Wednesday, May 02, 2007
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former CIA Director George Tenet defended his tenure as head of the agency Wednesday, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer, " I am proud of what we did and proud of our people."
"History will make an ultimate judgment about me and the work we did and the American people may appreciate the fact that we took down the Taliban in Afghanistan," Tenet said. "We were responsible for disarming Libya. We dismantled the AQ Kahn Proliferation Network, we built a coalition of the willing around the world to fight terrorism."
Tenet also said that while he is sorry for the fact the CIA believed Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, he does not regret calling "it as we saw it."
"I do not regret the fact that in the post war period, we spoke truth to power, called it as we saw it, we're very, very direct about the inadequacies of the post war planning," he said. "And I think we performed the way we're supposed to."
Asked directly if he thought he owed the American people an apology, Tenet said, "No sir."
"I -- we all regret that we were wrong," Tenet added. "There's no CIA director, and our people never, would put people in harm's way for a bad reason. We did our best, we were wrong."
-- CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Moone
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