The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency says its officers failed to fully investigate an informer who carried out a suicide bombing at a base in Afghanistan last year that killed seven American CIA employees.
In a statement, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the findings of a task force that investigated the attack concluded that mistakes were made in checking the background and loyalties of the informer, Jordanian national Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who was also killed in the December 2009 attack in Khost.
The CIA review also found that sufficient security measures had not been taken to protect against the attack by the Al-Qaeda double agent.
The CIA chief described the failures as a systemic breakdown, but said no single CIA individual or group could be assigned blame for the incident, and no disciplinary measures will be taken.
Instead, he said, the agency has taken steps to strengthen security at bases such as those in Afghanistan.
compiled from agency reports