WASHINGTON — In a stinging indictment of the U.S. handling of the Iraq war, former CIA Director George J. Tenet accuses the Bush administration in a new book of ignoring repeated warnings that the country was collapsing into civil war and voices deep skepticism that the current "surge" in troops can succeed.
Tenet accuses the White House of having "no strategy" for handling postwar Iraq, and concludes that the recent effort to deploy more troops has come far too late.
"It may have worked more than three years ago," Tenet writes, "before a country that believed it had a national identity reverted to the politics of religious and ethnic identification."
Throughout its 549 pages, "At the Center of the Storm" is laced with sharp criticism of an array of senior administration figures -- including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Rice's successor as national security advisor, Stephen Hadley.
Tenet's book represents the first account by a senior member of President Bush's national security team about the unraveling situation in Iraq and its struggle in the war against terrorism. The book is certain to intensify political pressure on the White House at a time when the administration is pleading with Congress for patience with the new push to pacify Baghdad.
The publication of the book creates a highly unusual situation: A spy chief previously responsible for guarding the nation's secrets is offering inside accounts of foreign policy debates, while passing judgment on decisions by policymakers he advised as recently as three years ago.
Tenet, who for four years briefed the president nearly every day, acknowledges that the CIA made grievous errors in its assessment of Baghdad's alleged weapons programs, but argues that the agency was dismayed by equally disastrous mistakes that took place after the invasion.
"Our analysis assumed there was a plan for ensuring the peace," he writes in one section of a chapter called "Mission Not Accomplished," a pointed reference to Bush. "In fact, there was no strategy for when U.S. forces hit the ground."
The book traces Tenet's role as head of the CIA during one of the most tumultuous times in its history, from the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks through the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. In it, he acknowledges some failures while vigorously defending aspects of his legacy. He alternates between offering praise and polite criticism of Bush, who awarded Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.
The book includes new details on warnings that the CIA provided to the Bush administration in the months before Sept. 11 that went unheeded.
It recounts the agency's successes in leading the U.S. response in Afghanistan, capturing Al Qaeda operatives and unraveling the illicit nuclear weapons ring of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Tenet defends some of the more controversial intelligence-gathering methods employed on his watch -- including the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques that some consider torture -- and a domestic eavesdropping program implemented by Bush.
His harshest language is reserved for what Tenet calls the "disastrous" situation in Iraq. He concludes that the United States' ill-managed intervention has plunged the Middle East into deeper instability than the region has seen in a generation.
Tenet also describes previously undisclosed warnings, delivered by senior CIA analysts to Bush and others in the administration, that a chaotic postwar situation in Iraq would be exploited by Al Qaeda.
In one November 2003 briefing in the Oval Office, Tenet writes, a CIA analyst warned Bush and others that "Iraq came along at exactly the right time for Al Qaeda."
A copy of the book, scheduled for release Monday, was obtained by The Times. In it, Tenet is sharply critical of his colleagues in Bush's inner circle.
"Those in charge of U.S. policy operated within a closed loop," Tenet writes. "Bad news was ignored. Our own subsequent reporting -- reporting that eventually would prove spot-on in its predictions of what came to pass on the ground -- was dismissed."
Rice is portrayed as an often feckless figure in the Bush administration, unwilling or unable to exert control over crucial foreign policy debates. Tenet writes that the CIA was particularly alarmed by the administration's decision to bar all former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from the fledgling Iraqi government.
Tenet says he went to see Rice to complain that the order "had swept away not just Saddam's thugs but also, for example, something like 40,000 schoolteachers who had joined the Baath Party simply to keep their jobs."
Rice replied that "she was very frustrated by the situation, but nothing ever happened," Tenet says.
He voices disdain for Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, who produced a parade of defectors who made erroneous claims about Baghdad's weapons programs but was influential with Cheney and other hawks.
