“SLAM DUNK”….George Tenet says he’s pissed off at whoever it was who leaked his “slam dunk” comment to Bob Woodward:
The phrase “slam dunk” didn’t refer to whether Saddam Hussein actually had WMDs, says Tenet; the CIA thought he did. He says he was talking about what information could be used to make that case when he uttered those words. “We can put a better case together for a public case. That’s what I meant,” explains Tenet.
….He says he doesn’t know who leaked it but says there were only a handful of people in the room.
“It’s the most despicable thing that ever happened to me,” Tenet says. “You don’t do this. You don’t throw somebody overboard just because it’s a deflection. Is that honorable? It’s not honorable to me.”
Well….color me unconvinced. Given a couple of years to think it over, that’s probably the kind of story I’d come up with too, but I think I’d try to make it more believable. Frankly, the table-pounding declaration that something is a “slam dunk” doesn’t really sound like the kind of thing you’d say if you were merely agreeing that your PowerPoint presentation could use some sprucing up, does it?
But who knows. Maybe that really is the way Tenet talks. As for his belated discovery that the Bush White House doesn’t always behave in honorable ways, all I can say is: I hope Tenet’s take on foreign leaders was more insightful than his take on his own boss. The fact that loyalty is a one-way street with Bush the Younger is not exactly the news of the century.
