Its CYA at Langley. Someone should have been tossed out over this fiasco. But they won't, since that could possibly expose other Agency F-ups over there.
Probe links security lapses to Afghan suicide bombing at CIA base
WASHINGTON — A CIA investigation into a December suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven agency officers and injured six others found security and communications lapses in the field and at headquarters, but no one will be fired or disciplined, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Tuesday.
In one of the most devastating attacks in CIA history, officers failed to search an al-Qaeda double agent before he entered a meeting at their base in Khost, in a remote part of Afghanistan, and detonated a huge bomb.
Two contractors and five CIA employees were killed, including the base chief, who was one of the agency's foremost experts on al-Qaeda. Six CIA officers were wounded, some severely.
Panetta disclosed for the first time Tuesday that 25 days before the attack, another Jordanian intelligence officer had expressed concerns to his CIA counterpart in Jordan that the bomber, Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, could be a double agent. But the CIA officer didn't pass those concerns to CIA operatives in Afghanistan or to Washington supervisors who were closely monitoring the operation.
Asked why that person wasn't sanctioned, Panetta said the suspicions about al-Balawi weren't clear enough and that the officer's decision to not pass them on was reasonable, if wrong.
Panetta said officers, many lacking experience in war zones, took risks they shouldn't have in their zeal to recruit al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor who had convinced the agency he could lead them to al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Al-Balawi had been vetted by a trusted Jordanian intelligence operative, and the CIA didn't want him searched by the base's Afghan guards, a Panetta aide said.
The investigation found a cascade of other failures — actions that some retired CIA officers say violated basic rules of tradecraft. For example, Panetta said, so many elements of the CIA were involved in the mission to recruit al-Balawi that no one seemed to know who was in charge. And elements of the team used e-mail and instant-message software to communicate instead of official cables, meaning key information wasn't shared with everyone who needed to know.
Al-Balawi also was greeted by a group of Americans, instead of one or two, "to make him feel welcome," Panetta told a small group of reporters at CIA headquarters in Virginia. That decision increased the death count.
"It would be easier to go after one person for causing this so everybody could go back to business as usual," Panetta said. "This is a case where there are some systemic failures where all of us have responsibility, and all of us need to fix it."
Charles Faddis, a retired CIA officer with long experience in difficult parts of the world, criticized that approach, saying the CIA is failing to hold managers accountable for serious errors.
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci...z12zFEBkE7