A new book on U.S. endeavours in the Middle East paints an unflattering picture of George Tenet, claiming that the former CIA director went on a drunken rant about neoconservatives and “the Jews”.

According to a story on TheAtlantic.com, journalist Patrick Tyler’s forthcoming book, A World of Trouble, includes a scene where Tenet is drinking copious amounts of scotch in the pool of a Saudi prince. Drunk and on sleeping pills, Tenet allegedly proceeds to rave about the Bush administrations attempts to pin Iraq’s missing weapons of mass destruction on him.

The December 16 story includes two passages from Tyler’s book.

A servant appeared with a bottle. Tenet knocked back some of the scotch. Then some more. They watched with concern. He drained half the bottle in a few minutes.

“They’re setting me up. The bastards are setting me up,” Tenet said, but “I am not going to take the hit.”

Followed by:

According to one witness, he mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and their alignment with the rlght wing of Israel’s political establishment, referring to them with exaxperation as, “the Jews.”

According to the Atlantic, Tenet disputes the remarks attributed to him.

Tenet was director of the CIA from 1997 to 2004, during which time the intelligence agency often came under sharp criticism.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda successfully carried out the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in history. Defending interrogation measures associated with the Bush administration’s “War on Terror”, the CIA publicly acknowledged it was using water boarding and other “harsh” interrogation techniques against terrorist suspects. And it was Tenet who told U.S. president George W. Bush that the evidence against former Iraq president Saddam Hussein was a “slam dunk”, a phrase that was later used by the administration to convince the American public that the U.S.’s 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified.

On December 14, 2004, Bush awarded Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

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