Ethics and Obligations

The Concept of Ethical Obligations

In his essay Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface, Dwight Waldo identifies and differentiates between private and public morality and notes that the two can often be at odds with each other. In Waldo's opinion, the fundamental premise of public morality is that the actions and behavior of those in office or tasked with the representation of the public, should be done for the good of all. Hence it is about more than simply being honest, trustworthy and law abiding. Often personal, professional, legal and organizational goals are in conflict. The competent public administrator is one who in spite outside pressures, is able to juggle and overcome these conflicting ethical codes (White, 2008).

George Tenet was well liked, direct and loyal. Though he was not an experienced politician and lacking any experience in foreign policy and lacked military background, he was chosen to become the Director of Central Intelligence at the CIA. He inherited a CIA at a point of dismal morale. The agency suffered due to years of inconsistent leadership and direction. Tenet's priorities were rebuilding the CIA, improving morale, advancing technological capabilities to acquire intelligence and to clarify and enforce the mission of the agency. The CIA continued to suffer intelligence blunders that were the basis of misinformation or lack of knowledge about serious threats prior to their occurrence.

Whereas President Clinton seemed to keep the DCI at arm's length, President Bush met with Tenet frequently. Tenet developed a close personal relationship with President G.W. Bush. As a trusted member of Bush's inner circle, Tenet had access to the president and his ear in letting him know what the intelligence community believed. Unfortunately, the information Tenet received was not stellar intelligence. The consensus is that Tenet did not intentionally give poor data. The information he relayed he truly believed was the best intelligence data available to the intelligence community at the time. It just happened to be incorrect information. On the issue of weapons of mass destruction and Vice President Cheney's speech, Tenet often says that he know the information that served as a basis for that speech was less than perfect. He however said nothing privately to the VP Cheney or the president; therefore the implication was that he agreed with the assessments and conclusions in the speech that eventually became the basis for a call for war (Stillman, 2010).

The presumption is that Tenet became too close friend of the president and therefore was no longer able to be an objective provider of information that could be analyzed and disseminated in a manner that it has passed appropriate levels of scrutiny and checks. One of the greatest criticisms of Tenet is that he could no longer be trusted to deliver reliable intelligence because his position and his person has been overly politicized due to his relationship with the president. Pieces of information he provided was often to support decisions the President had already made rather than to foster discussion and ...