Book Review: "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA" by George Tenet with Bill Harlow (2007)

This book is so relevant to what's going on in the world today that I cannot possibly do it justice by way of a quick little review. I know that Tenet has been criticized from many quarters, having been accused of falsifying encounters with the likes of Richard Perle to buttress his thesis, passing the buck to the political wing of the White House for the Iraq mess, and sucking up to the Democrats. I haven't read a lot of those remarks because I didn't want my own impressions of this fascinating piece of work to be clouded by those of others, and given my own limitations as a writer and an analyst, I was reluctant to try my hand at grading this. I can only say that anyone who considers themself to be a serious observer of a) the conflict between radical Islam and the West, and b) the relationship between unelected officials and their political masters in liberal democracies, ought to read this book.

For myself, there are three major conclusions that I drew from reading this memoir:

1. Intelligence is an art, not a science.
2. For the people who are privileged to work in the security field, it is a vocation, not a job, and in hindsight, Tenet wanted to do better despite what most of his critics (who I think are basing their views more on the 60 Minutes interview than his actual writing) accuse him of.
3. Given what the Agency's information showed in 2002 and early 2003 concerning WMD in Iraq and al-Qaeda's stated goals of obtaining such tools of murder and mayhem, not going into Iraq would have been irresponsible even though the case against Saddam as viewed through the lens of WMD was far from airtight as we know now.

A serious, eye-opening and vital contribution. Regular readers of this blog will devour it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some op/eds to go read.

Overall rating: 10/10