8 April 2000: CIA
Announces Firing One, Disciplining Six over Chinese Embassy BombingMaterials presented in chronological order.
8 April 2000: CIA
Announces Firing One, Disciplining Six over Chinese Embassy Bombing
Drogin, Bob. "CIA Punishes 7 in Airstrike on Embassy." Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2000. [http://www.latimes.com]
The CIA "has fired one employee and sanctioned six others, including a senior official, in the first official punishment of those involved" in the bombing by U.S. warplanes of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last year. "In addition, [DCI George J.] Tenet requested that a career CIA officer at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency ... receive an administrative warning."
The CIA announced on 8 April 2000 that DCI George J. Tenet "has fired one intelligence officer and reprimanded six managers, including a senior official, for errors that led to the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia last year." The disciplinary actions were taken "late last week after two internal reviews of the May 7 [1999] bombing," and ranged "from oral warnings to letters of reprimand that impose one-year probationary periods in which the officials will not be eligible for promotions, financial awards or other forms of recognition."
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow "issued an unusual public statement [on 8 April 2000] ... announcing that [DCI George J.] Tenet had taken 'a number of actions' as a result of an internal review of the events that lead to the bombing. The statement did not mention what actions Mr. Tenet had taken, though an agency official and the lawyer for one of the employees later described them generally."
10 April 2000: UK
Press Reportage on CIA Firing
Later Reportage
"Mr. Tenet has had the courage to admit his agency's errors and to hold individuals accountable. The Pentagon should do the same."
In a statement released by the official New China News Agency on 10 April 2000, PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao "expressed strong dissatisfaction ... with CIA disciplinary action taken against several employees in connection with the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and once again rejected U.S. conclusions that human error caused the attack."
This is a lengthy investigative report on the circumstances surrounding targeting issues in the NATO war against Yugoslavia.
"In an attempt to unravel what really happened, spurred in part by articles in two European newspapers suggesting that the bombing had been deliberate, The New York Times interviewed more than 30 officials in Washington and in Europe."
The "investigation produced no evidence that the bombing of the embassy had been a deliberate act." It did, however, provide "a detailed account of a broader set of missteps than the United States or NATO have acknowledged, and a wider circle of blame than the government's explanation of a simple error of judgment by a few people at the C.I.A....
"The bombing resulted from error piled upon incompetence piled upon bad judgment in a variety of places -- from a frantic rush to approve targets to questionable reliance on inexpert officers to an inexplicable failure to consult the people who might have averted disaster, according to the officials."
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