What hastened Tenet146;s exit

George J. Tenet8217;s resignation may have been hastened by a critical, 400-page report from the Senate Intelligence Committee that was presented to the Central Intelligence Agency for comment last month. Government officials and people close to Tenet said the classified report is a detailed account of mistakes by American intelligence agencies on the question of whether Iraq possessed WMDs.

An unclassified version of the report is to be made public later this month. Some close to Tenet say the report was among the factors that led him to step down from a post he had considered leaving for several years. Officials who have read the report described it as presenting an across-the-board indictment of the CIA8217;s performance on Iraq. They said its criticism ranged from inadequate pre-war collection of intelligence by spies and satellites to a sloppy analytical performance, often based on uncorroborated sources, that produced the mistaken conclusion that Iraq possessed WMDs.

8216;8216;There are some things that are indefensible,8217;8217; said a recently retired intelligence official familiar with the report. The version of the report that was shared with the CIA included only factual findings, not the separate conclusions that are still being worked out by Democrats and Republicans on the Republican-controlled panel. But the findings alone were portrayed by three separate officials as likely to be embarrassing to the CIA.

Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director, who has been leading the CIA8217;s own internal review of its performance, said he believed it had been a factor in Tenet8217;s decision to step down.