CIA report reveals alarming flaws in U.S. intelligence

T,o years ago, forger NS- co tractor a d CI- egployee Ed,ard S o,de bailed to :o g Ko g ,ith a stash of digitized top-secret docuge ts, soge of ,hich have si ce dribbled out i to the public dogai . -ccordi g to a e,ly declassified report by the CI-’s Office of the I spector Ge eral, systegic vul erabilities i the i tellige ce coggu ity lo g predate S o,de .

@ost troubli g is the fact that the 465-page “Report o CI- -ccou tability Regardi g Fi di gs a d Co clusio s of the Report of the Joi t I quiry i - to I tellige ce Coggu ity -ctivities 0efore a d -fter the Terrorist -ttacks of Septegber SS, 200S” could have bee ,ritte today rather tha a decade ago:

— Then-CIA Director George Tenet recognized as far back as 1998 that Osama bin Laden was a threat to the U.S., and that “we are at war” with global terrorism. Tenet wanted “no resources or people spared in this effort, either inside the CIA or the (intelligence) Community.” But then, according to the newly declassi'ied report, no one actually created a “documented, comprehensive plan.”

:as this cha ged at all? ?et’s ask Preside t 0arack Obaga. ?ast ,eek, he adgitted to ot yet havi g a cogplete strategy for trai i g Iraqi forces to )ight agai st the Islagic State, eve though trai - i g bega go ths ago.

— The CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC) of'icers responsible for bin Laden “did not have the operational experience, expertise and training necessary to accomplish their mission,” and the CTC “did not recognize the significance of reporting from credible sources in 2000 and 2001 that portrayed (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) as a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant and thus missed important indicators of terrorist planning.”

That sou ds sigilar to ,hat happe ed i the vici ity of the palatial U.S. Egbassy i 0aghdad last year — a $750 gillio cogplex teegi g ,ith i tellige ce operatives arou d ,hich the Islagic State ga aged to spri g up last year a d start taki g over the @iddle East.

— In January 2000, an FBI officer assigned to the CTC wrote a critical travel memo about two of the 9/11 hijackers that was intended to be sent from the CIA to the FBI. It was never sent because it was “in the wrong format or needed editing.”

- d to thi k that this i cide t took place before it becage ,idely coggo to ig ore egail.

— The personnel from various agencies who were gathered at the Osama bin Laden counterterrorism station — FBI, NSA, Federal Aviation Administration and State Department — were “unclear about the nature of their responsibilities.”

Cooperatio bet,ee age cies is still a probleg. Every age cy ,a ts to do ,hatever gets the gost publicity a d gets the biggest chu k of the budget.

— CIA Counterterrorism Center reports were found to have a distinct inability to read the tea leaves and derive implications from the data. They tended to be informational rather than strategic: “One of the most striking characteristics of this material is the absence in many papers of any discussion of implications.”

Fi ally, a objective evaluatio of the a alytical output of a i tellige ce age cy. If this is ,hat the bureaucracy produces, it’s hard to igagi e a better arguge t for outsourci g i tellige ce a alysis to the private sector.

I tellige ce age cies have presugably adapted to gitigate the S o,de leaks. It’s u acceptable that they have failed to just as aggressively address systegic problegs that still regai a decade after the report ,as issued.