US to review handling of info given by Headley's wife

Washington, Oct 21 (PTI) America's top intelligence
official has initiated a review of the handling by US agencies
of the inputs provided by wives of Mumbai terror accused David
Headley that their husband had radical connections and was
involved in the plotting of a terrorist attack in India.
American journalist Sebastian Rotella quoted a federal
law enforcement official as saying on ProPublica website that
the State Department did report information about a 2007
warning from Headley's Moroccan wife after she met twice with
officials of the State Department's diplomatic security bureau
and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Pakistan.
Officials have determined that the diplomatic security
officer sent a written report about the wife's allegations to
the FBI, CIA and DEA, ProPublica said.
What happened after that will be a focus of the
inquiry to be conducted by none other than the Director of
National Intelligence (DNI) Admiral (rtd.) James Clipper.
"Director Clapper has initiated an after-action-review
to determine lessons learned," newly appointed DNI spokeswoman
Jamie Smith said.
"Reviews of this nature are an important part of
improving existing processes. Since these events occurred,
advancements in information sharing systems have been made by
applying the lessons learned from these reviews," she said.
The White House and the State Department have so far
maintained that there was no lapse in the investigation based
on the information provided by the two wives of Headley – one
in 2005 and other in 2007.
The Obama Administration has insisted that the tip off
was taken seriously, but these were general information and
not specific to those related to Mumbai.
"Had we known about the timing and other specifics
related to the Mumbai attacks, we would have immediately
shared those details with the government of India," spokesman
of the National Security Council Mike Hammer had said earlier.
"Three years before Pakistani terrorists struck Mumbai
in 2008, federal agents in New York City investigated a tip
that an American businessman was training in Pakistan with the
group that later executed the attack," said the report, which
was also published in The Washington Times.
According to the report, FBI had received tip off
about the Mumbai terrorist attack and the links of Headley and
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) about three years in advance of the
massacre of innocent people by Pakistan-based terrorists in
India's financial capital in November 2008.
"The US regularly provided threat information to
Indian officials in 2008 before the attacks in Mumbai. It is
our government's solemn responsibility to notify other nations
of possible terrorist activity on their soil,” Hammer said in
reference to the latest report on the Mumbai terrorist attack.