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U.S. Dispatches CIA Director to Mideast
US President Bush sent George Tenet to the Middle East on Tuesday, restoring the CIA director a leading role in U.S. peacemaking and deepening American involvement.
The Bush administration's reversal of course on CIA participation in the region came as the State Department praised Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, for taking ''positive steps'' toward ending months of violence. Tenet, who left Tuesday, was assigned to negotiate security arrangements with senior Israeli and Palestinian experts and try to lay groundwork for resuming peace talks.
Tenet was a high-profile player in the Clinton administration's energetic but futile drive for an accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Against a backdrop of suggestions that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency should not be involved in day-to-day negotiations, however, the Bush administration greatly diminished his role.
Lower-level CIA officials have helped set up and participated in security talks between Israel and the Palestinians this year.
The dispatch of Tenet had been delayed for a few days until Arafat's Palestinian Authority gave assurances last week's boycott of talks with Israel by senior security officials would not be repeated.
Still, there was no word whether Tenet would meet with the two sides together or only separately.
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