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 CIA Director Tenet Resigns,Bush Says Tenet Will Leave in Mid-July.
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CIA Director Tenet Resigns
Bush Says Tenet Will Leave in Mid-July for Personal Reasons
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 3, 2004; 11:39 AM
CIA Director George J. Tenet has submitted his resignation and will leave the agency in mid-July, President Bush announced today.
Bush and CIA officials said the resignation was for personal reasons. The CIA officials denied that Tenet quit or was pressured to leave because of criticism of U.S. intelligence over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or missed clues to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot.
"He told me he was resigning for personal reasons," Bush said. "I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people."
Bush said he had accepted Tenet's letter of resignation, which Tenet submitted at a White House meeting Wednesday night.
Speaking to reporters briefly before leaving on a trip to Europe, Bush said Tenet would serve as CIA director until mid-July, then give way to the current CIA deputy director, John E. McLaughlin, who will take over as acting director. Bush did not indicate who would be Tenet's permanent successor.
"George Tenet is the kind of CIA director you like to work with," Bush said. "He's strong, he's resolute, he's served his nation as the director for seven years. . . . He's been a strong leader in the war on terror, and I will miss him."
Bush said he looks forward to working with Tenet until he leaves the agency.
Tenet has come under fire in recent months for having assured Bush before last year's invasion of Iraq that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction, a key justification for the decision to go to war.
The director also has been grilled on U.S. intelligence failures before the 2001 terrorist attacks by members of Congress and the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. Some of his inquisitors have charged that clues to the plot could have, if acted upon, led to the disruption of the terrorist plan.
Last month, the Sept. 11 commission sharply criticized the CIA's assessments of the threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network that carried out the attacks. Tenet testified that it would take five years to correct the agency's shortcomings in intelligence gathering, a statement that alarmed some panel members.
Tenet was appointed by President Bill Clinton and has served as CIA director since July 1997.
Staff writer Dana Priest contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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