Ames’ Damage Magnified in CIA Inquiry

The CIA inspector general’s investigation of confessed spy Aldrich H. Ames has found that the veteran counterintelligence officer exposed 55 clandestine U.S. and allied operations over nine years, far more damage than previously admitted, according to sources familiar with a draft of the inspector general’s findings.

The 400-page classified document, prepared under the direction of Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz, attempts to explain what happened as a result of Ames’ duplicity and how the longtime officer was able to avoid detection while supplying highly sensitive information to Moscow, including the identities of more than 34 secret U.S. and allied agents, these sources said.

The inspector general’s report puts the blame initially on the “almost complete indifference of senior CIA supervisors” who, beginning in 1986, failed to recognize the importance of their losses and did not put “adequate resources” into the internal search for a Soviet mole.

The report, however, focuses solely on the CIA’s loss of agents and the Ames case, sources said, and does not take into consideration CIA performance in other worldwide operations being run by these same officials, including covert wars in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua.

This broad criticism of the highest ranks of the intelligence agency comes at a time when the future of the CIA is uncertain. It is racked by internal turmoil caused by budget cuts, uncertainty about its post-Cold War mission and allegations of racial and sexual discrimination.

A senior CIA official said Friday that the inspector general’s report on Ames represents “the end-game” in an unprecedented agency scandal that has “shaken this organization badly.” The 55 clandestine operations exposed by Ames, according to the report, is about double the number that the CIA previously has publicly admitted.

Knowledgeable sources said that the inspector general’s report could lead to the reprimanding, early retirement, or even dismissal of a number of important agency officials.