CIA acknowledges "missteps" led to officers' deaths

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - The CIA on Tuesday acknowledged "missteps" and "shortcomings" that allowed a would-be informant to enter a U.S. base in Afghanistan and blow himself up on December 30, killing seven CIA officers.

The mistakes included failing to act on warnings about the assailant, a double-agent from Jordanian intelligence, or take security precautions that may have prevented the second most deadly attack in agency history, according to an internal investigation.

Suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi tricked the CIA into believing he could be a useful tool in the battle against al Qaeda, and was invited inside a well-fortified U.S. compound in Khost province in southeast Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69J04720101020

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CIA Releases Report on Deadly Afghanistan Bombing
After a double agent killed seven agency operatives, the CIA determines that he wasn't properly vetted and security around him was too lax

By Shane Harris Published Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The CIA has released the highlights of its internal review of a devastating suicide attack last December on a CIA station in Khost, Afghanistan. The attack killed seven CIA employees and contractors and was the most severe strike on the agency since a terrorist bombing in 1983.

The report found crucial breakdowns in the way the CIA vets its potential informants. The suicide bomber at Khost was a double agent whom the CIA believed could penetrate the inner circle of Al Qaeda, but who turned out to be a terrorist himself. The review found "the Khowst assailant was not fully vetted and that sufficient security precautions were not taken" when he arrived on the base in Afghanistan.

The full text of CIA Director Leon Panetta's message to agency employees is below the jump:


more: http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/17126.html

[L.Torsalo]

1. It's in the category

of justifiable homicide.

[marasinghe]

4. yea; same as wedding party fireworks & little children lit up by drones ....

.... orchestrated by the same evil Clusterfucking Insane Assholes who made these missteps and let their own get blown off.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Here's the first misstep

Don't trust anyone from 'over there'.

[Wilms]

3. Sounds more like "non-steps" to me. n/t

[bemildred]

5. In other words they got outsmarted, again.

But that was obvious before this report.

[The abyss]

6. Stop terrorism at it’s roots

Stop invading other nations and blowing their children into little pieces.

<>

[Supersedeas]

7. so many lessons learned....and to be learned