George Tenet was an ally of Bush. There was no percentage in it for him to undermine the president. If the CIA was hot bed of liars with an agenda why did the President call the head of the CIA "George Tenet did a superb job for America." Why would Bush awardTenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom if he felt the guy was heading up a lying organization?
"According to a report by veteran investigative journalist Bob Woodward in his book Plan of Attack, Tenet privately lent his personal authority to the intelligence reports about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. At a meeting on December 12, 2002 he is said to have assured the President that the evidence against Saddam amounted to a "slam dunk case," although Tenet has refused to confirm that he said this. The search following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S., British and international forces has proved unproductive and no stockpiles of WMD were found following the occupation of the country. The case of the invading governments for a legitimate war against Iraq had been based largely on the threat of WMDs in the hands of Saddam Hussein, supposedly on the strength of reliable intelligence assessments, including evidence that could not itself be made public. Thus a failure subsequently to find any banned weapons or programs became a considerable embarrassment for Tenet and the CIA.
The resignation of both Tenet and CIA Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt in June 2004 may be related to this failure to find the WMDs that the United States used to justify invasion. For example, Admiral Stansfield Turner (retired), director of the CIA under President Carter, said (Boston Herald, June 4, 2004): "I think the president feels he's in enough trouble that he's got to begin to cast some of the blame for the morass that we are in Iraq on to somebody else and this was one subtle way to do it."
President Bush awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tenet on 14--December--2004.Tenet's seven-year long term as CIA director was the second-longest in US history; a resignation so soon before an election, especially one in which intelligence-handling is a major issue, is also unusual. However, President George W. Bush said, "George Tenet did a superb job for America. It was a high honor to work with him, and I'm sorry he left," and that Tenet resigned "for personal reasons" (Reuters, June 5, 2004).
On December 14, 2004, George Bush awarded Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The award was one of the most controversial in the history of the medal, because of Tenet's resignation only a few months earlier, and that resignation's perceived links to faulty WMD intelligence in Iraq."
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