The Tenet quote you won't see in the New York Times

 
Lorie Byrd, writing at Wizbang, takes note of a curiously underreported segment of 60 Minutes' Tenet interview:

SCOTT PELLEY, CBS' "60 MINUTES": January '03, the President, again: "imagine those 19 hijackers this time armed by Saddam's Hussein," is that what you're telling the President? GEORGE TENNET: No. [narrating voice] The Vice President up the anty, claiming Saddam had nuclear weapons when the CIA was saying he didn't. PELLEY: What's happening here? TENNET: I don't know what's happening here. The intelligence community's judgement is he will not have nuclear weapons until the year 2007, 2009. PELLEY: That's not what the Vice President is saying. TENNET: Well I can't explain it. Am I missing something or did Tenet basically say that if Saddam had been left in power, it is likely he would have a nuclear weapon today? ...Maybe Pelley and Tenet think we should have waited until 2007 to address that threat, then if our estimates were off by a year or three and Saddam had the bomb in 2004, then oopsie, tough break.

Bill Clinton will be named Pope before we'll see The New York Times call attention to this aspect of the Tenet interview or several other trivial little details:

• At least 20 serious attacks on the U.S. thwarted by CIA (analysts say far more in total)
• Al Qaeda made two attempts to get nukes from Pakistan
• Al Qaeda called off a subway gas attack in NYC because "a bigger and better attack" was being planned
• Bush argued heavily with the so-called "neocons" over what to do about Iraq

And don't look for a related op-ed with the byline of Maureen Dowd on it. Her pathetic, partisan excretions need to include four or more references to the terms "Wolfie", "Rummie", and "Bushies" for her to consider it giggle-worthy-cute.