CIA Explains What Went Wrong
By JOHN DIAMOND Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an extraordinary
admission of error, the CIA said Monday that
outdated maps, a lack of communication within
the
U.S. government and educated guesses that went
terribly wrong led to the NATO air attack on the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
Grim-faced intelligence officials briefed
lawmakers
behind closed doors, then met with reporters to
explain how a B-2 stealth bomber came to drop a
load of satellite-guided bombs on a plainly
marked
embassy compound well-known in Belgrade to
diplomats and civilians alike.
The B-2s were all too accurate in hitting
targets.
The problem was that CIA operatives
misidentified
the target, and pre-strike checks by the
Pentagon
and other allied military commands failed to
catch
the error. In addition, neither the State
Department
nor other NATO allies had alerted target
planners
that the Chinese Embassy had moved in Belgrade
in
1996.
Defense Secretary William Cohen called the
bombing a ``tragic mistake'' and said, ``If
there's
culpability to be found, we will consider
appropriate
action.''
The incident came less than a year after the CIA
recommended an attack on a target in Sudan that
turned out to be a pharmaceutical plant and that
may or may not have been involved in chemical
weapons production. The Chinese Embassy
bombing has made the CIA a laughing stock.
Regulars on Don Imus' talk radio program were
joking that the CIA could have simply called a
taxi
cab company to locate its target.
In fact, target planning is far more complex
than
that.
Several weeks ago, CIA officials ``nominated''
the
Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and
Procurement for destruction by NATO bombers,
pointing to the directorate's role in supplying
weapons to the Yugoslav Army and exporting
munitions.
The planning began with a street address -- a
correct
one, it turns out -- on Cherry Blossom Boulevard
in
Belgrade. The problem was finding that address
on
National Imagery and Mapping Agency maps.
Some guesswork was involved. The CIA had fixed
the locations of some buildings on the street,
but not
the directorate. Using a variety of undisclosed
sources, the CIA tried to extrapolate the
location of
the directorate based on known addresses nearby.
Those sources did not include an agent on the
ground in Belgrade actually looking at the
prospective target because no agent was
available.
From now on, an intelligence official said, it
will be
an ironclad requirement to have sources on the
ground checking targets visually when they lie
in
urban areas.
This was the initial and critical error. The
CIA's
extrapolation was off by a few blocks. The
actual
directorate is down the street, which changes
names
to the Boulevard of the Arts. NATO has not ruled
out striking the directorate -- now that it
knows
where it is.
Outdated maps turned this mistake into a
diplomatic
and political disaster. The CIA and Pentagon
have
developed what they call a ``no strike'' list --
churches, hospitals, schools and embassies that
NATO seeks to avoid.
But the U.S. intelligence ``City Plan of
Belgrade''
used in planning the strike dated to 1992. It
was
reviewed twice after that for accuracy, once in
1997
and again last year. On this map, the Chinese
Embassy, depicted as a red rectangle with a
symbolic flag, lies in its former location
across the
Danube River in Belgrade's old quarter.
The State Department, which maintained a mission
in Belgrade until the strikes began in March,
never
notified Pentagon strike planners that the
Chinese
Embassy had moved, the intelligence officials
said,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
A senior State Department official said
officials at
the mission knew the Chinese Embassy's new
location but did not consider it their
responsibility to
pass the information on to the Pentagon.
Cohen announced ``steps to prevent such a
mistake
from happening again,'' including a requirement
that
the State Department report embassy moves or
constructions overseas. The Pentagon and CIA
will
also be ordered to update maps and set up
procedures to make last-minute changes to ``no
strike'' lists as new information comes in.
Cohen said that in 4,036 combat sorties over
Yugoslavia, NATO knows of only a dozen instances
involving civilian casualties, and this is the
first in
which erroneous target-selection was the cause.
``In combat, accidents will happen despite our
best
efforts to prevent them,'' Cohen said.
Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Bob Kerrey,
D-Neb., the chairman and vice chairman,
respectively, of the Senate Intelligence
Committee,
said decades of intelligence budget cuts may
have
played a role.
``While this was a horrible mistake, we cannot
avoid
the fact that we have overtasked and underfunded
our intelligence agencies for too long,'' Kerrey
said.
The intelligence officials said, however, that
they
were making no excuses based on finances.
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