WASHINGTON — Eleven months after the CIA mistakenly sent U.S. warplanes to bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the spy agency has fired one employee and sanctioned six others, including a senior official, in the first official punishment of those involved in the deadly incident.
The May 7 airstrike on the embassy, at the height of the NATO air campaign to force Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo, led to a near rupture of relations between Beijing and Washington. Talks between the United States and China on human rights and nonproliferation still have not resumed.
The State Department informed the Chinese Embassy in Washington on Saturday of the disciplinary actions by the CIA, which occurred Thursday and Friday.
The CIA declined to identify those who were disciplined for the bombing, which killed three Chinese civilians and wounded 27 others. But a U.S. official said the agent who was fired "was the one who selected the target . . . and essentially put the X on the map in the wrong place."
George J. Tenet, director of the CIA, also sanctioned a senior CIA official and five other officers, four of whom are managers. The sanctions ranged from an oral warning to letters of reprimand that carry a one-year prohibition on promotions, financial bonuses and other awards.
In addition, Tenet requested that a career CIA officer at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the federal agency responsible for providing the military map used in the raid, receive an administrative warning.
A U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be identified, denied that the punishment was relatively light considering the tragedy involved.
"I guarantee that the people who receive the letters [of reprimand] don't take them lightly," the official said.
No further disciplinary measures are expected at the CIA or any other U.S. government agency involved in the bombing, the official said.
The CIA had sought to target the Yugoslav Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement headquarters. But intelligence analysts used outdated maps, and in a series of blunders, mapping experts then supplied coordinates for the Chinese embassy, which was several hundred yards away from the arms agency.
Tenet praised an unnamed mid-level CIA officer, saying he went "well beyond the call of duty" when he repeatedly questioned the targeting of the building. Officials said later, however, that his concerns were not heeded within the CIA or at the U.S. military's European Command, which managed the U.S. role in the NATO airstrikes.
