Tenet's an opportunist: former intelligence analyst
 Christina Shelton, a longtime intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, claims that former CIA Director George Tenet twisted briefings she conducted about the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq and later misconstrued facts in his recent book "At the Center of the Storm."
In a Washington Post editorial, Shelton argues that Tenet manipulated information to protect himself both politically and later from criticism inside the intelligence community.
"Tenet . . . placed himself on both sides of the issue," she writes, "providing intelligence on al-Qaeda and Iraq's relationship while at the same time inferring that no ties existed, only 'concerns.'"
In an August 2005 briefing, Shelton says she made clear that "the covert nature of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda made it difficult to know its full extent." While she summarized a large body of CIA reporting that "reflected a pattern of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda," she contends that her account was only cautionary.
Shelton says Tenet attributes statements to her in his book that she never made, such as: "There is no more debate," "no further analysis is required" and "it is an open-and-shut case."
After further inquiry revealed the ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq weak, Tenet backpedaled, using the wording in Shelton's summaries as a scapegoat.
"Tenet claimed that the body of reporting did not prove an 'operational' relationship existed," she writes. "I never said it did. The use of the caveat 'operational' became a convenient -- albeit transparent -- way to discount the credibility of the 1990s reporting and the relationship as I had described it."
When criticized by Shelton, Tenet attempted to discredit the messenger, not the actual reporting. "I was not a 'naval reservist,' as he wrote in his book, assigned to the Pentagon for temporary duty. In fact, I was a career intelligence analyst for two decades, and I spent half of that time in counterintelligence," she writes. "I did not draw conclusions beyond the reporting, as he suggested. I addressed the substantive material in the reports."
READ THE FULL WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL HERE
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