Critique slams CIA chiefs for failures before 9/11

WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general has written a blistering critique of senior CIA officials' performance before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying they failed to direct more resources to counterterrorism and inadequately analyzed the threat from al-Qaida, according to several former agency officials who have seen portions of the report.

It says the CIA had an insufficient strategic approach to counterterrorism and that its counterterrorism center insufficiently fused analysis and operations.

The document singles out a dozen senior officials by title, not name, including former CIA director George J. Tenet; former operations director James L. Pavitt; J. Cofer Black, former head of the counterterrorism center, and a number of administrative chiefs.

Investigators found no criminal liability but said the officials did not live up to the standards of professional conduct required of them, according to several former officials who were asked to read portions of the report that applied to them.

It was requested by a House-Senate intelligence panel that examined the government's actions regarding al-Qaida in the years leading up to Sept. 11. It was completed last summer but has not been not delivered, and some congressional Democrats have said it was being suppressed before the November elections. There is no deadline for filing the report, which was detailed in Friday's New York Times.

Former CIA officials interviewed Friday expressed outrage at the inspector general's findings, saying the IG misunderstood the agency's budgetary process and the historical context of the agency's counterterrorism efforts. "It's a misreading and misunderstanding of how resources were being used," Pavitt said. "We warned and we warned and we warned."

Jamie S. Gorelick, who sat on the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, said, "The CIA and its leadership worked harder than anybody to alert the rest of the government to the threat. They were unable to identify how we would be attacked and, compared to other elements of the government, were quite aggressive." The commission reached the same conclusion. However, Gorelick said, the administration wanted Tenet to allocate even more money to counterterrorism than he did, and "the analysis of the threat was not sufficient to force the government to face up to the threat."

A CIA spokesman said the agency would have no comment on the IG report.