[Mb-civic] CIA Rejects Discipline For 9/11 Failures - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

CIA Rejects Discipline For 9/11 Failures
Goss Cites Fear Of Hurting Agency

By Dafna Linzer and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 6, 2005; Page A01

The CIA will not seek to hold any current or former agency officials, 
including ex-director George J. Tenet, responsible for failures leading 
up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA Director Porter J. Goss said 
yesterday, despite a recommendation by the agency's inspector general 
that he convene an "accountability board" to judge their performance.

Goss's decision, coming four years after hijackers commandeered four 
jets and killed nearly 3,000 people, appeared to end the possibility 
that a high-level official will be held responsible for what several 
investigations found to be significant failures throughout the 
government. The inspectors general of the departments of State, Justice 
and Defense completed their own investigations without publicized 
disciplinary actions taken against anyone.

The CIA's report, which severely criticized actions of senior officers, 
will remain classified, Goss said in his announcement, which was 
welcomed by some former officials mentioned in the document but assailed 
by families of victims of the attacks.

Goss said in his statement that the voluminous report by CIA Inspector 
General John L. Helgerson "unveiled no mysteries," and that making it 
public would only bring harm to the agency when it is trying to rebuild. 
Goss said the report in no way suggests "that any one person or group of 
people could have prevented 9/11."

"Of the officers named in this report," he said, "about half have 
retired from the Agency, and those who are still with us are amongst the 
finest we have."

Goss had supported an internal CIA review in December 2002, while he was 
chairman of the House intelligence committee. The CIA report, which was 
mostly completed in February, is the last known government inquiry on 
the counterterrorism failures ahead of the attacks and has been the most 
secretive.

It also had the potential to pit Goss against his own agency. Convening 
a review board could have embarrassed his predecessors and renewed 
questions over President Bush's decision to award Tenet the Presidential 
Medal of Freedom.

"I think it is utterly reprehensible for Director Goss to be hinting 
towards not holding anyone accountable, particularly since he was in an 
oversight capacity as house chairman and is now in a position to atone 
for his own failures," said Kristin Breitweiser, whose husband, Ron, was 
killed at the World Trade Center. "He is either avoiding embarrassment 
or trying to hide something."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/05/AR2005100501503.html?nav=hcmodule
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