On speech circuit, CIA's ex-chief tiptoes around wisdom of war

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In the past few months, Tenet has been paid well over $500,000 in speaking fees, from about 20 appearances, associates said. He is negotiating for a lucrative book contract. But when he speaks to large groups, he does so only under ground rules intended to keep his remarks off the record.

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Tenet has said virtually nothing for the record since his resignation. It is a four-month period in which the Senate intelligence committee, the 9/11 commission, and the weapons inspector in Iraq have all delivered reports critical of the Central Intelligence Agency's performance on Iraq and terrorism, and in which Congress has been considering a drastic overhaul of U.S. intelligence.
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His associates have said one reason for his public silence was to distance himself from politics during the presidential campaign. But the tape recording and notes taken by people who have attended Tenet's private appearances show that he has been relatively forthcoming even while insisting that his remarks be treated as off the record.
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The only reporters permitted to attend these appearances have been from small newspapers and trade magazines, and even these reporters said they were instructed by Tenet or his associates to turn off their tape recorders. By preventing Tenet's remarks from circulating widely, his associates say they have sought to maintain demand for his appearances, which usually include a speech that surveys the threats facing the United States. He collects fees of about $35,000 an appearance.
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Among other things, Tenet has disclosed that he warned Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, in a secret, face-to-face meeting several days after a major bombing in Riyadh in May 2003, "that unless he acted quickly, Al Qaeda was going to kill him, kill his family, and launch the next stage of attacks against the United States from the Saudi homeland."

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In that speech, Tenet also described meeting in a Middle Eastern country with a foreigner who worked as a U.S. agent and played an instrumental role in 2003 in leading the CIA, in Pakistan, to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who is now being held in a secret location abroad.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/11/news/tenet.html

It was his rhetoric, that was partly responsible for getting us into this mess. Now he wants to do his mia culpa? Fuck you, tenet!! You are probably one of the more disgusting forms of life on this planet.

Maybe that's just me.