Here's the final exchange from Amy Goodman's Democracy Now interview with retired CIA veteran and BushCo critic Ray McGovern about George Tenet's surprise resignation yesterday: GOODMAN: . . . We only have a minute to go and I have two last quick questions. What do you think really happened behind the scenes? What does it mean to say that he is the scapegoat, George Tenet, who has now just resigned, George Bush accepting his resignation and announcing it? And also George Bush’s lawyer being the former attorney for Richard Secord, the retired major general US air force who worked with Albert Hakim involved with Iran-Contra affair. If you could say who Secord was. MCGOVERN: Yeah, well Secord was one of those shadowy figures who was so deeply involved with Iran-Contra that he needed the best kind of lawyer to defend him. I’m glad you pointed that out Amy. This is exactly and precisely the same fellow. With respect to Tenet, you know, the Senate Intelligence Committee is just about to come out with a report that is going to bring him over the coals. It’s going to be very acerbic. Pat Roberts is no longer his defender. For the first time in George Tenet’s political existence he does not have support on the hill and that is the death knell for him. And the president will be able to point to this and say, well we did get rid of one of the malefactors, and maybe that will shield Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for another month or two. Now I'm a pretty skeptical person, and when it comes to folks with the CIA, -- active or retired -- totally skeptical more accurately describes my point of view. Still, I think Mr. McGovern may have part of the strategy behind Tenet's departure about right. These folks are buying time. But like McGovern says, only for a month or two. What then? Elsewhere in the interview he says these folks, and specifically the president, face real risks of prosecution once they're out of office for violating Geneva Conventions and US laws that encompass them. According to McGovern, this makes winning the November election an even greater imperative for Bush and Company. Wait. Strike that. What he actually says that the imperative is to stay in office four more years -- and that he's more "frightened now than at any time over the last three and a half years, that this administration will resort to extra-legal methods" to ensure just that.
