George J Tenet

Ending two years of silence on his role in the Iraq war, former CIA Director George J. Tenet is using a new book and a barrage of upcoming television appearances to accuse the White House of making him a scapegoat and of ignoring early CIA warnings that Iraq was sinking into chaos.

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.

The main threat posed by Al Qaeda lies in its quest to obtain a nuclear bomb, former CIA Director George J. Tenet writes in his new book. In "At the Center of the Storm," Tenet writes at some length about Al Qaeda's attempts to obtain or develop a nuclear weapon. "I am convinced that this is where [Osama bin Laden] and his operatives desperately want to go," Tenet writes. "They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure.

Al Qaeda may have other terrorist cells in the United States waiting for a time to strike, former CIA Director George J. Tenet said. "My operational presumption is that they infiltrated a second wave or a third wave into the United States at the time of 9/11," Tenet said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." Tenet, who headed the spy agency when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, said his opinion was based on "operational intuition," not evidence.

After a weekend barrage to promote his new book, former CIA Director George J. Tenet was on the defensive Monday, answering criticism over his claim that the Bush administration had settled on blaming Iraq for the Sept. 11 attacks from the very start. In the opening anecdote of "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA," Tenet wrote that he had encountered Pentagon advisor Richard N. Perle at the White House on Sept.

Former CIA Director George J. Tenet accepted blame Sunday for inaccurate statements made by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in a 2003 address to the United Nations about Iraq's weapons capability. Tenet spent three days vetting Powell's Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the U.N. Security Council and thought it was "good and solid," the former CIA chief said. At the time, Powell, with Tenet seated behind him at the U.N.

Seven former CIA directors have asked President Obama to quash a criminal investigation into harsh Bush-era interrogations of terrorism suspects. The CIA directors, who served Democratic and Republican presidents and include three who worked under President George W. Bush, made their request in a letter to the White House. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced last month that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible abuses by CIA personnel during interrogations.

Fiercely defending the intelligence community, CIA Director George J. Tenet on Thursday said his agency never warned President Bush that Saddam Hussein's government posed an "imminent threat," and the top spymaster backed away from several claims about weapons of mass destruction that the White House had used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet will testify publicly next month in a federal commission inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks. The two-day hearing in late March, to focus on U.S. counterterrorism policy, will be unprecedented in its review of high-level officials in the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Bush, Philip Zelikow, executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, said Tuesday in an interview with Associated Press.

CIA Director George J. Tenet warned Tuesday that a wave of smaller, scattered terrorist organizations was eclipsing Al Qaeda as the most serious threat to the United States and its allies, and that Iraq was increasingly seen as a "golden opportunity" for jihadist groups to rally their cause. Tenet told a Senate panel that Al Qaeda had been badly damaged by military and intelligence operations after the Sept.