Harold James Nicholson would burn several serving officers and three years of trainees before he was caught spying for Russia . In 1997 the House would pen another report , which said that CIA officers know little about the language or politics of the people they spy on ; the conclusion was that the CIA lacked the " depth , breadth , and expertise to monitor political , military , and economic developments worldwide . " Russ Travers said in the CIA in-house journal that in five years " intelligence failure is inevitable " . In 1997 the CIA 's new director George Tenet would promise a new working agency by 2002 . The CIA 's surprise at India 's detonation of an atom bomb was a failure at almost every level . After the 1998 embassy bombings by Al Qaeda , the CIA offered two targets to be hit in retaliation . One of them was the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory , where traces of chemical weapon precursors had been detected . In the aftermath , it was concluded that " the decision to target al Shifa continues a tradition of operating on inadequate intelligence about Sudan . " It triggered the CIA to make " substantial and sweeping changes " to prevent " a catastrophic systemic intelligence failure . " Between 1991 and 1998 the CIA lost 3,000 employees
1998 embassy bombings
1998 United States embassy bombings
Central Intelligence Agency