Should Americans have to pay to get the truth about how their government failed them?

In a few days, former CIA director George Tenet's new book goes on sale. For $30.00, a reader will be able to find out what really happened in that December 2002 meeting at the White House when Tenet used the phrase "slam dunk." Or what really happened with the prewar WMD intelligence and how it was used--or abused--by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and others.

The usual promotional theatrics are under way. Tenet will appear on 60 Minutes on Sunday, and CBS has already released some choice tidbits of that interview. Meanwhile, The New York Times has obtained a copy of the under-wraps book and has reported some of its disclosures. (News flash: Cheney pushed the nation to war without ever seriously examining the threat posed by Iraq.)

All of this is making Tenet, the man who was in charge of an intelligence establishment that failed the country before 9/11 and that then produced an intelligence estimate that vastly overstated the WMD threat posed by Iraq, a rich fellow. He reportedly bagged millions of dollars for writing this book.

But here's an out-of-the-box question: don't the citizens of the United States deserve to know what happened in the run-up to the war (and to 9/11) for free? Tenet may feel--as he claims--damn lousy about the screwed-up National Intelligence Estimate that helped pave the way to war in Iraq. But he did not feel bad enough to resign--or to disclose earlier what had gone wrong. He sat on the story and now is peddling it for personal profit.

Tenet should have long ago been questioned openly by a congressional committee about all this--though no Republican committee chair would have dared--or he should have spilled all to 60 Minutes and other media, as a public service, not as an advertisement for his book. On Friday, Representative Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House oversight and government reform committee, sent Tenet a letter asking him to testify before his committee on May 10 regarding "one of the claims used to justify the war in Iraq--the assertion that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger--and related issues." Let's hope Tenet can take time from the book tour to appear.

I am looking forward to reading Tenet's account. He's a smart guy who saw much. And he was screwed by the White House, even though he did fail to make sure the intelligence on Iraq was properly vetted and responsibly used. But if Tenet indeed believed before the invasion of Iraq that Bush and Cheney were pushing the nation to war without adequately assessing the threat or assessing options other than full-scale war, he had an obligation at the time to make that known--at least to members of Congress, if not the public at large. He did not do so. Consequently, he owes the public a full accounting and an apology--not a sales campaign.

Posted by David Corn at April 27, 2007 11:39 AM