George Tenet is not going to let himself become the fall guy for the
September 11 intelligence failures, according to a former intelligence officer
and a source friendly to Mr. Tenet. A scathing report by
Inspector General John Helgerson criticized the former CIA director and a score
of other agency personnel for their failure to develop a strategy against al
Qaeda. The report, delivered to Congress this week, recommends punitive
sanctions for Mr. Tenet, former Deputy Director of Operations James L. Pavitt
and former counter-terrorist center head J. Cofer Black. Mr. Tenet's response to
the report is a 20-page, tightly knitted rebuttal of responsibility prepared
with the aid of a lawyer, according to the friendly source.

Mr. Tenet's decision to defend himself against the charges in the report
poses a potential crisis for the White House. According to a former clandestine
services officer, the former CIA director turned down a publisher's $4.5 million
book offer because he didn't want to embarrass the White House by rehashing the
failure to prevent September 11 and the flawed intelligence on Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction. Mr. Tenet, according to a knowledgeable source, had a
"wink and a nod" understanding with the White House that he wouldn't be scapegoated for intelligence failings. The deal, one source says, was sealed with the award of the Presidential Freedom Medal.

Now that deal may be off. Mr. Tenet's rebuttal to the report is detailed
and explicit. In defending his integrity as CIA director, Mr. Tenet
treads perilously close to affirming the account of Richard Clarke, the former NSC terrorism official whose public disclosure of the Bush administration's delay in adopting a strategy against al Qaeda stirred controversy last summer...

In criticizing Mr. Tenet for lack of a strategy to fight al Qaeda,
the IG report goes to the heart of the September 11 failure. Mr. Tenet's defense
inevitably leads to the sensitive issue of the CIA briefings of the president
and other senior officials in the summer of 2001. In deciding not to become the fall guy, Mr. Tenet has made a fateful decision. The latest salvo in the ongoing wars between the CIA and the White House may be about to burst. Until now, Mr. Tenet has kept silent about what Mr. Bush knew and when he knew it. Mr. Tenet's decision to defend his own role in September 11 puts the White House back in the spotlight. The only way he can push off responsibility is to push it higher up the ladder.