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CIA gets rap for failure to learn of India's N-tests

US intelligence failed to warn of India's nuclear weapons tests because of leadership lapses, poor on-the-ground intelligence and failure to pay attention to spy satellite pictures that offered valuable clues, a review panel concluded.

But a wide-ranging critique of the CIA and other US intelligence agencies stopped short of recommending that anyone be fired or punished. The reviewers noted that no one was killed because of the lapses and concluded that US policy-makers, had they been warned, probably would not have been able to dissuade India from conducting the tests.

The panel's 26-page report yesterday found fault with top CIA leadership, including its Director George Tenet. They were accused of compartmentalised organisation of US intelligence.

In its key finding, the report cited veteran CIA analysts who dismissed as campaign rhetoric the pre-election promises by India's ruling Hindu nationalist party to conduct tests.

''We should have been much more aggressive in thinking how the other guy thinks,'' said Admiral (retired) David E Jeremiah, who headed the panel and outlined the report's conclusions at a media conference at the CIA headquarters.

The report itself is classified and was not made public.

"There's no getting around the fact that in this instance we missed and did not predict the particular tests involved,'' said Tenet ''Simply stated, we did not get it right.''

He said he would quickly implement Jeremiah's recommendations. He dismissed any notion of punishment for intelligence officials saying, ''They worked honestly. We made decisions, they may have been the wrong decisions, but nobody was asleep at the switch.''

In one episode examined by the panel and described by a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, a CIA analyst two years ago wrote a memo to senior agency officials raising concerns about developments in India and seeking assignment of more intelligence resources to the subcontinent.

CIA leaders responded favourably, although the additional assets were not exclusively focused on nuclear weapons issues.

Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, praised Admiral Jeremiah for producing a tough report.''

''We had signs out there. We were blind-sided,'' Shelby said.

Tenet named Admiral Jeremiah to head the review on May 12, the day after India announced it had carried out three underground nuclear tests, to the complete surprise of US policy-makers. The appointment came during intense criticism of the CIA, and Tenet took the unusual step of ordering the review completed in less than a month.

The panel consisted of unidentified intelligence professionals and a colleague of Admiral Jeremiah's at Technology Strategies Alliances Corporation, an investment consulting firm where he is a partner.

Admiral Jeremiah was vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. Last year he headed an intelligence review panel that examined US spy satellite capability.

Admiral Jeremiah, who briefed the senate and the Intelligence Committee, said senior intelligence officials, including Tenet, were overly focused on routine budgetary and administrative matters and not on national security concerns.

''Leadership should have been focused on critical intelligence requirements,'' Admiral Jeremiah said.

In a broad critique, the retired four-star admiral said the US espionage efforts in foreign countries, including India, have been stretched too thin. ''Our human intelligence capacity is seriously limited and it is limited by the tremendously expanded coverage that we're trying to deal with,'' he said.

The review also found that the intelligence community's imagery analysts are overwhelmed by a flood of spy satellite photography that pours in, only to sit unexamined.

''There's an awful lot of stuff on the cutting room floor at the end of the day that we have not seen,'' Admiral Jeremiah said.

The National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which is responsible for examining spy satellite photography, had only one analyst assigned full time to monitoring activities in India, according to Admiral Jeremiah.

''Only after his panel assigned 13 intelligence professionals to re-examine photography taken over India, Admiral Jeremiah said, was it possible to piece together things that might have provided clues to what was going on.''

UNI

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