There is an interesting connection between this article and one in How the World Works on a book called "Untapped: The Scramble For Africa's Oil." In that book, the auther explains how both Western Countries and corporations did more damage to African countries with petroleum resources than good. When we look at the Middle East, there is much to learn from Untapped. Our country and these corporations listed by Tim Shorrock are acting for the same purpose as Exxon/Mobil, Shell, et al in Africa. The difference, for now is how much of the financial opportunity is intelligence and insurgency related as opposed to mere exploration. But Africa is not without its profits in intelligence and mercenary endeavors. It just seems that the Middle East controls this market.

It is for a different post, but as the conclusion of Untapped reached, the worst thing that ever happened to Islam and the Middle East, was the discovery of oil. I swear it is like a child on the verge of walking only to be paid off and coerced to continue to crawl just for some effing oil.

The neo consters were already planning to invade Iraq at the end of the first gulf war in 1991. Trying to blame George Tenet for the Iraq war or 9/11 is like blaming the midwife because your baby's ugly. It does seem to be true that in Tenet they had the perfect Director of the CIA for their purposes: a man who could examine each dot with dazzling, pristine clarity but never connect it to another dot. He's the perfect systems man but that was just pure dumb luck on the part of the neo cons. Tenet did his job, he just didn't do any more than his job. George W. Bush did NOT do his job and allowed Dick Cheney to occupy the Presidential Emergency Bunker on 9/11 in violation of the US constitution. He then disappeared with some secret service men to a 'secret' location leaving Cheney to run the show. Can anyone imagine Bill Clinton disappearing after he had been told 'the nation was under attack'? Can anyone imagine him letting Al Gore occupy the PEB and handle the crisis? It would never have happened. Tenet and the CIA did warn the Bush administration that there was a strong possiblity of an attack and the administration allegedly told him and all the others who voiced warnings not to 'mention it again'. Why doesn't Salon ask some real questions about accountability?

Is it true that standing orders were changed in the time leading up to the 9/11 attacks so that only Donald Rumsfeld could order interception of suspicious aircraft in US airspace?

Is it true that not a single fighter jet took off for 90 MINUTES after NORAD was alerted to the hijacks? Is it true that in the ten years leading up to 9/11 there were a thousand interceptions of suspicious aircraft in US airspace but on 9/11 with 4 hijacked aircraft allegedly flying around there was not a single interception? Is it true that a plane was allowed to fly towards the Pentagon for 40 minutes with no interception? Is it true that the anti aircraft shield around the Pentagon which is programmed to shoot down any plane in Pentagon airspace that does have a military transponder on board did not shoot that plane down? If so why? Bush and Cheney should be impeached -for sheer dereliction of duty if nothing else. Tenet's book is simply a distraction. The historical record will be set straight eventually but not by him.

To think -- I didn't like Tenet after his 60 Minutes performance. Now I really don't like him.

Greek street kid from Queens, my eye. At this point he's just another greedy opportunist.

Not much we can do now, except: please, nobody buy his book. If you must read it, check it out from the library (using somebody else's library card, if possible).

Sigh.

With all the money Tenet seems to be making from the "WAR" on terror you could say any war would be a "SLAM-DUNK" for Him. And the kids that are fighting and Dying are making a few pitiful hundred dollars a month.There is a special place in HELL for Sonofabitches like this!!!

He decries the war publicly on TV, and says he had nothing to do with it. He declares that it was someone else doing all the decision making. He just did his job.

His job was to tell the President what intelligence he had to go after the bad guys, and he didn't. He aided and abetted an illegal and immoral war-and now it appears that he is profiting from that war he says he didn't want or helped start.

Must be nice to have no morals or scruples. Guess that is the cost of being in Washington too long-one forgets to check their ethical compass. He certainly has.

He has blood on his hands just as surely as everyone connected with starting this war does.

I don't think so. And this my friends is no different than any other ex senior staffer in government since maybe then end of WW2. I wonder for instance how you would feel about the direct pipeline a job in the State Department provides to senior staffers who choose to make the big bucks for any Arab government who needs a good lobbyist on K- street. Dear me, it's not even a poorly held secret. It's wide open. Again though if I had turned down a lobbying job or a Washington top draw law firm or consulting firm for 2 or 3 decades in civil service you can be goddamned sure I'd cash that in downstream. And any of you if you were honest about it and you were ever actually in that position would too. Until there's a law against it, it will happen.

BTW my CEO of public firm, earned 25 million last year while sending several thousand jobs to India. Yeah that sucks, but it's hardly treason.

After reading about L-1 Solutions, I'm having my teenagers re-read "1984."

I am amazed at the difference between the money given to George H.W. Bush (mere millions), Cheney, Rumsfeld, 'W', Tenet, and our esteemed congressmen and senators...

...and the billions that the military industrialists and oil companies make. The flunkies get chump change, while the rich get richer.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys...