WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2007
Report Cites Major CIA Lapses Before 9/11
Watchdog Slams Agency For Failing To Tackle Al Qaeda Effectively
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Play CBS Video Video CIA Releases 9/11 Summary Congress forced the CIA to release a summary of its report on failures to act against al Qaeda leading to 9/11. David Martin reports.
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(AP / CBS)
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Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found.
"They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," the report stated.
Nearly three years before 9/11, then-CIA Director George Tenet signed a directive declaring "we are at war" with Osama Bin Laden and directed that "no resources or people (be) spared," reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. But the inspector general found "no…strategic plan was ever created" and no extra money or people were added to operations against Bin Laden.
Yet the review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson found neither a "single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have stopped the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
In a statement, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the decision to release the report was not his choice or preference, but that he was making the report available as required by Congress in a law President George W. Bush signed earlier this month.
"I thought the release of this report would distract officers serving their country on the front lines of a global conflict," Hayden said. "It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed."
The report does cover terrain heavily examined by a congressional inquiry and the Sept. 11 Commission. However, the CIA watchdog's report goes further than previous reviews to examine the personal failings of individuals within the agency who led the pre-Sept. 11 efforts against al Qaeda.
Helgerson's team found that no CIA employees violated the law or were part of any misconduct.
The report recommends Tenet and other senior officers face possible disciplinary action, adds Martin, but a statement by the current CIA director says that's not going to happen.
In October 2005, then-CIA Director Porter Goss also rejected the recommendation. He said he had spoken personally with the current employees named in the report, and he trusted their abilities and dedication. "The report unveiled no mysteries," Goss said.
Hayden stuck by Goss's decision.
Providing a glimpse of a series of shortfalls laid out in the longer, still-classified report, the executive summary says:
While blame is heaped on Tenet and his deputies, the report also says that Tenet was forcefully engaged in counterterrorism efforts and personally sounded the alarm before Congress, the military and policymakers. In a now well-known 1998 memo, he declared, "We are at war."
The trouble, the report said, was follow-up.
In a statement, Tenet said the inspector general is "flat wrong" about the lack of plan.
"There was in fact a robust plan, marked by extraordinary effort and dedication to fighting terrorism, dating back to long before 9/11," he said. "Without such an effort, we would not have been able to give the president a plan on Sept. 15, 2001, that led to the routing of the Taliban, chasing al Qaeda from its Afghan sanctuary and combating terrorists across 92 countries."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- j-whitman
You are a hate monger, a liar and no doubt a person with a deeply flawed character, an individual blinded to the truth by your left leaning ideology. You are as flawed and weak as the Liberal left in America. You and people like you are the problem in America today, you are not part of the solution. You live in a %u201Csound bite%u201D world, cleaver slogans rule your day and you believe them, just like you believe the Kennedy%u2019s and Kerry%u2019s of the world. How very sad indeed. - Reply to this comment
- xzavierbrown,,,, FYI that same political shrub is now the Director of the CIA --
-- Tell me he''s not using his office for a political agenda in violation of our laws ---
-- Our agents in the CIA deserve a hell of a lot better & so does America & our Troops - Reply to this comment
- xzavierbrown,,,,
How can you tolerate this administration for promoting the political shrub that witheld Al Queda communication intel from the CIA - The very agency task with following them ??????? Is that your idea of Patrotism for America ????????
FYI -- WE TORTURE & LOCK PEOPLE UP WITHOUT DUE PROCESS IN ORDER TO GET EXACTLY THAT KIND OF INTELLIGENCE - Reply to this comment
- xzavierbrown --- Bush has messed up more families as governor & President than anyone in America''s history...
... Now the SOB takes away veterans Tri Care Prime medical insurance,, Denies veterans full educational benifits & lied to our troops on Mine Resistant Vehicles he promised them. - Reply to this comment
- xzavierbrown,,, I have no idea what muslems do to ****''s not one has ever attacked one in the United States, it''s always been a right wing extreme radical Christian or a Neo-Nazi....
I''m sure you can tell me what muslems do to them,,, You''ve probably been all over the hate sites. - Reply to this comment
- xzavierbrown --- My hard on for getting rid of Bush ??,,, Hellooooo,,, I did my homework while he was runnning for office --- You couldn''t elect anyone more corrupt & incompetent.... That''s never what any party should do..''
.. Bush deserted his country when he ran from Viet Nam & attacked heroic Veterans for thier service ----
-- He''s a frigging low life corrupt asss coward & always was... --
--- My plan is seeing the SOB in prison were he should have been years ago. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by j-whitman at 07:22 PM : Aug 22, 2007
+ report abuse
*****
You simply are trying to see it from a logical stand point. oh well you have a hard on in getting rid of bush..well he will be gone 2008..so what is your plan after that??
You know you are right..we should pull all our troops, stop spying on muslims as a matter fact open the floodgates and let them all in..Let see who goes first..the conservatives or the liberals...do you know what muslims do to homosexuals???? - Reply to this comment
- Term limits indeed,,, When the NSA Director witheld communications of Al Queda from the organization tasked to track them --- His term should have ended in prison for treason.... But, no,,,,,, Bush made him director of the CIA --- Talk about policy driven intell, there it is, in our faces.
- Reply to this comment
- Can we just move along here .....
How much money does Congress spend rehashing the same garbage ...
We all know that our law enforcement agencies let us down ... as well every single pol that is in office ...
When will Americans wake up and start sending these personal agenda idiots out to pasture?
TERM LIMITS FOR ALL !!!! - Reply to this comment
