From: Monte Davis 

"Frank Haber"  wrote:

>Just how has Tenet been able to survive after 9/11?  It just amazes me.  My
>first reaction would be that he must have something on everybody,
>Hoover-style?  Any other guesses?

First, clarify the question: do you mean that Tenet and the CIA
could/should have foreseen 9/11 clearly enough to prevent it?

Or that whether or not they could/should, Tenet should have stepped down
(or been replaced by Bush) on a basis of "the buck stops here, it goes
with the territory, be grateful we don't demand seppuku"..?

If the former, I don't agree. I meant it when I wrote to Mark Hessey last
week that I thought there was plenty of bipartisan blame to go around for
not connecting the dots leading to 9/11.

Trouble is, only in hindsight do you know WHICH dots to connect -- and
that's as true for the CIA, which has lots more dots, as for me and thee.
Maybe keeping Tenet is a kind of rough-justice acknowledgement of that.

Maybe it's simply a practical decision that with all the CIA has had to do
since 9/11, the added friction of a reshuffle at the top isn't worth it.

Personally, I'd put the "he knows where the skeletons are" theory
way down the list (although that's more Occam's razor than faith in our
better nature).

-Monte

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