CIA did not effectively tackle Al-Qaida before 9/11: Agency watchdog

The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop Al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to September 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report.

Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until Tuesday, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "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.

Yet 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.