Graham,
Bradley, and Steven Pearlstein. "Belgrade Target Never Verified on
Outdated Map." Washington Post, 10 May 1999, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]Materials presented in chronological order.
Graham,
Bradley, and Steven Pearlstein. "Belgrade Target Never Verified on
Outdated Map." Washington Post, 10 May 1999, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"In mistakenly targeting the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade" on 7 May 1999, "U.S. intelligence officials were working from an outdated map issued before China built its diplomatic compound several years ago, American and NATO authorities said" on 9 May 1999."
Schmitt, Eric. "Human
Error: Aim, Not Arms, at the Root of Mistaken Strike
on Embassy." New York Times, 10 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
Bombs from a B-2 bomber struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on 7 May 1999 "because C.I.A. analysts misidentified the building, and military databases used to catch such mistakes had the wrong address for the embassy."
Schmitt, Eric. "Pentagon Admits Its Maps of Belgrade Are Out of Date."
New York Times, 11 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
According to government officials on 10 May 1999, "[i]n confusing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade for a Yugoslav arms agency, the CIA relied on old maps and educated guesses rather than on first-hand information....
"[T]he Pentagon agency that drew up the map of Belgrade, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, is the same one that prepared the maps for the Marine Corps jet that struck a ski-lift cable last year near Aviano, Italy. Defense lawyers contended that the crew was not to blame because the cable did not appear on the Pentagon map....
"[I]ntelligence experts said [that] a decision made in 1996 may have contributed to the problem of reading [airborne reconnaissance] photographs: The CIA photographic intelligence center, which analyzes reconnaissance photographs, was folded into the Pentagon's mapping agency, prompting many of the government's most experienced photographic analysts to leave."
Graham,
Bradley. "The Explanation in Washington: U.S. Analysts Misread, Relied
on Outdated Maps." Washington Post, 11 May 1999, A17. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"Two senior intelligence officials ... provided reporters with a more detailed picture of the erroneous B-2 bombing, describing an error that began with educated guesses by the CIA about the location of the target. The ... misidentification went undetected because government maps and electronic databases used in a review by Pentagon and NATO authorities still showed the Chinese Embassy in another part of Belgrade, miles from the address it moved to in 1996....
"The map used by the CIA was a 1997 revision of one first issued in 1992 by the Pentagon's National Imagery and Mapping Agency. In 1992 the map showed the Chinese Embassy correctly in Belgrade's old quarter and no building where the embassy is now. The 1997 revision showed a building at the site of the embassy but did not identify it as the embassy. It continued to depict the Chinese Embassy as a red rectangle with a flag in its former location across the Danube River, although it had moved the year before."
Gates, Robert M. "In War, Mistakes Happen." New York Times,
12 May 1999. [http:// www.nytimes.com]
In this Op-Ed piece, the former DCI argues that "there was a system failure as well as mistakes by individuals. The source of all mapping information for United States military targeting is the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, a joint military and civilian intelligence organization. According to The New York Times, that agency was apparently the source of outdated maps. Then the C.I.A. analysts apparently misidentified the target. And finally, military databases in the United States and NATO used to check the accuracy of such information failed to catch the error.... Americans ... should understand that outdated maps and insufficient personnel are related to 12 years of budget cuts in both the military and intelligence."
Gertz,
Bill. "Spies Tell China Embassy Attack Was No Accident." Washington
Times, 24 May 1999.
"A classified report based on National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence data" revealed that the Chinese intelligence service reported to Beijing that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade "was a deliberate attack aimed at dragging China into the Balkans conflict, according to Pentagon intelligence officials."
Loeb, Vernon, and Steven Mufson. "CIA Analyst Raised Alert on China's Embassy." Washington Post, 24 Jun. 1999, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"A mid-level intelligence officer assigned to the CIA persistently questioned the targeting of a building that turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, but his concerns went unheeded inside the spy agency and at the U.S. military's European Command, a senior U.S. intelligence official said [on 23 June 1999].... The analyst's warnings are noted in a classified internal report by the CIA's inspector general, which has not been made public but has been given to some members of Congress."
Schmitt,
Eric, and David E. Sanger. "Analyst Questioned Target Before Chinese
Embassy Bombing." New York Times, 24 Jun. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
A "senior Government official" has stated that a report from the CIA Inspector General's office "had concluded that the ... cautions" raised by a mid-level analysts "indeed went unheeded -- in large measure because he departed for two days of training and returned to discover, to his horror, that the bombers were already on their way."
Eddington,
Patrick G. "Get Ready For More Targeting Disasters." Los Angeles
Times, 5 Jul. 1999, 15.
"Since October 1996, when the CIA was told by Congress to turn its imagery components over to the Department of Defense's National Imagery and Mapping Agency, there has been loss of key personnel and a lack of coordination between the intelligence and operational communities. This has left the United States and its allies vulnerable to making catastrophic errors like bombing the Chinese embassy. Congress must rethink how things are done or tragic mistakes will continue to happen."
Loeb,
Vernon. "CIA Accepts 'Responsibility' for Embassy Bombing." Washington
Post, 23 Jul. 1999, A16. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
DCI George Tenet told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on 22 July 1999 that "he takes 'ultimate responsibility' for the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and promised to change the agency's procedures to ensure that such a mistake cannot happen again.... Tenet attributed the error ... to poor targeting procedures, inadequate review and faulty databases."
Schmitt,
Eric. "In a Fatal Error, C.I.A. Picked a Bombing Target Only Once:
The Chinese Embassy." New York Times, 23 Jul. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
Speaking at a public hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on 22 July 1999, DCI George Tenet "disclosed ... that the agency had selected just one target in the 11-week air war over Yugoslavia, and its decision led to the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in May....
"The CIA team [that selected the target] used a flawed technique for locating the [Yugoslav] arms agency headquarters, Tenet said ... [T]o pinpoint that location, the analysts used a technique of comparing the number sequence on parallel streets. Tenet said this practice offered only 'an approximate location' and was 'inappropriate' for selecting aerial targets."
[Tenet, George J.]
"[Text of] DCI Statement on the Belgrade Chinese
Embassy Bombing, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Open Hearing,
22 July 1999." Washington, DC: CIA, 1999. [https://www.cia.gov]
Faison, Seth.
"U.S. to Pay China $4.5 Million for Embassy Bombing."
New York Times,
31 Jul. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
Laris,
Michael. "U.S. to Pay Embassy Bomb Victims." Washington Post,
31 Jul. 1999, A16. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
On 30 July 1999, "the U.S. government agreed ... to pay $4.5 million to the families of those killed and wounded in the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.... The money will be given to the Chinese government, which will decide how to divide the funds among the families of the three people killed and the 27 injured, according to State Department legal adviser David Andrews."
Sweeney,
John, Jens Holsoe, and Ed Vulliamy. "NATO Bombed Chinese Deliberately."
The Observer, 17 Oct. 1999. [http://www.observer.co.uk]
"NATO deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications. According to senior military and intelligence sources in Europe and the US the Chinese embassy was removed from a prohibited targets list after NATO electronic intelligence (Elint) detected it sending army signals to Milosevic's forces."
Reuters, "NATO Bombed Chinese Embassy Deliberately -- UK Paper," 16 Oct. 1999, and Associated Press, "NATO Denies Deliberate Embassy Hit," 17 Oct. 1999, quote NATO officials as denying The Observer's report.
Eisendrath, Craig.
"Needed: More Intelligent Intelligence." Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, Nov./Dec. 1999, 22-25.
"The bombing [of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade] was simply one more destructive failure in a long string of U.S. intelligence failures. And it again offered proof that the U.S. intelligence system is badly in need of reform."
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