时间:2019-01-13 作者:英语课 分类:2007年VOA标准英语(八月)


英语课
By Gary Thomas
Washington
22 August 2007

The Central Intelligence Agency has released a report sharply critical of the CIA's senior leadership in the years and months leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  As VOA correspondent Gary Thomas reports, the document in some respects goes beyond previous probes into the 9/11 attacks.






CIA director George Tenet waits to make his statement to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a hearing about worldwide threats to national security, 7 Feb. 2001 file photo


CIA director George Tenet waits to make his a statement to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during hearing about worldwide threats to national security, 7 Feb 2001



The report by the CIA's Office of Inspector 1 General recommends that ex-CIA director George Tenet and several other top current and former agency officials be held accountable for intelligence missteps on combating the terrorist threat.


The review says there was no single event or, in its words, a "silver bullet" that would have prevented the 9/11 attacks.  But it does say that before 9/11, neither the U.S. government nor the intelligence community had a comprehensive strategy for dealing 2 with al-Qaida. It says that then-CIA Director Tenet was either unwilling 3 or unable to marshal intelligence resources to combat the growing intelligence threat, and failed to develop a comprehensive counterterrorism plan.


Tenet could not be reached for comment.  But he issued a written statement calling many of the report's conclusions "flat wrong" and asserted that there was what he called a "robust 4" counterterrorism plan in place before 9/11.


But former CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who headed the unit hunting Osama bin 5 Laden 6 during Tenet's tenure 7, describes Tenet as "a good cheerleader, but not a very good leader."


"I think what it shows is that most of the people in the agency knew that Mr. Tenet was not doing enough against bin Laden and al-Qaida, and that they had petitioned him via memorandums and conversations to do a number of things which were in his power to do that he refused to do over the course of a decade," he said.


The CIA released the 19-page executive summary of the longer still-classified report reluctantly.  CIA director Michael Hayden issued a statement saying he was opposed to the release, but a law passed earlier this month by Congress required it.  He added that many of those criticized in the report sharply contest the focus, methodology, and conclusions of the report.


The report covers much of the same ground gone over by other probes of the September 11 attacks, especially the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.  But it differs sharply in one respect. The 9/11 Commission was careful not to place blame on any individuals for intelligence failures, but the CIA's internal report does.


Michael Scheuer says the inspector general's report raises questions about the 9/11 Commission's reluctance 8 to assign responsibility.


"I think what it does is reveal the utter bankruptcy 9 of the 9/11 Commission," he said.  "Clearly their inability to find anyone responsible for anything before 9/11 is vastly undercut and is almost made to look like a whitewash 10 by this report. I think the culpability 11 at senior levels was so great that they decided 12 that they needed to protect all the politicians and all the senior bureaucrats 13, and that they decided not to name anyone."


The CIA Inspector General's report says it found no misconduct or breaking of the law.  It does, however, recommend establishment of an internal "accountability board" to examine the performance of senior agency officials in the lead-up to 9/11 and recommend possible disciplinary action.  A similar recommendation made in 2005 was rejected by then-CIA director Porter Goss.  The current director, General Hayden, says he sees no reason to reverse that decision.




n.检查员,监察员,视察员
  • The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
  • The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。
n.经商方法,待人态度
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
adj.不情愿的
  • The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
  • His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。
adj.强壮的,强健的,粗野的,需要体力的,浓的
  • She is too tall and robust.她个子太高,身体太壮。
  • China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道,中国希望保持经济强势增长,以减少贫困和失业状况。
n.箱柜;vt.放入箱内;[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件
  • He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
  • He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的
  • He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
  • Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。
n.终身职位;任期;(土地)保有权,保有期
  • He remained popular throughout his tenure of the office of mayor.他在担任市长的整个任期内都深得民心。
  • Land tenure is a leading political issue in many parts of the world.土地的保有权在世界很多地区是主要的政治问题。
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿
  • The police released Andrew with reluctance.警方勉强把安德鲁放走了。
  • He showed the greatest reluctance to make a reply.他表示很不愿意答复。
n.破产;无偿付能力
  • You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产,就必须节省开支。
  • His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。
v.粉刷,掩饰;n.石灰水,粉刷,掩饰
  • They tried hard to whitewash themselves.他们力图粉饰自己。
  • What he said was a load of whitewash.他所说的是一大堆粉饰之词。
n.苛责,有罪
  • As if the estrangement between them had come of any culpability of hers. 姐弟俩疏远的责任竟仿佛落到了她的身上! 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
  • The offence, as now defined in English law, covers a wide spectrum of culpability. 英国法律规定,违法包括很多种过失行为。 来自互联网
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
n.官僚( bureaucrat的名词复数 );官僚主义;官僚主义者;官僚语言
  • That is the fate of the bureaucrats, not the inspiration of statesmen. 那是官僚主义者的命运,而不是政治家的灵感。 来自辞典例句
  • Big business and dozens of anonymous bureaucrats have as much power as Japan's top elected leaders. 大企业和许多不知名的官僚同日本选举出来的最高层领导者们的权力一样大。 来自辞典例句
学英语单词
ABUI
airline alliance
annular membrane
antifungal
antinuclear antibodies
assaultees
attack-time delay
awasthi
balloon dilatation
barmitzvahs
best-connected
binary tree architecture
boron-lined
buoying
bursars
calappa capellonis
caremost
centre-fold
chabris
closure of freezing wall
colpostegnosis
continuously differentiable for n-times
corosal
create envelope
critical section routine
dang
dinghies
divergence of a vector
does to
doggy-fashion
edward osborne wilsons
electroluminescence junction
elevation of levelled ground
eoraptor
ethnophilosophies
excised
finnidas
fishing rod
fullery
genus Dicrostonyx
gotten ahead
grillage column base
high-voltage capacitor ceramic
Hypericum maculatum
incision of transverse septum of vagina
jailyard
Kaes-Bechterew layer
keratophyre spilite
Kumba virus
laist
Lakadiya
landslide victories
lithozonation
lumbar segments
megadealership
mid-height
military transport ship
multihop propagation
N-Benzyloxycarbonyl-s-benzyl-L-cysteine
naval arsenal
non-thermal oxygen atoms
non-transferred arc plasma torch
nonslip terrazzo
nylon staple
one touch operation
Pellionia minima
percussion piston
period of reservior with full water
Photoncy
polynomial spline lag
praisingly
prebends
proprietarious
Pseudobythinella
pyrocarbonic acid diethyl ester
rectal wound
rod bearing seal
ruadh
sand bank
selective optical lock-on
Shelford's law of tolerance
SNIA
soil water specific yield
source register field
sperical variance function
spirillaceaes
star transmission network
subtleship
successive sedimentation
swarovski-crystal
tangential-feed
thin stocked land
thirst-provoking diet
three-step design
TNV
to copy
total retrusion
triscyclopentadienyl neptunium fluoride
tube bending machines
unbesmirchable
unexpectantly
vapour tension