George Tenet & the Last Great Days of the Cia

George Tenet was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997-2004. He was good at what he did; he was so good that he was asked to stay on as the Director of the CIA when President Bush won the Presidency. The one thing Tenet experienced with the Bush administration that he did not experience with the Clinton Administration is he became part of the President’s inner circle. Once George Tenet experienced the inner circle, he no longer was able to focus on rebuilding the agency (Stillman 2000). In George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA, Richard White, Jr. gives us the rise and fall of the CIA under CIA Director George Tenet.

As the country goes through its tenth year of the war on terror one can look back and see some of the policy differences that has plagued this country when, as a nation, our young men are sent to war. Everything, in this author’s view needs to be on the table, and transparent. Of course, troops strength, strategy, and general war plans should be kept from the enemy, the need of informing our own people has been a tight rope that is not easy to balance on for any one person. This was especially true of the “enhanced interrogations” used by the Bush administration at the beginning of the War on Terror. What this paper plans to do is to explain the four greatest

Rose’s thesis statement declared how honor affected the spies who were a part of the Culper ring. He first mentioned honor in the first chapter, quoting Nathan Hale, “Spying, he agreed, was not an honorable undertaking, but ‘if the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service its claims to perform that service are imperious.’” The spying game was not considered gentlemen’s work, for the title “spy” was dishonorable in itself. Throughout the book, Rose proved his thesis by mentioning how it affected each of the members described in his book along with some internal conflict they had about it. Rose concluded the book with an epilogue sharing how each of the spies lived their lives after the war was over, and how many could return to their normal lives without the criticism of partaking in Washington’s dishonorable tasks.

When retired General Petraeus’ name is uttered, some recall his stellar 28 year career culminating in the stabilization of war-torn Iraq while everyone remembers his extramarital affair culminating in the release of classified information to his mistress. Similar to a Shakespearian play full of scandal that ends in tragedy, I will assert how General Petraeus is a visionary leader by stabilizing war-torn Iraq from 2007 to 2008 who became an unethical leader while serving as the director of the CIA by having an extramarital affair and releasing classified information to his mistress. To enhance my claim that he is a visionary leader, I will be focusing on his transformational leadership behavior of inspirational motivation and “Lewin’s Phases of Change” during the stabilization efforts. To enhance my claim that he is unethical, I will focus on two contributing factors to his affair and release of confidential material which are: the ethical trap of loyalty syndrome and the ineffective use of intellectual integrity. Finally, I will be detailing my personal relevance utilizing visionary leadership to revector my organization before a Nuclear Surety Inspection and how I became an unethical leader while serving as a team chief in my earlier years. In order to stabilize war-torn Iraq in 2007, a visionary leader was required to enact a revolutionary plan to ease the mind of the American public.

Eleven years on from the invasion, the Iraq war remains an unforgettable sequence of events for people around the world, especially American’s and one of the greatest intelligence failures in living history. The pre-war intelligence gathered by the CIA suggested that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and connections with al-Qaeda. American officials did everything to prepare the entire world and the entire globe for war against Iraq. The intelligence collected, key to the invasion, was subsequently wishful thinking and wrong. The striking thing about prewar U.S. intelligence is that it played such a small role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in recent decades.

Destroying Iraq’s key society underpinnings risked effective American post-war governance and put the invasion force Commander’s objectives at odds with the overall strategic objective. General Franks misunderstood the operational environment, misdiagnosed the problem and pursued an operational approach that inhibited post-invasion success.

Sending US troops to fight on the basis of information that proved false characterized Bush’s failure in the Iraq invasion, an invasion on which he bet his legacy on (Rothkopf, 21). Although the original policy failed, Bush and his administration came to terms with it and concluded that changes needed to be made. Bush made a final and confident decision to modify his team

Emerging from the cold streets of Queens New York surfaced a warm loyal and honest young man by the name George Tenet. Growing up he worked at his family’s diner. He graduated from high school and later received his Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. George went on to accomplish many goals such as serving as a research director for the American Hellenic Institute and legislative director to Pennsylvania’s Senator John Heinz III. He went on to serve on the Senate Select Committee of Intelligence from 1985-1993 before President Clifton allotted him Senior Director of Intelligence programs and National Secretary Councils. (CIA.gov) George Tenet served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCI) from 1997

Under pressure from the White House, the CIA then abandoned some of its independence and delivered a partial view of the information it held”. (Levine, 2004). This illustrates how even the CIA fell GROUPTHINK AND HISTORICAL EXAMPLES 4 prey to groupthink. George Bush surrounded himself with like-minded people during his administration and this allowed for many conditions to be present that are necessary

Dr. Pillar argues bad leadership led to the Iraq war not bad intelligence, asserting that the intelligence community (IC) advised against the use of force. The 2001 IC statement on world threats did not mention the possibility of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Thus, former Secretary of State Powell misguided the international community when he affirmed before the United Nations in February 2003 that his argument was “based on solid intelligence.” The administration’s officials, including the president and his national security advisor, also barely read the 2002 intelligence estimates on Iraqi WMD programs. The IC concluded that the Iraqi regime was unlikely to use WMDs against the U.S or hand them to terrorists, did not believe

The definition of leadership has not changed over the course of time. Through a compare and contrast method of analysis, one can glean the common traits of a leader from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Thomas More’s Utopia, and Queen Elizabeth’s speech to the Spanish Armada. Leadership can be defined as a person who is able to relate to their subjects, accept their responsibilities as a leader, and has a following of supportive people.

The United States national interests and national security policy have been subjected to numerous threats throughout history. The nature of these threats has changed the ways which the intelligence community (IC) supports national security policy. Tensions between intelligence analysts and policymakers have historically resulted in intelligence “failures.” As new threats emerge, national security policy identifies opportunities which the United States can act to combat these threats. The ability of the United States to effectively integrate intelligence into the policy process has often brought into question the role of intelligence analysts and their relationship with policymakers. Within this paper, I will explain both the “Kent” and “Gates” approach and discuss why intelligence analysts should align themselves more with the “Gates” approach through lessons learned throughout history.

George Tenet was the director of the central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004; it was a very trying time for the Clinton and Bush administration. Tenet would cover many things in his career and that would have a major impact on the terrorist attacks of September 11 and U.S. invasion of Iraq. There were many intelligence directors that sever before him, but none that were more establish or had a drive for controversy. During George Tenet career, he played a big role in many events, such as invasion of Iraq and reorganization of the nation’s intelligence. Tenet involvement with the White House decision making, intelligence priorities, and his own agency kept him occupied

In the post-Cold War eras, the US intelligence community saw many crises and transient threats as the U.S policy makers raised questions about the need and the role of the U.S. intelligence community. This thing made the effort of defining the priority of the U.S. intelligence more difficult and further complicated. Intelligence became an area “where the government could reap savings.” (Ibid, Para 2) The government resource savings in the US intelligence community resulted in cutbacks from the intelligence collections such as HUMINT and technical, including cutbacks in analytic resources. (Ibid) They all had significant U.S. policy issues in the U.S. intelligence community at that time. One example, talking about the Iraqi intelligence failures, carefully drafted national intelligence failed in its singular mission “to accurately inform policy deliberations.” (Ibid, Final Thoughts, Para 1) In this term, we can consider how the case of Curveball’s fabricated story of Iraq having weapons of mass destructions tricked the U.S. intelligence community and American foreign policy in Iraq operations. The U.S. intelligence community and policy makers spent long hours and carried out intense debates on the Iraqi intelligence cases/issues, yet they both could not ignore and mitigate the U.S. intelligence failures in Iraqi operations. (Dorgin & Goetz,

Throughout time, the definition of leadership has evoked much controversy, as to what it means to be an effective leader and specific characteristics a leader must possess. Leadership can simply be defined as someone that is in charge of an individual or a group of people. My personal definition of leadership is someone that can effectively inspire individuals through education, direction, performance, and a living philosophy. As a leader, my philosophy is to lead as effectively as I can, with the ability to adapt to any situation and overcome obstacles while maintaining positive control of mission accomplishment, moral, and personnel.