Post by POA on Jun 3, 2004 13:07:52 GMT -5
CIA director Tenet resigns
Press Association
Thursday June 3, 2004
The director of the CIA, George Tenet, has resigned for personal reasons, the US president, George Bush, announced today.
Mr Tenet faced criticism for the US failure to prevent the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, but Mr Bush refused to sack him.
"He's been a strong and able leader at the agency, and I will miss him," Mr Bush said. "He told me that he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He has done a superb job." The two men last night met at the White House, the president added.
Mr Tenet will be replaced by his deputy, John McLaughlin, who will become acting CIA director in July.
Mr McLaughlin and the current chairman of the House intelligence committee, Porter Goss, are considered the leading candidates to become Mr Tenet's permanent successor.
For months, Mr Tenet had been under fire in connection with intelligence failures related to the US-led war in Iraq, specifically assertions Washington had made about Saddam Hussein's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction.
He has also faced criticism of his agencies' handling of intelligence relating to the threat posed by al-Qaida.
In May, a panel investigating the September 11 attacks released statements rebuking the CIA for failing to fully appreciate the threat facing the US. Mr Tenet told the panel that the intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the attacks would take five years to correct.
It is generally believed that Mr Tenet - who was appointed by Bill Clinton and served in his post for seven years, an unusually long tenure - had not planned to stay on next year, whether Mr Bush or his Democratic challenger John Kerry triumphed in November's presidential election.
Some close to Mr Tenet - the son of Greek immigrants who grew up in New York - have said the of job overseeing more than a dozen agencies that make up the intelligence community had taken a toll on his health.
He suffered heart problems while at the national security council during the Clinton administration, but a CIA official said his resignation was not health related.
In Congress, Senator Charles Schumer called Mr Tenet "an honourable and decent man who has served his country well in difficult times. No one should make him a fall guy for anything".