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Why the CIA failed to detect plans for Pokhran

The Central Intelligence Agency's deputy station chief in New Delhi was recently expelled for a botched attempt to recruit the chief of India's counter-intelligence operations, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The report, which quoted "officials", said the CIA had failed to recruit any spies with information on India's nuclear intentions.

Another news report, dealing with America's failure to detect the preparations for the Pokhran tests, says the failure to recruit local spies have weakened the agency's efficiency.

On the same subject, the Washington Post quotes a former CIA officer saying that Indians are very good at counterintelligence.

''They have turned their country into an almost denied area and their nuclear weapons programme has never been penetrated,'' he said.

The daily also quotes a retired diplomat, with good experience in the area, saying that he could not recall ever reading stolen information about the Indian nuclear programme and, as a whole, ''The Indians are very aggressive in the way they protect their secrets.''

Even so, on May 8, three days before the tests, a satellite recorded evidence of renewed activity at India's nuclear site. Bulldozers were seen near the site. But alarm bells only rang shortly after 0300 hours on the morning of May 11, when an analyst saw a satellite photo showing fences being removed. But it took nearly five hours before experienced officers arrived to review the evidence. By then, the whole world knew that India had gone nuclear, the Post reports.

The next day the CIA director ordered an inquiry into the failure of intelligence, which had raised troubling questions about the US's political, diplomatic and intelligence efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, one of the nation's top security priorities.

If the US failed in India, it may fail in nations that are more dangerous and more difficult to spy upon, like Russia, China and Iran, says the daily, quoting officials and experts.

In 1995, American spy satellites had photographed clear signs that India was preparing for a nuclear test. The then US ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, showed the photographs to top Indian officials and persuaded them to abort the test. It was a triumph of intelligence and diplomacy working together, the daily writes.

UNI

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