WASHINGTON: George Tenet, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, recognized the danger posed by Al Qaeda well before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but failed to adequately prepare the CIA to meet the threat, according to an internal agency report that was released in summary form Tuesday.

Tenet was sometimes too occupied with tactics instead of strategy, and he was lax in promoting an information-sharing environment within the CIA, the agency's inspector general's office says in the report.

An inspector general's team that reviewed the agency's performance found that CIA officers "from the top down" worked hard against Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, before the 9/11 attacks.

"They did not always work effectively and cooperatively, however," the team concluded, in what amounted in part to sharp criticism of Tenet's management skills and style.

"The team found neither 'a single point of failure' nor a 'silver bullet' that would have enabled the intelligence community to predict or prevent the 9/11 attacks," the inspector general's office said. "The team did find, however, failures to implement and manage important processes, to follow through with operations, and to properly share and analyze critical data."

"The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," according to the report, which was completed in June 2005 but kept classified until now.

No CIA employee violated the law, nor did any of their errors amount to misconduct, according to the review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson.

Tenet, who resigned from the CIA in 2004 and was succeeded by Porter Goss, has defended his and his agency's actions, and he did so again Tuesday. The CIA's anti-terrorism efforts were embodied in "a robust plan, marked by extraordinary effort and dedication," long before Sept. 11, 2001, he said in a statement.

"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," Tenet said.

The current head of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, issued a statement making clear that he did not favor publication of the inspector general's report because he thought it would "consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed."

The report was released as part of an arrangement with Congress, which recently endorsed the recommendations of the independent, bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

It concluded that Tenet "did not use all of his authorities" in leading a strategic effort against Osama bin Laden, and that "the management approach" within the CIA's counterterrorism center "had the effect of actively reinforcing the separation of responsibilities" among the agency's divisions.

 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/21/america/cia.php

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