- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
top-ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Sunday
that CIA Director George Tenet should be replaced, stepping up pressure
on President Bush to overhaul the U.S. intelligence agencies that failed
to detect the Sept. 11 plot.
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- "Would I keep him? Absolutely not," Sen. Richard
Shelby said of Tenet, adding that the decision was Bush's to make.
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- "I think we could do better. I've always thought
that," the Alabama Republican told CNN's "Late Edition."
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- Shelby has long been one of Tenet's harshest critics.
-
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended Tenet,
saying Bush has voiced "confidence in him and the changes he has made
since Sept. 11 to improve our intelligence gathering and sharing."
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- The Senate and House of Representatives intelligence
committees are conducting a joint investigation into why U.S. intelligence
agencies failed to detect the plot that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, which
killed about 3,000 people.
-
- Tenet, appointed in 1997 and warmly supported by Bush,
has defended the "heroic" work of CIA and FBI officers who risk
their lives to thwart attacks.
-
- He told lawmakers in February that the CIA had seen "spectacular
threat reporting about massive casualties against the United States"
in the spring and summer last year and that three or four bombings of U.S.
facilities overseas had been prevented, but that there had been no specific
information about the coming Sept. 11 attacks.
-
- Under pressure from Congress, Bush has proposed creating
a department of homeland security to oversee the nation's defenses against
future acts of terrorism.
-
- Bush's plan would not give the department control of
the FBI or the CIA, but would be a clearing house for information from
these and other intelligence agencies.
-
- Lawmakers from both parties have questioned whether this
arrangement would ensure that the FBI and the CIA end their long-running
turf wars.
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