White House dismisses ex-CIA chief Tenet's criticism
 The White House has rejected assertions made by former head of the CIA George Tenet, whose forthcoming book heavily criticizes members of the Bush administration.
"A senior White House counselor on Friday dismissed former CIA Director's George Tenet portrait of a Bush administration that rushed to war in Iraq without serious debate," reports the Associated Press.
The counselor, Dan Bartlett, said per the AP, "The president did wrestle with those very serious questions."
Bartlett, the AP article continues, referred to Tenet as a "true patriot" but he "suggested he might have been unaware of the breadth of the prewar debate that led Bush to dismiss other options, such as diplomatic means," for dealing with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
"This president weighed all the various proposals, weighed all the various consequences before he did make a decision," said Bartlett.
Tenet earlier lashed out at the Bush administration in an interview broadcast on CBS' 60 Minutes, accusing it of distorting his pre-Iraq War claim that the existence of weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk."
Excerpts from the AP article, available in full at this link, follow...
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Tenet said the administration misrepresented his comment and used it to shift blame as the debate heated up about the legitimacy of the Iraq invasion. Tenet, who served as CIA chief from 1997 to 2004, called the leak of the remark to journalist Bob Woodward "the most despicable thing that ever happened" to him.
Bartlett played down the significance of the "slam dunk" remark, saying the decision to go to war was shaped by intelligence reports and "a whole body of evidence and behavior by Saddam Hussein that led President Bush to believe that he had to be removed by force."
As to Tenet's take on the remark, Bartlett said, "I am a bit confused by that because we have never indicated the president made the sole decision based on that slam dunk comment."
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