'We're Fucked!' Is All He Said

Second of 25 excerpts from The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer:

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, it was hard to believe that the news could get any worse for George Tenet or the CIA, the agency he had lead since 1997. But when a team of analysts sorted through masses of cables and electronic communications in a conference room in the campuslike CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, it found some terrible news, which it soon delivered to Tenet and his chief of staff, John Moseman. Buried in the CIA's files was the trail of two of the 9/11 hijackers. The records showed that the Agency had followed the Al Qaeda suspects into the United States in 2000 and then dropped the case. For more than a year, despite the Agency's awareness that the pair was at large inside the United States, no one had alerted the FBI.

Upon hearing the news, Tenet, a warm bear of a man known for his locker-room banter and cheerleading for the CIA, relled back in his desk chair and groaned.

"We're fucked!" is all he said.

Copyright 2008 by Jane Mayer. All Rights Reserved