News Analysis With Stakes Raised, CIA Head Delivers Tough Defense By Nick Timiraos Hoya Staff Writer

Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya CIA Director George Tenet (SFS ’76) said Thursday that more patience and time are needed before passing judgment on Iraq intelligence efforts. | RELATED LINK  Tenet Defends Iraq Intelligence |

When Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet (SFS ’76) last addressed Georgetown University students, President Bush had declared major combat operations in Iraq only two weeks earlier and approval for the Iraq war remained strong.

But much has changed since Tenet’s May 17 graduation address to the School of Foreign Service.

Last week former top U.S. weapons inspector David Kay testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on blaming the intelligence community for the conclusion that Saddam Hussein had amassed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion last March.

“It turns out we were all wrong, and that is most disturbing,” Kay told the Senate panel.

Mounting political pressure, including Kay’s statements, led President George W. Bush to reverse a decision that will now allow an independent probe into the claims that the United States invaded Iraq based on faulty intelligence.

Faced with growing criticism, even calls for his resignation, Tenet appeared yesterday in Gaston Hall to defend himself and the intelligence community.

While Georgetown frequently hosts top government officials, the political import of yesterday’s speech was absent for any event held on campus since then-Afghan Interim Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai addressed 2,000 people in McDonough Gymnasium two years ago.

The event immediately made top billing for the national media when the university and the CIA announced Wednesday morning that Tenet would respond to mounting political pressure and Kay’s assertions before the Senate panel. The speech came one year to the day that Colin Powell, with Tenet with him, presented evidence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations General Assembly.

Students stood in line for over an hour Wednesday night to wait for the remaining 250 available tickets after nearly 250 tickets for the event had been distributed through the SFS Deans’ office in just 30 minutes.

Returning to his alma mater, George Tenet’s rare public address forcefully defended the intelligence community while railing against the political pressures that had brought him to speak in Gaston yesterday.

“Unfortunately, you rarely hear a patient, careful or thoughtful discussion of intelligence these days,” he began. “But these times demand it. Because the alternative – politicized, haphazard evaluation, without the benefit of time and facts – may well result in an intelligence community that is damaged, and a country that is more at risk.”

Tenet proceeded to go through the National Intelligence Estimate point by point. The Estimate summarized the threat posed by Iraq upon which much of the controversy in the post-war intelligence debate has centered.

Tenet flatly rejected implications that political concerns had influenced the CIA’s evaluation of Iraq. “No one told us what to say or how to say it,” Tenet said. “We will always call it as we see it.”

And Tenet strongly refuted Kay’s statement that the Iraq Survey Group was 85 percent finished in its work, stating that the group was “nowhere near 85 percent finished.”

Republicans have increasingly blamed the intelligence community for its inability to locate the suspected stockpiles of weapons while Democrats have criticized President Bush for rushing to war.

Tenet, who has served for nearly seven years, would not criticize the White House’s decision to go to war.

But neither would the director allow the CIA to become a scapegoat for the president’s decision. In front of a home crowd, Tenet showed that he would not bow to political pressure easily.

“I thought the speech was outstanding. It was quite substantive and brilliantly delivered,” Government professor Anthony Arend (SFS ’80) said.

SFS Dean Robert Gallucci agreed that Tenet had performed strongly.

“His speech was an effective response to critics and a welcome clarification of many of the issues that have been raised in recent days about intelligence on Iraq,” Gallucci said. “He could not and should not have addressed the many policy questions that still remain.”

But Arend added that it was what Tenet did not say that may have been even more important.

“He did not say that the intelligence that was developed prior to March of 2003 would inextricably lead to the conclusion that war was necessary,” Arend said. “The decision to go to war was a policy decision made by the president.”

When Tenet addressed graduating seniors last spring, he urged them to “dare to be a hero.”

“Serve someone other than yourself, serve something bigger than yourself,” he said.

As CNN’s Brian Todd said yesterday, while Tenet’s future of service to the Agency may be in doubt, “whenever, however George Tenet leaves, this may be judged a legacy of loyalty to country, President, family and school.”