CIA • 2005

MEMORANDUM TO INSPECTOR GENERAL HELGERSON FROM GEORGE J. TENET REGARDING ASSESSMENT OF PERFORMANCE

Approved for Release: 2015/06/100062972941 A(c)<25YrsTo: Inspector General Helgerso(From: George J. TenetDEWORD SENSIMEMORANDUMFebruary 16, 2005In responding to your assessment of my performance as Director of CentralIntelligence in the period leading up to the tragedy of September 11, 2001, I must tell youin the strongest possible terms that your report has mischaracterized my leadership ofboth the Intelligence Community and the CIA with regard to the strategy, plans andactions which I directed to deal with a very difficult problem.' The segment of the report that I read portrays almost no understanding of the resourcecontext in which the Intelligence Community was operating, the programmatic prioritiesestablished by me, the obstacles I had to overcome to secure more resources, both dollarsand people, to meet all of our highest priorities. The report also shows no understandingof the geopolitical context in which we were operating during the mid to late 1990s, orthe requirements to perform against specific intelligence priorities which, as a matter ofrecord, are levied upon US intelligence not by the DCI, as your report suggests, but bythe President of the United States, through the National Security Council, as embodied byPDD 35.The report's characterization of my efforts as solely relying on CIA to combatterrorism is simply wrong...