Tenet's CIA memoir shifts 9/11 blame to FBI

By James Gordon Meek

Co-Editor's Note: James Gordon Meek, respected reporter specializing in terrorism issues for the New York Daily News, joins us today as a Guest Author. James has been to Afghanistan and maintains contact with soldiers and officials in the area. We look forward to his contributions.

Today's New York Daily News carries a piece I wrote about former CIA Director George Tenet's new score-settling memoir, "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA." Earlier this week, a source described for me a key chapter in the book, headlined "Missed Opportunities," where Tenet tries to shift blame for the Sept. 11 attacks away from the CIA to the FBI. I reported today:

That rankled FBI agents, who call Tenet's 575-page tome, written with former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, "a novel."

At issue is CIA's failure to watch-list two 9/11 hijackers who were in the U.S. for 16 months before they crashed a jet into the Pentagon.

Tenet says his staff thought three FBI agents embedded in CIA's counterterrorist center had told the bureau's brass about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar. But two top FBI officials said CIA blocked the sharing of info on the Al Qaeda thugs and CIA didn't tell the FBI about them until Aug. 23, 2001.

There are more details. Read the rest of the story at the Daily News' Mouth of the Potomac blog and see how the bitter rivalry between the two spy agencies has hardly abated as they battle over who is to blame for 9/11.

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