The CIA Director Leon Panetta acknowledged in his review that serious security lapses and miscommunication on the part of the CIA were responsible for the suicide bomb attack inside the U.S. compound in Afghanistan last December.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a double agent from Jordanian intelligence had the American Intelligence officials believe that he could lead them to top Al-Qaeda leaders. He had already demonstrated that he had access to the inner circle of the terrorists, making a potential relationship with him very lucrative to the CIA says the CIA Director. He was invited to the fortified CIA compound for his first face to face meeting. Just prior to being frisked by the security he detonated the bomb wired onto him. 7 CIA employees and two others were killed in the attack. A video recording done by him was released posthumously encouraging the militants to conduct more attacks.
Panetta admits to many mistakes along the way from areas like communication, documentation and management. However, the shortcomings within the agency were so widespread that it was not possible to assign responsibility to a single individual.
Ignoring the Jordanian Intelligence doubts that Balawi was still working for Al-Qaeda and that this might be a lure to trap the Americans was probably one of the costliest mistakes on the part of the CIA. Panetta blames the popular usage of informal methods of communications such as e-mails and instant messaging for the loss of this information. Another failure noted was the inadequate vetting of Balawi prior to his invitation to a secure U.S. compound.
In the review he submitted on Tuesday, Leon Panetta, the CIA director has recommended 23 changes that included tighter security measures and the creation of a counter intelligence vetting cell which would deal with double agents like Balawi.
This review along with an internal report will be submitted to the intelligence agency's inspector general, who may add or amend the recommendations.
