In quoting George Tenet's remark that the case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a "slam dunk," President Bush wasn't trying to blame the former CIA director for faulty intelligence, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card tells me.
"I don't think he [Tenet] has to be as sensitive about it as it appears he is," Card said. "I don't think that the president did it to put blame on anybody," Card said, referring to the CIA's incorrect assessment that Saddam Hussein had WMD.
In his book At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, Tenet says that seeing his remark quoted in Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack made him realize that "the wheels had come off the train" and it was time to leave as director of Central Intelligence.
The comment led Tenet to write his book, laying out his frustrations with both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Card noted that the quote summarized what the CIA and almost everyone else believed. Besides the CIA, Saddam's own generals, all the major intelligence organizations in the world, and Bill Clinton when he was president thought that Saddam had WMD.
The "slam dunk" remark became so important largely because Woodward hyped it as representing a turning point in the decision to go to war. In fact, when Tenet made the comment, troops were already being sent to the Middle East for the invasion of Iraq.
Tenet served as director of Central Intelligence under Presidents Clinton and Bush and oversaw the country's intelligence response during the stormy days after Sept. 11 and the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Bill Harlow, Tenet's former director of public affairs, collaborated with him on the 549-page the book.
Despite criticisms Tenet levels against the Bush administration, "I happen to think he's a true patriot, as Dan Bartlett said, and of course that was a statement that I'd been using for a long time," Card said. "I thought George | 
