L’honneur perdu de George Tenet

Trois ans après sa démission, l’ancien directeur de la CIA George Tenet s’explique avec une indignation qui n’a pas passé avec le temps sur l’expression qui lui fut prêtée, et constitua l’étendard dialectique, le “truc” virtualiste sur lequel s’appuya la campagne de propagande de l’administration GW pour préparer l’opinion à la guerre contre l’Irak

Il s’agit de l’expression “Slam Dunk”, intraduisible pour notre compte. Il s’agit d’un “panier” gagnant à tout coup au basket, lorsque le joueur, au haut de sa détente, surmontant le panier, smashe ou dépose le ballon dans le panier (voir l’encyclopédie Wilkipedia pour une explication de l’expression). L’exclamation de Tenet, au cours d’une réunion de sécurité nationale à la Maison-Blanche, fut passée à Bob Woodward qui la diffusa dans un article du Washington Post. L’interprétation était que Tenet directeur de la CIA, résumait l’affaire sous l’expression de “Slam Dunk” : l’invasion de l’Irak, la présence d’ADM de Saddam, est un coup incontestable, un coup gagnant et indiscutable sans la moindre hésitation.

Tenet explique tout cela dans une émission de CBS, Sixty Minuts, le 29 avril sur CBS, avec Scott Pelley. Voici comment CBS.News rapporte la chose.

«The phrase ‘slam dunk‘ didn't refer to whether Saddam Hussein actually had WMDs, says Tenet; the CIA thought he did. He says he was talking about what information could be used to make that case when he uttered those words. “We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant,” explains Tenet.

»Months later, when no WMDs were found in Iraq, someone leaked the story to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, who then wrote about a Dec. 21, 2002, White House meeting in which the CIA director reportedly “rose up, threw his arms in the air [and said,] 'It's a slam dunk case.'” Tenet says it was a passing comment, made well after major decisions had already been made to mobilize the nation for war.

»The leak effectively made him a scapegoat for the invasion and ended his career.

»“At the end of the day, the only thing you have … is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor and when you don't have that anymore, well, there you go,” Tenet tells Pelley.

»He says he doesn't know who leaked it but says there were only a handful of people in the room.

»“It's the most despicable thing that ever happened to me,” Tenet says. “You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me.”

»Tenet says to have the president base his entire decision to go to war on such a remark is unbelievable.

»”So a whole decision to go to war, when all of these other things have happened in the run-up to war? You make mobilization decisions, you've looked at war plans,'' says Tenet. ''I'll never believe that what happened that day informed the president's view or belief of the legitimacy or the timing of this war. Never!”

»Tenet says what bothers him most is that senior administration officials like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continue using ''slam dunk'' as a talking point.

»“And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on 'Meet the Press' on the fifth year [anniversary] of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk' as if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq,” he tells Pelley. “And you listen to that and they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. 'Look at the idiot [who] told us and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous … Let's everybody just get up and tell the truth. Tell the American people what really happened.”»

Mis en ligne le 27 avril 2007 à 19H51