George Tenet and Last Days at Cia

GEORGE Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA

Emeka C. Chukwu

Instructor: Dr. William Roberts Jr.

School: Strayer University

Date: February 5th, 2012

Identify four (4) cross-coded ethical dilemmas facing former CIA Director George Tenet and assess their impact on his leadership abilities.

There were numerous ethical dilemmas faced by the former CIA Director George Tenet, among which were the violations of national and international human right policies. George Tenet was also faced with the ethical dilemma of being truthful to the people he worked with, especially his field officers, and most importantly the entire nation. He knew all along that the statements about Saddam Hussein and chemical weapons were a fluke, but went along with it and cost American families over four thousand lives. His mediation between the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and two times Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also an ethical concern.

Some within the government did not think it was appropriate for the CIA Director to play such a role, and it created doubts with his cabinet and the administration. He also had ethical dilemmas of loyalty; he started ignoring his field officers reports and went for the administrations unfounded stories of WMD and the subsequent war in Iraq. There was a reference in our readings by Stillman that as public administrators climb higher in organizational hierarchy, they must contend with an increasingly intense tug and pull of competing ethical obligations, which in the end caused George Tenet to resign and also the decline of CIA.

Analyze four (4) ways in which Tenet addressed the prioritization of ethical concerns.

George Tenet used different approach to address the prioritization of of his ethical concerns among which was the implementation of CIA policies. During his go in-between for Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President and Israeli Prime Minister respectively, Tenet recognized the ethical...