Foreign Network at Front of CIA's Terror Fight

From Dana Priest's Foreign Network at Front of CIA's Terror Fight in the Washington Post

Tenet Courts Yemen

Persuading foreign presidents and intelligence chiefs to begin or deepen relationships with the CIA often took the personal intervention of Bush, Vice President Cheney and the secretary of state. But closing a deal was left to the CIA's chiefs of station, other top officials, and foremost, Tenet, 'the master of liaison,' as one longtime intelligence officer dubbed him.

Gregarious and comfortable in foreign settings, Tenet by Sept. 11 had earned a reputation among Muslim countries as an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli dispute and for his role in training Palestinian security forces.

He was a natural at bonding with foreign chiefs of service, current and former intelligence officials said. Once, during a dinner for a foreign service chief, the guests asked Tenet about Bush, whom Tenet briefed every morning. 'He would tell them what time he gets up. He'd say, 'The president calls me Jorge.' It was really human-being-to-human-being,' said a former intelligence official. 'He didn't give away anything classified, but they felt important and could go back to their president and say, 'The president calls him Jorge.' '

'George Tenet is a charming man, but also a very tough cookie,' said a senior French official.

Yemen, with its terrorist training camps and al Qaeda presence, was one of Tenet's most significant successes. Its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, had little control over the northern border with Saudi Arabia, which had turned into a haven for extremists, and even less over his violent rivals.

Faris Sanabani, a Yemeni presidential adviser, said Tenet's trips to Yemen after Sept. 11 helped persuade Saleh to work with the CIA in a way that would have been unthinkable before. 'He made an effort to reach out when people were really scared of Yemen,' said Sanabani, who sat in on meetings between Tenet and Saleh. 'He's the kind of person who doesn't work from a report or from behind the office desk.'

In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Saleh thought Yemen was next on the target list, said one current and one former intelligence official. Tenet did not disabuse him of this idea, they said. 'You don't take anything off the table,' one said.

At the same time, Tenet 'listened to him, took his views seriously and did not rebuke him. He sought to meet Saleh's needs,' he said.

Tenet provided millions of dollars for Yemen's cooperation. He gave helicopters, eavesdropping equipment, weapons and bulletproof vests. He brought in 100 Army Special Forces trainers to help Yemen create an antiterrorism unit.

Tenet also won Saleh's approval to fly Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles over the country to hunt and kill al Qaeda figures. In November 2002, the CIA killed six al Qaeda operatives driving in the desert, including Abu Ali al-Harithi, suspected mastermind of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

'All of the sudden our enemy became common,' Sanabani said. 'That's why Yemen and the United States reached out to one other.'"

We sort of knew how Yemeni-US relations changed so palpably after 9/11 but it's always amazing to see this kind of stuff.

A blast from the past: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/1860413.stm

Google cache of a story from al-Ahram Weekly that won't load right now.