Report Slams CIA for Missing Al Qaeda Threat

Inadequate resources, lack of focus and limited analysis. That's how the CIA's own inspector general described the agency's failure to prepare for the Al Qaeda threat. An unclassified summary of the report released today (and available here) paints a bleak portrait of the CIA's work prior to 9/11. As the Washington Post reports:

Former CIA Director George Tenet did not marshal his agency's resources to respond to the recognized threat posed by al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency's inspector general concluded in a long-classified report released today.

The report, which Congress ordered released under a law signed by President Bush this month, also faulted the intelligence community for failing to have "a documented, comprehensive approach" to battling al-Qaeda.

In a statement today, Tenet, not surprisingly, deflected the blame:

The IG fails to understand how intensely I pushed the counterterrorism issue because he failed to interview either me or policymakers from either the Clinton or Bush Administrations on this matter. Had he done so he might have learned that I was relentless in seeking additional funding for the Intelligence Community in general and counterterrorism in particular. I wrote the Administration in 1998 and 1999 imploring for more money to rebuild U.S. intelligence.

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