Boren & Tenet & unanswered questions

Interesting blog post from The Oklahoman's Washington bureau correspondent Chris Casteel, who discusses George Tenet's new book, "At the Center of the Storm," and Tenet's connection to current OU President and former US Sen. David Boren, a man with close ties to intelligence agencies and the so-called "black world" of covert ops.

Writes Casteel:
Seven years ago this week, University of Oklahoma President David Boren came to Washington to make an important point about George Tenet: that he was independent and would tell the President of the United States what he needed _ not what he wanted _ to hear.
There is no doubt Boren, a former U.S. senator who served as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee during the first Gulf War and is close to many people in the military and intelligence communities, thought this was a critical characteristic for a CIA director.
There is some doubt now that Tenet lived up to Boren's depiction of him, made at the Senate confirmation hearings for Tenet.

Continuing ...

Tenet essentially claims in the book that he was made the scapegoat by some in the Bush administration for the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Tenet devotes a whole chapter in his book to his use of the phrase "slam dunk'' during an Oval Office meeting about making the public case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
In an interview this week, Boren said he repeatedly urged Tenet to resign, or at least threaten to resign, because of the administration's determination to invade Iraq, without conclusive intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.

Finally ...

Boren, who is still a good friend and strong supporter of Tenet, said he accomplished much at the CIA. But, after listing his achievements, Boren asked, "Did he vigorously enough try to convince the president that there was insufficient evidence of WMD before going into Iraq?"
Tenet's book clearly shows that he's been asking that question of himself for years.
--END--

Read the full piece here.

And I have to say that it still leaves some big questions open. Boren and Tenet were having a "leisurely breakfast"together in Washington on 9/11. Click here to read Michael P. Wright's comments and links to articles that point to Tenet (and Boren indirectly) as missing some serious clues that would point to a terrorist attack taking place in 2001. Of course we know Zacarias Moussaoui was in Norman, Boren's backyard, for a while in 2001 and we also know Nick Berg, the young Pennsylvania businessman beheaded in Iraq in 2004, was lurking around OU campus around the time Moussaoui had been in Norman. What does Boren, or Tenet for that matter, know about this?