ASHINGTON, July 26 — Throughout his six-year tenure as
director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet has proved to be one of
official Washington's most adept survivors.
He survived the awkward transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
He survived the greatest intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor, the
Sept. 11 attacks. And he survived wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that
stretched the C.I.A.'s capabilities to the limit. He has survived for so
long that just this month, he became the third-longest-serving director in
the C.I.A.'s history, surpassing William J. Casey, President Ronald
Reagan's director, who, gravely ill, left office in 1987 amid the
Iran-contra scandal.
The controversy comes down to 16 disputed words that President Bush
uttered in his State of the Union address in January: "The British
government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa." Those words have created trouble for
Mr. Tenet, threatening to bring his time at the C.I.A. to an abrupt
end.
Those who know Mr. Tenet say he has survived in the job by balancing
the demands of the White House against those of leading an intelligence
agency that fiercely guards its independence. But his allegiance to Mr.
Bush and his commitment to run a C.I.A. free of politics have now finally
come to cross purposes.
C.I.A. directors rarely leave on their own schedules. The job carries
too much potential for scandals and disasters, and something inevitably
comes up or goes wrong that requires an early exit. Even when things go
quietly and well, a new president periodically arrives who wants his own
custodian of the nation's secrets.
Until quite recently, the 50-year-old Mr. Tenet seemed poised to defy
that history. Associates say that this spring he spoke privately about
stepping down of his own accord within a few months. After enduring a
frenzied pace since Sept. 11, 2001, he appeared ready to leave government
and test the private-sector job market, though some colleagues say Mr.
Tenet, a Queens native, harbors political ambitions and speculate that he
may eventually consider running for Congress.
"He has been thinking about leaving by the end of the summer," one
associate said. "He was talking about it with people a month or two
ago."
But he did not leave fast enough to skirt another crisis, this one over
the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence about Iraq. Now
some people who know him wonder whether he will go ahead with plans to
leave soon or reconsider, to avoid looking as if he was pushed.
The basic problem for Mr. Tenet, who declined a request for an
interview, is that American forces in Iraq have not yet found conclusive
evidence of programs to develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
As a result, Mr. Bush faces criticism that he exaggerated the evidence
before the war to convince the public that Saddam Hussein posed an
imminent threat to the United States. Feeling the heat, White House
officials have started to shift the blame to the C.I.A. and Mr. Tenet,
saying they provided bad intelligence.
When Mr. Tenet issued a statement on July 11 assuming responsibility
for the State of the Union passage concerning African uranium, he was
following in a long tradition of C.I.A. directors: taking blame for
intelligence lapses that embarrass the president.
"Somebody had to step up to this, and it couldn't be the president,"
observed one intelligence official, adding, "It's an appropriate thing for
George to do."
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who serves on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said after Mr. Tenet's closed-door testimony on
the matter last week, "I don't think there is anyone who does not believe
that George Tenet has fallen on his sword here."
Complicating matters for Mr. Tenet, his assumption of blame for the
State of the Union debacle was not quite left at that. His July 11
statement tried to explain the circumstances surrounding the episode, as
did later Senate testimony by Mr. Tenet and other C.I.A. officials. In the
process, the agency's version of events undercut conflicting statements
from the White House. That further angered Bush aides, who then leaked
more information about the agency's role in the affair to the news media.
By this week, the White House was forced to backtrack, issuing statements
that appeared much closer to the C.I.A.'s version. But relations between
the agency and the White House still seem frosty at best.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the latest controversy for Mr.
Tenet is that it revolves around a dispute with the White House. Current
and former intelligence officials say the main complaint about him within
the agency over the last year has been that he is too close to Mr. Bush
and has not done enough to protect the agency from political pressure.
C.I.A. analysts complained before the war in Iraq that Mr. Tenet and other
top officials of the agency did not stand up for them in the face of
pressure to tailor intelligence reports to fit the Bush administration's
agenda.
There is no doubt that Mr. Tenet has developed a much closer
relationship with Mr. Bush — whom he sees almost daily and who appreciates
his plain-spoken and sometimes jocular manner — than he ever had with Mr.
Clinton, with whom he met much less frequently. So some agency officials
wonder whether the director now finds it hard to push back against
administration pressure.
Other observers say Mr. Bush's defense of Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A.
after the Sept. 11 intelligence failures may have left the director too
weak to stand up to the White House on Iraq.
"He got top cover on 9/11," one former intelligence official said of
the dynamics of Mr. Tenet's relationship with Mr. Bush.
In dealing with the competing political and institutional forces
confronting him, Mr. Tenet plays a complicated insider's game. Like
another longtime Washington insider, Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the
Federal Reserve, he prefers to work behind the scenes, quietly building
alliances at the White House, on Capitol Hill and within his own agency,
officials who know him say.
"George is extremely good at reading tea leaves and heading off
political problems before they become too big for him," one intelligence
official said. As a former Senate staff aide, this official said, Mr.
Tenet "has a Hill operative's style, forming alliances for specific
efforts, alliances of convenience."
That style has worked, at least until now. In fact, though some White
House aides have expressed furious displeasure with Mr. Tenet, there is no
evidence yet that his personal relationship with the president has been
damaged by the latest controversy.
Even if Mr. Bush does decide that he wants to be rid of Mr. Tenet, he
may be reluctant to fire him now, since doing so in the midst of the
current furor would almost certainly lead to a messy Senate confirmation
battle for the designated successor. On the other hand, delay could result
in a confirmation fight in the middle of next year's presidential
campaign.
If Mr. Tenet does stay on, it will take him only about eight more
months to pass Richard Helms, the Vietnam-era spy master, and become the
second-longest-serving director in the C.I.A.'s history. Only the
longevity record set by Allen W. Dulles, who served for nearly nine years
under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, seems out of
reach.
"I can just about guarantee you," one intelligence official said, "that
he is not going to beat Dulles."
