INTELLIGENCE GAPS

The current CIA director’s strenuous objections to the release of a report on the agency’s failings prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a former director’s denial of its conclusions shows a continuing and dangerous denial of the shortcomings of the country’s war on terror. Their reactions raise concern that many of the problems identified by the agency’s inspector general remain only partly remedied.

The report, written in 2005, but released this week, adds new details to what has generally been known: Central Intelligence Agency officials were not sufficiently focused on al-Qaida and they did not adequately share information with other intelligence agencies, leading to missed opportunities to learn more about the 9-11 plot. The report, for the first time, lays blame for these failures on specific CIA employees, namely former director George Tenet and several of his deputies, all of whom no longer work for the agency.

Mr. Tenet called the IG’s conclusions “flat wrong.” In a statement, Mr. Tenet said he personally sounded the alarm about the terrorist threat and sought resources for counter terrorism operations. As a result, he said, the Taliban was routed and al-Qaida chased from its Afghan sanctuary.

Just as the Iraq war was not a “slam dunk” as Mr. Tenet promised, the al-Qaida chase remains far from complete and the Taliban is resurgent.

While Mr. Tenet criticized its conclusions, current CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden fought to keep the report secret. A redacted version of the report’s 19-page executive summary was declassified this week as a result of a recently passed law implementing many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including making such information public. Gen. Hayden is right that the report “will consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already plowed.” That ground should be plowed, however, until it is clear that the problems uncovered by the inspector general have been rectified.

For example, the report found the team responsible for bin Laden did not have the “operational experience, expertise and training necessary to accomplish their mission in an effective manner … these weaknesses contributed to performance lapses related to the handling of materials concerning individuals who were to become the 9/11 hijackers.”

Further, there was insufficient strategic analysis of the information that was gathered. For example, the IG found no examination of the potential use of aircraft as weapons and limited focus on the United States as a potential target. Although the CIA was watching Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the agency was more concerned about apprehension and rendition than tracking the al-Qaida lieutenant to gain information about terrorist planning.

Six years later, we still don’t know where Osama bin Laden is hiding and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he has a “gut feeling” that the United States will soon be attacked.

A more useful review of the country’s intelligence operations would ask whether useful information is being gathered and whether it is being appropriately shared and analyzed to disrupt terrorist activities around the world.