Fooling American Intelligence Easy-Peasy

The CIA has admitted that perhaps it should have been more suspicious of an informant who seemed too good to be true:

(RTTNews) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said Tuesday that it had failed in fully checking out the antecedents of a double agent who carried out a suicide-bomb attack on its forward operating base at Khowst in Afghanistan.

Seven CIA staffers were killed in the attack at the Chapman Base, the worst against American intelligence agencies since the 1983 bombing of the CIA station in Beirut which claimed 17 officers.

The official admission of insufficient "vetting procedure" is contained in a letter from CIA director Leon Panetta addressed to the staff of the agency.

It lists a range of slip-ups, including a major failure on the part of a CIA officer who failed to pass on a warning from the Jordanian intelligence about the attacker being a double agent.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who carried out the suicide attack this January, was a Jordanian national who was regarded as a "prized informant."

The CIA chief said a secret internal inquiry found that the information provided by al-Balawi was cross-checked, and CIA officials believed that he was a potential goldmine of information.

"He had confirmed access within extremist circles, making a covert relationship with him - if he was acting in good faith -potentially very productive. But he had not rejected his terrorist roots," he wrote.

Moreover, he said the internal inquiry highlighted several shortcomings regarding the agency's functioning...

No kidding.