CIA failures are common under Bush, new book says

Josh Meyer Los Angeles Times Jan. 4, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - In a clumsy effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, the CIA in 2004 intentionally handed Tehran some top-secret bomb designs laced with a hidden flaw that U.S. officials hoped would doom any weapon made from them, according to a new book about the U.S. intelligence agency.

But the Iranians were tipped to the scheme by the Russian defector hired by the CIA to deliver the plans and may have gleaned scientific information useful for designing a bomb, writes New York Times reporter James Risen in State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.

The clandestine CIA effort was just one of many intelligence failures during the Bush administration, according to the book.

Risen also cites intelligence gaffes that fueled the Bush administration's case for war against Saddam Hussein, spawned a culture of torture throughout the U.S. military and encouraged the rise of heroin cultivation and trafficking in post-war Afghanistan.

In the book, Risen said he based his accounts on interviews with dozens of intelligence officials.

U.S. officials have long maintained that Iran's rulers want to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran has insisted it only seeks to develop a civilian nuclear energy program.