, I would believe her. :lolhit:

He couldn't get arrested two months ago. Now he's a brave whistle blower who got a huge, free commercial on 60 Minutes.

And I'm sure there are more to come.From the story:

But the CIA had something else in mind. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others were swept up in the "high value detainee" program. Secret prisons were set up, and several suspects were questioned under new, so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," said to include sleep deprivation, extreme cold and water boarding, which causes a severe gag reflex, as water is continuously poured over the face.

"The image that's been portrayed is, we sat around the campfire and said, 'Oh, boy, now we go get to torture people.' Well, we don't torture people. Let me say that again to you. We don't torture people. Okay?" Tenet says.

"Come on, George," Pelley says.

"We don't torture people," Tenet maintains.

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammad?" Pelley asks.

"We don't torture people," Tenet says.

"Water boarding?" Pelley asks.

"We do not – I don't talk about techniques," Tenet replies.

"It's torture," Pelley says.

"And we don't torture people. Now, listen to me. Now, listen to me. I want you to listen to me," Tenet says. "The context is it's post-9/11. I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are gonna be blown up, planes that are gonna fly into airports all over again. Plot lines that I don't know – I don't know what's going on inside the United States. And I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur. Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through. The palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much we did not know."

"I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," Tenet says.

"But what you're essentially saying is some people need to be tortured," Pelley remarks.

"No, I did not say that. I did not say that," Tenet says.

"You're telling me that… the enhanced interrogation…" Pelley says.

"I did not say that. I did not say that. We do not tor…. Listen to me. You’re, you're making…," Tenet says.

"You call it in the book, 'enhanced interrogation,'" Pelley remarks.

"…an assumption. Well, that's what we call it," Tenet says.

"And that's a euphemism," Pelley says.

"I'm not having a semantic debate with you. I'm telling you what I believe," Tenet says.

Asked if anyone ever died in the interrogation program, Tenet says, "No."

Asked if he's sure of that, the former director tells Pelley, "Yeah. In this program that you and I are talking about? No."

"Have you ever seen any of these interrogations done?" Pelley asks.

"No," Tenet replies.

"Didn’t you feel like it was your responsibility to know what's going on?" Pelley asks.

"I understood. I'm not a voyeur. I understand what I was signing off on," Tenet says.

This is a free commercial making a hero of Tenet?

I think you're way off base on this one, Brooks.

I love how he goes from "we don't torture people" to "I don't talk about techniques". Then he tried to justify torture by talking about it being "post 9-11", as if 9-11 suddenly made torture moral.