CIA Boss Makes Sudden Exit

George Tenet, a veteran of two administrations and a focal point in investigations over Sept. 11 and Iraq intelligence, resigned as CIA director "for personal reasons," President Bush said Thursday.

"He's been a strong and able leader at the agency and I will miss him," said Mr. Bush as he was getting ready to board Marine One for a trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and on to Europe.

"I send my blessings to George and his family and look forward to working with him until he leaves the agency," Mr. Bush said.

Tenet will serve until mid-July. Mr. Bush said that Tenet's deputy, John McLaughlin, will temporarily lead America's premier spy agency until a successor is found. Among possible successors is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., a former CIA agent, and McLaughlin.

The CIA denied that Tenet's resignation was connected with any of the controversies that erupted during his tenure. "Absolutely not," said Mark Mansfield, CIA spokesman.

Tenet addressed CIA employees and said, "It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the well being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less."

Tenet suffered heart problems while at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, although a CIA official said his resignation was not health related.

Conventional wisdom had been that Tenet did not plan to stay on next year, no matter who won the White House. Tenet has been on the job since July 1997, an unusually lengthy tenure in a particularly taxing era for the intelligence community that he heads. Tenet is the third-longest serving director of central intelligence. Only the terms of Allen Dulles (1953-61) and Richard Helms (1966-73) exceed his tenure.

"He's been talking about leaving for some time," Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst and an Iraq expert at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, told CBS Radio News, adding that the timing was a surprise. "I don't think he's running away from the investigations and the controversies. I would guess he might be worn out."

But former CIA Director Stansfield Turner tells CBS News he believes Tenet was pushed out. Turner says, "I think the president is trying to begin to cast the blame for the morass we're in in Iraq."

The news caught Washington by surprise. Mr. Bush informed his senior staff Thursday morning at an Oval Office meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. The president told his staff he did not want anyone speculating that Tenet was leaving for anything other than personal reasons, a White House official said.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III praised Tenet. "George has sought at every turn to bridge the gap between the CIA and FBI with one goal in mind — the security of the American public," Mueller said.

There had been calls for Tenet's resignation from Sens. Bob Graham of Fla. and former Vice President Al Gore, chiefly because of Tenet's role in the intelligence assessments that were used to justify the war in Iraq.

"He has worked extremely hard on behalf of our nation, and we are grateful for his effort," Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., said. "There is no question, however, that there have been significant intelligence failures, and the administration has to accept responsibility for those failures."

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence community had to be held accountable for its failings.

"Simply put, I think the community is somewhat in denial over the full extent ... of the shortcoming of its work on Iraq and also on 9/11," Roberts said at a breakfast Thursday morning, apparently unaware of Tenet's decision.

Tenet sat behind Secretary of State Colin Powell during Powell's crucial February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council laying out allegations of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development by Iraq. According to reporter Bob Woodward, Tenet had told Mr. Bush that the evidence Powell planned to present was a "slam dunk".

More than a year after the Iraq war began, no weapons have been found and little evidence of advanced programs has been reported. The prewar estimates are now the focus of probes by the Senate and House intelligence committees, a presidential commission and the CIA itself.

In February, Tenet said in a speech that his analysts "never said there was an imminent threat."

In May, a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks released statements harshly criticizing the CIA for failing to fully appreciate the threat posed by al Qaeda before the terrorist hijackings. Tenet told the panel the intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the attacks will take five years to correct.

A native of New York, Tenet holds degrees from Georgetown and Columbia universities. He has a wife and son.

Prior to his time at the CIA, Tenet was an aide to the late Sen. John Heinz and the Senate intelligence committee. He served on President Clinton's transition team, and was the director of intelligence at the National Security Council before heading to the agency.

Tenet became CIA director after serving as acting director following the departure of John Deutch. Tenet had been Deutch's deputy.

Like many who resign from government, Tenet plans to take time off with his family, and eventually pursue public speaking, teaching, writing or working in the private sector, according to the officials close to him.

Other former CIA directors have gone on to careers in academia (Deutch teaches at MIT, and Robert Gates is president of Texas A&M), consulting (James Schlesinger advises Lehman Brothers). One, George H.W. Bush, subsequently became president.