The State Department declined to provide details on his schedule, but sources said he might stop in Amman, before coming to Israel. Boucher said Tenet would coordinate with Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns, currently monitoring the situation from Jordan, and that he expects Burns will attend some of the meetings. Less than three months ago, the Bush administration abandoned the CIA's high-profile role as a broker between Israeli and Palestinian security services and decided to keep Tenet out of the fray. Tenet, who visited the region frequently during the previous administration, has not traveled to Israel since October, when then president Bill Clinton dispatched him shortly after the outbreak of the violence. Officials also wanted to make certain Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs, particularly Gaza Preventive Security Service chief Mohammed Dahlan and his West Bank counterpart, Jibril Rajoub, who balked at recent lower-level security meetings, would take part in meetings if Tenet came.
Tenet knows both parties very well.
We believe that Director Tenet has an ability in this circumstance to help the parties coordinate, to help encourage further coordination. And for us he has the ability to go out and make a good assessment of the situation and what needs to be done. Washington knows the cease-fire is tenuous at best and that one terrorist attack could quickly send the region back into a bitter cycle of attacks and counterattacks. Analysts here have speculated that Arafat needs more than diplomatic threats of isolation to completely implement a cease-fire. But it was not clear whether the administration had authorized any new positive incentives to be conveyed to Arafat during Tenet's mission.