The C.I.A. inspector general’s report on the agency’s failures before Sept. 11 was devastating — but not because it showed that America’s spies missed the rise of Al Qaeda. George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, rang the Qaeda alarm. He sent a memo to the entire intelligence community saying that he wanted no effort spared in the “war” with Osama bin Laden. He took on the president’s closest advisers to agitate for a strike on a Qaeda base in Afghanistan.

The disturbing thing was that this all happened under President Bill Clinton. When George W. Bush won the White House, Mr. Tenet seems to have shifted his priorities. The C.I.A. chief suddenly seemed consumed with hanging on to his job.

The Bush team was so busy in 2001 trying to upend America’s global relationships according to a neo-conservative agenda that the then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, did not see any urgency in reports that Al Qaeda was determined to strike in the United States. Mr. Tenet later helped hype the “slam dunk” intelligence that Mr. Bush used to justify diverting the military from the war of necessity against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to the war of choice in Iraq.

Another disturbing aspect of the report released on Tuesday was its date, June 2005, which neatly sums up Mr. Bush’s policies on transparency and accountability — he doesn’t believe in either. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the report wasn’t released in 2005. Mr. Bush had just given Mr. Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his “pivotal” role in fighting Al Qaeda.