WaPo: In Valedictory, Tenet Defends CIA From Past, Present Critics

This morning, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is to release an extensive report about the intelligence failures preceding the war in Iraq and, according to officials who have seen the report, will portray prewar assertions about Iraq's weapons as almost entirely false. By all accounts, the report will harshly criticize the CIA and its prewar statements -- now largely discredited -- about Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

Tenet said last month that he is resigning for personal reasons, but the timing is broadly seen as related to the intelligence debacle in Iraq and the campaign season debate about whether the Bush administration exaggerated the case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

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Yesterday, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) released an unclassified version of a statement Tenet made in March at a committee hearing in which he dismissed an allegation that Cheney has promoted tying Iraq to al Qaeda.

Asked about the allegation that Sept.11, 2001, hijack leader Mohamed Atta met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Tenet said that "we are increasingly skeptical" and that there is no "credible information" that such a meeting occurred. Cheney originally said the meeting was "pretty well confirmed"; as recently as last month, he said "we just don't know" if the meeting occurred.

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Today's committee report will fault Tenet and the CIA for relying too heavily on circumstantial, outdated intelligence and for the weakness of its human contacts in Iraq. The nearly 500-page document will also say there is no evidence to support the claim that CIA analysts colored their judgment because of perceived or actual political pressure from White House officials.