Ignored warnings, lax security led to 7 CIA deaths

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 6, 2009, file photo, then Central Intelligence Agency Director nominee Leon Panetta testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Senate Intelligence Committee in relation to his nomination. Despite glaring security blunders, no intelligence officials will be fired or disciplined for failing to prevent a 2009 suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees in one of the deadliest attacks in the agency's history.

WASHINGTON — Warnings were ignored, security was lax and good judgment was lacking, leading to one of the worst tragedies in CIA history, when a double-agent suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan last December.
That's the view from the CIA director himself, speaking to reporters Tuesday, after a six-month internal review of the attack.
Yet Leon Panetta said no one will be disciplined or fired. He blamed the bombing on what he called "systemic failures," which meant Jordanian intelligence warnings about the bomber weren't shared and sufficient security measures weren't taken.
The CIA review, as well as a second independent study by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired CIA analyst Charles Allen, both concluded that the combined agency failures allowed the al-Qaida double agent, Humam al-Balawi, to enter the CIA base at Khost. Al-Balawi managed to kill five CIA employees, including the base chief, and two CIA security contractors, as well as the Jordanian intelligence officer and Afghan driver who had brought him there. Six other officers were wounded.
Instead of censuring any one person, Panetta said he was implementing a series of changes, including tightening security procedures, setting up a war advisory board to better train agents in combat zones and creating an analytic team to better spot double agents.
Panetta's decision showed his reluctance to lay blame when many of those who made the mistakes were killed or grievously injured by the attacks. He would only say that the desire to capture a top al-Qaida target "clouded some of the judgments that were made," adding, "If anything, all of us bear some responsibility."
The officers' assignment that day was to meet and train a new foreign agent, al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor who claimed to be able to reach al-Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The mission was so important that even President Barack Obama had been briefed on it.
Al-Balawi was being brought to the CIA's base to determine whether he was as close as he claimed to al-Zawahiri, Panetta said. At the base, intelligence officials planned to give al-Balawi training in "tools of tradecraft" and how to communicate al-Zawahiri's location back to his handlers.