Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 4 June 2004 — In a surprise move, President George W. Bush announced yesterday that CIA director George Tenet, who has weathered storms over intelligence lapses about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks, has resigned.

Tenet has been under increasing pressure to resign after prewar intelligence on alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq proved wrong.

“He’s been a strong and able leader at the agency, and I will miss him. He told me he was resigning for personal reasons,” Bush told reporters before a trip to Europe. He said Tenet, 51, would stay on his post until mid-July, when a successor is expected to be named.

Bush said Deputy John McLaughlin would temporarily lead America’s powerful spy agency. Among possible successors are House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Florida, a former CIA agent and McLaughlin.

But during Tenet’s tenure, the United States suffered a series of intelligence failures — observers have suggested that Tenet’s duties overseeing all US intelligence efforts were made more difficult by hawks in the Pentagon.

Earlier this year the American intelligence community was sharply criticized at hearings of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Tenet conceded his agency failed to translate knowledge of the dangers posed by Al-Qaeda to an effective defense of the nation. He also said it would take five years to develop a clandestine service capable of fully dealing with terrorist threats.

Is Tenet a scapegoat for the administration? David Mac Michael, a former analyst for the CIA, says no. He believes that Tenet told Bush “he could no longer work with neo-conservative officials like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith (undersecretary of defense for policy), and former CIA director James Woolsey — who are still influencing the assessments being made in the Middle East while sniping at the CIA and rest of the intelligence community. I think he told Bush to chose — and Bush did.”

If the purpose was to make Tenet the scapegoat, Bush would have thanked him for his efforts and said it was now time to restructure and bring new leadership in the intelligence community, said Mac Michael.

“So if Bush’s attempt is to show that he’s concerned about these problems..., then I don’t think he would have said that Tenet was leaving for personal reasons.”