CIA director defends agency against criticism

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WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (AFP): CIA Director Leon Panetta, in an article published Sunday, revealed that a Jordanian doctor who killed seven agency operatives was about to be searched before he blew himself up at a US military base in Afghanistan.
"This was not a question of trusting a potential intelligence asset, even one who had provided information that we could verify independently. It is never that simple, and no one ignored the hazards," Panetta wrote in The Washington Post.
"The individual was about to be searched by our security officers-a distance away from other intelligence personnel-when he set off his explosives."
The Post said the Central Intelligence Agency had been planning to speak with the suicide bomber about ways to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda's number two leader, a top US target who remains at large.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who is said to have been a triple agent, blew himself up at a US military base in Khost near the Pakistani border on December 30, in the deadliest attack against the spy agency since 1983.