During the Iran-Iraq war , the CIA had backed both sides . The CIA had maintained a network of spies in Iran , but in 1989 a CIA mistake compromised every agent they had in there , and the CIA had no agents in Iraq . In the weeks before the Invasion of Kuwait , the CIA downplayed the military buildup . During the war , CIA estimates of Iraqi abilities and intentions flip-flopped and were rarely accurate . In one particular case , the DOD had asked the CIA to identify military targets to bomb . One target the CIA identified was an underground shelter . The CIA did n't know that it was a civilian bomb shelter . In a rare instance , the CIA correctly determined that the coalition forces efforts were coming up short in their efforts to destroy SCUD missiles . Congress took away the CIA 's role in interpreting spy-satellite photos , putting the CIA 's satellite intelligence operations under the auspices of the military . The CIA created its office of military affairs , which operated as " second-echelon support for the Pentagon ... answering ... questions from military men like ' how wide is this road ? ' " Gorbachev 's announcement of the unilateral reduction of 500,000 Soviet troops took the CIA by surprise . Moreover , Doug MacEachin , the CIA 's Chief of Soviet analysis said that even if the CIA had told the President , the NSC , and Congress about the cuts beforehand , it would have been ignored . " We never would have been able to publish it . " All the CIA numbers on the USSR 's economy were wrong . Too often the CIA relied on inexperienced people inexperienced supposedly deemed experts . Bob Gates had preceded Doug MacEachin as Chief of Soviet analysis , and he had never visited Russia . Few officers , even those stationed in the country spoke the language of the people on whom they spied . And the CIA could not send agents to respond to developing situations . The CIA analysis of Russia during the entire cold war was either driven by ideology , or by politics . William J. Crowe , the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , noted that the CIA " talked about the Soviet Union as if they were n't reading the newspapers , much less developed clandestine intelligence . " On January 25 , 1993 , Mir Qazi opened fire at the CIA headquarters in Langley , Virginia , killing two agents and wounding three others . On February 26 , Al-Qaeda terrorists led by Ramzi Yousef bombed the parking garage below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City , killing six people and injuring 1,402 others
opened fire at the CIA headquarters
1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters
Central Intelligence Agency