CIA Allows Public Mourning of Agents
Family and friends gathered in Massachusetts Saturday to remember Harold Brown, one of seven CIA employees killed by a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last month.
With rare openness, the Central Intelligence Agency has allowed five of the victims to be mourned publicly, a decision that's angered some former officers like Michael Scheuer, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier.
"I always think it is better not to tell a very intelligent, very observant enemy much of anything," Scheuer told Dozier.
Other identified victims include security contractor Dane Paresi, agency employee Elizabeth Hanson, security officer and former police officer Scott Roberson and CIA security officer and former Navy Seal Jeremy Wise.
They'd been gathered at Forward Operating Base Chapman on the Afghan border to meet a spy who they thought would provide information on top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan
On Saturday the Taliban released a video of the alleged bomber, Jordanian Dr. Humam al-Balawi, with the head of the Pakistan Taliban. He bragged of his plans to attack the Americans.
"The Jordanian and American intelligence services offered me millions of dollars," al-Balawi said on the tape.
In a letter to The Washington Post Saturday, CIA Director Leon Panetta defended the agents, writing "the individual was about to be searched by our security officers - a distance away from other intelligence personnel - when he set off his explosives."
But critics contend they trusted and risked too much.
"One of the officers killed had nearly 15 years experience doing nothing but al Qaeda," Scheuer told Dozier.
He's referring to the base's station chief, a mother of three, from the agency's Clandestine Service. Former agents told Dozier this will have a chilling effect on the risks teams on the ground are willing or even allowed to take.