An internal inquiry conducted by the CIA has accused the organisation's leadership of failing to prepare for an al Qaeda attack before the Sept 11th 2001 attacks on the US.
The leadership was accused of failing to use available powers, failing to develop a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaeda and missing crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11.
"The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found.
"They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," the report stated.
George Tenet
Former CIA Director George Tenet, who resigned in July 2004 said the inspector general is "flat wrong" about the lack of plan.
The review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson found neither a "single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have stopped the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
While Helgerson's team found that no CIA employees violated the law or were part of any misconduct, the review called on then-CIA Director Porter Goss to form accountability boards to look at the performance of specific individuals to determine whether reprimands were called for.
In a statement, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the decision to release the report was not his choice or preference, but that he was making the report available as required by Congress in a law President Bush signed earlier this month.
"I thought the release of this report would distract officers serving their country on the front lines of a global conflict," Hayden said. "It will, at a minimum, consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed."
While the report does cover terrain heavily examined by a congressional inquiry and the Sept. 11 Commission, the report goes further than previous reviews to examine the personal failings of individuals within the agency who led the pre-9/11 efforts against al-Qaeda.