According to an occasionally tearful Mr Tenet the day after his resignation, the decision to leave the CIA on July 11 - seven years after he was appointed its director - was taken in order to spend more time with his family and, in particular, his son, John, who will start senior school next autumn. But one former CIA analyst, who has worked with Mr Tenet, suggested that the motives for his decision, which comes only five months before Mr Bush stands for re-election, are considerably more complicated and embittered.

"I think George, who is really a civil servant, not a politician, got too close to [the Bush administration's] policy-making agenda, above all on Iraq," said the analyst. "He got burned and now he's had enough."