A former top CIA official said the intelligence agency had more than 100 Afghans acting as spies before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, but he told a magazine in a rare interview that nothing could have averted them.
Cofer Black, former head of the CIA's counterterror centre, said that looking back, he cannot think of anything "we could have done that would have changed anything".
Black, a top executive with Blackwater Worldwide, the security firm, made the comment in an interview published in the November issue of Men's Journal.
Black told the magazine that the Taliban was ousted in 10 weeks with just "300 Army special forces and 110 CIA officers", which ignores more than 1,000 US soldiers and Marines and foreign troops that joined the battle in November 2001. He acknowledges that victory was temporary.
"It was not as effectively followed up as we would have liked, as US military resources were redirected toward Iraq," he said.
He contrasts the capture of the Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez - Carlos the Jackal - in Sudan in 1994 and his arrest by the French government with the failure to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden so far.
"The CIA played a key role in locating (Carlos) and identifying him, and had comprehensive knowledge of him to facilitate a rendition," Black said. "If there had been a similar warrant for Osama bin Laden's arrest, a similar type of scenario could have been developed."
He said that bin Laden's capture would have a "detrimental effect on al-Qaeda". But it will not be a catastrophic defeat for the terrorist organisation.
"Someone will rise to take his place, and we will have to deal with it," he said.
