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WASHINGTON – The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp. An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose was to gain intelligence, the official said.

The former intelligence official and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The CIA would not confirm the details, and said it was still gathering evidence on the incident.

“It’s far too early to draw conclusions about something that happened just yesterday,” said spokesman George Little.

A separate U.S. official suggested the bomber may have set off the explosives as he was about to be searched.

The bombing on Wednesday dealt a blow to the tight-knit spy agency. Among those killed was the chief of the CIA post, whom former officials identified as a mother of three. Six more agency personnel were wounded in what was considered the most lethal attack for the CIA since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001 and possibly even since the 1983 embassy bombing in Beirut.

It also was the single deadliest attack for Americans in Afghanistan since eight soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack on a base in the east on Oct. 3.

President Barack Obama and CIA Director Leon Panetta were joined by several leading lawmakers on Thursday in praising agency employees for their work.

“Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism,” Panetta said in a statement confirming the deaths. “We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives — a safer America.”

In a letter to CIA employees, Obama said their fallen colleagues came from a “long line of patriots” who had helped to keep the nation safe despite grave risks.

Obama acknowledged that the spy agency has been tested “as never before” since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, who chairs the House committee that oversees intelligence, said he had met with members of the CIA team in a recent visit to Afghanistan. Reyes said the nation owes them “a great debt.”

“They will forever be in my mind,” he said.

The CIA did not release information about the victims, citing the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations.

According to one former agency employee, the death toll represents a significant portion of the CIA’s clandestine force in the region, but is unlikely to cripple the agency because so many of its employees have experience in Afghanistan.

“The bench is deeper in Afghanistan than it is anywhere in the world,” the former employee said.

The bigger question for CIA operations will probably be whether the agency moves to tighten safety rules for its employees, the former employee said.

The incident occurred at a former military base on the edge of Khost city, the capital of Khost province which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold.

The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that an Afghan National Army officer wearing a suicide vest entered the base and blew himself up inside the gym. A U.S. official briefed on the blast also said it took place in the gym.

Forward Operating Base Chapman used to be a military facility base but was later turned into a CIA base, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Only four known CIA operatives have been killed in Afghanistan since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

CIA officer Micheal “Mike” Spann was killed in a prison uprising in November 2001. An agency officer died in a training exercise in 2003, and two contractors operating out of a CIA base in Shkin district of Paktika province were killed the same year.

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Adam Goldman reported from New York. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday

A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp. An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose was to gain intelligence, the official said.

The former intelligence official and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The CIA would not confirm the details, and said it was still gathering evidence on the incident.

“It’s far too early to draw conclusions about something that happened just yesterday,” said spokesman George Little.

A separate U.S. official suggested the bomber may have set off the explosives as he was about to be searched.

The bombing on Wednesday dealt a blow to the tight-knit spy agency. Among those killed was the chief of the CIA post, whom former officials identified as a mother of three. Six more agency personnel were wounded in what was considered the most lethal attack for the CIA since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001 and possibly even since the 1983 embassy bombing in Beirut.

It also was the single deadliest attack for Americans in Afghanistan since eight soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack on a base in the east on Oct. 3.

President Barack Obama and CIA Director Leon Panetta were joined by several leading lawmakers on Thursday in praising agency employees for their work.

“Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism,” Panetta said in a statement confirming the deaths. “We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives — a safer America.”

In a letter to CIA employees, Obama said their fallen colleagues came from a “long line of patriots” who had helped to keep the nation safe despite grave risks.

Obama acknowledged that the spy agency has been tested “as never before” since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, who chairs the House committee that oversees intelligence, said he had met with members of the CIA team in a recent visit to Afghanistan. Reyes said the nation owes them “a great debt.”

“They will forever be in my mind,” he said.

The CIA did not release information about the victims, citing the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations.

According to one former agency employee, the death toll represents a significant portion of the CIA’s clandestine force in the region, but is unlikely to cripple the agency because so many of its employees have experience in Afghanistan.

“The bench is deeper in Afghanistan than it is anywhere in the world,” the former employee said.

The bigger question for CIA operations will probably be whether the agency moves to tighten safety rules for its employees, the former employee said.

The incident occurred at a former military base on the edge of Khost city, the capital of Khost province which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold.

The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that an Afghan National Army officer wearing a suicide vest entered the base and blew himself up inside the gym. A U.S. official briefed on the blast also said it took place in the gym.

Forward Operating Base Chapman used to be a military facility base but was later turned into a CIA base, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Only four known CIA operatives have been killed in Afghanistan since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

CIA officer Micheal “Mike” Spann was killed in a prison uprising in November 2001. An agency officer died in a training exercise in 2003, and two contractors operating out of a CIA base in Shkin district of Paktika province were killed the same year.

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Adam Goldman reported from New York. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

HONOLULU – U.S. security chiefs briefed President Barack Obama on Thursday about missteps in the lead-up to the attempted Detroit jetliner bombing as lawmakers joined the White House in racing to find out what went wrong.

The Senate Intelligence Committee announced Jan. 21 hearings as part of an investigation to begin sooner. “We will be following the intelligence down the rabbit hole to see where the breakdown occurred and how to prevent this failure in the future,” said Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, top Republican on the committee. “Somebody screwed up big time.”

Few questioned that judgment, even if Obama’s fellow Democrats rendered it in more measured tones. Vacationing in Hawaii, Obama received an preliminary assessment ahead of meetings he will hold in Washington next week on fixing the failures of the nation’s anti-terrorism policy. Administration officials said the system to protect the nation’s skies from terrorists was deeply flawed and, even then, the government failed to follow its own directives.

Obama spoke separately with counterterrorism adviser John Brennan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who announced she was dispatching senior department officials to international airports to review their security procedures.

Despite billions of dollars spent to sharpen America’s eye on dangerous malcontents abroad and at home, the creation of an intelligence-information overseer and countless declarations of intentions to cooperate, it was already clear that the country’s national security fiefdoms were still not operating in harmony before the attempted bombing Dec. 25.

The preliminary assessment is part of a continuing, urgent examination that officials said Thursday is highlighting signals that should not have been missed. One likely outcome, they said, was new requirements within the government to review a suspicious person’s visa status.

Officials are tracing a communications breakdown that would have had grave consequences except for the attacker’s fumbling failure to detonate an explosion and the quick response of others on the flight. Now Obama, like George W. Bush before him, is struggling to get the nation’s disparate intelligence and security agencies on the same page.

In the heat of hindsight, even Obama and some fellow Democrats are excoriating a system they thought was on the mend in the years after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Democrats are joining a chorus led by Obama in declaring the government’s intelligence procedures in need of repair. Among them, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said that when the government gets tipped to trouble as it did before a Nigerian man boarded a Detroit-bound jet with explosives, “someone’s hair should be on fire.”

Instead an anxious father’s pointed warning that 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had drifted into extremism in Yemen, an al-Qaida hotbed, was only partially digested by the U.S. security apparatus and not linked with a visa history showing the young man could fly to the U.S.

That was one prominent lapse the review is addressing, said U.S. officials familiar with the process. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public.

The State Department has said it followed the procedures laid out in regulations adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that require it to share potential threat information in an interagency process led by the National Counterterrorism Center.

In this case, the potential threat was in the form of the father’s warning expressed to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, on Nov. 19, that Abdulmutallab was falling under the influence of extremists in Yemen. The information was passed to Washington the next day in a so-called Visas Viper cable identifying potential terrorists.

While meeting the standards set out in the regulations, the cable did not contain supplementary information, such as the fact that Abdulmutallab held a valid U.S. visa, the officials said. Although that detail could have been found by looking in other databases, officials said the review is likely to make the reporting of a subject’s visa history mandatory.

The State Department received no request to revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa, spokesman Ian Kelly said. He said that in the post-Sept. 11 era, State normally relies on an interagency screening system to advise the department of visas that should be revoked based on terrorism-related concerns, although it has the authority to do so on its own.

The department’s visa and reporting procedures are being examined as part of the government’s review, Kelly said.

Other clues were missed too, such as conversations between the suspect and at least one al-Qaida member that U.S. authorities are studying now. The form of the conversations, whether written or by phone, has not been disclosed and it is not known whether U.S. officials intercepted them before the attack or found them later.

For the second time in two months leaders are acknowledging “systemic” security lapses due in part to the government’s failure to sift through and fully share intelligence.

In the year before the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting rampage in November that killed 13 people, a joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned of the Army suspect’s repeated contact with a radical cleric in Yemen who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops but did not relay the information about the major to superiors.

The government overhauled the intelligence system in 2004, creating the office of national intelligence director as part of it. The goal was to ensure that information pulled from a multitude of intelligence sources and sometimes hoarded by one agency reaches authorities who are capable of penetrating the white noise of information and acting on genuine threats.

“The act set up a process to transition from a ‘need to know’ culture to a ‘need to share’ culture, but the Christmas bomb incident is evidence that we have much work to do,” said Harman, who leads a House homeland security panel.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “The Christmas Day incident revealed some serious failures in our nation’s system of security.”

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Woodward reported from Washington.

NEW YORK – Hundreds of thousands of revelers gathered in chilly weather Thursday in Times Square to usher in the new decade as organizers prepared to drop 3,000 pounds of confetti at midnight along with the New Year’s Eve crystal ball.

Fireworks were set off at about 6 p.m. and the gigantic ball was lowered into place in preparation for midnight. People were jumping up and down to keep warm and many wore conical party hats and 2010 glasses that blinked colorfully. Cell phones were brought out to document the last few hours of a decade many wanted to leave behind.

Gail Guay of Raymond, N.H., came to New York City with two friends to celebrate her 50th birthday. The trio carried a huge white hotel towel with “Happy New Year New Hampshire 2010″ printed on it.

Reflecting on the past decade when she had buried her mother, Guay had this advice: “Don’t look back.”

Her friend Doreen O’Brien, 48, of Nashua, N.H., said that the crowd in Times Square seemed to be feeling positive on the cusp of a new decade. “People are in a great mood; it’s very friendly. It’s like New York has slowed down.”

But with the nation at war, the economy uncertain, terrorism a threat and environmental catastrophe on the list of possible destinies, a sense of starting fresh remains elusive for many, who wonder what sort of legacy will begin on Jan. 1, 2010.

“The meaning of the new decade is going to be diminished by the hangover of the last decade,” says Bob Batchelor, professor of mass communications at Kent State University and author of “The 2000s,” published before the decade was even done. “That makes it tough to be as optimistic as Americans usually are.”

Celebrations are taking many forms, with concerts, fireworks, and the timed drop of favorite local symbols.

In the Tennessee cities of Memphis and Nashville, organizers plan to drop a 10-foot red guitar. In Atlanta, an 800-pound fiberglass peach is to take a 138-foot plunge. In North Carolina, Brasstown, near the Georgia border, will have its annual opossum drop, Mount Olive will drop a 3-foot glowing pickle, and the capital city of Raleigh will lower a giant acorn. In Eastport, Maine, an 8-foot wooden sardine is dropped. And in Times Square, an 11,875-pound ball covered with more than 32,000 bulbs is in place to be lowered at midnight.

In Boston, more than 1,000 artists and performers are participating in the “First Night” celebrations. Artists plan to display six ice sculptures, including a replica of one of the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s 4,000-year-old Egyptian sculptures.

And in Chicago, the city’s Transit Authority is offering rides for a penny to help residents and visitors get in place for fireworks displays planned during the evening and at midnight.

And around the world, from fireworks in Sydney to balloons sent aloft in Tokyo, revelers at least temporarily shelved worries about the future to bid farewell to the first decade of the 21st century.

At Times Square, organizers planned to mix about 10,000 handwritten wishes into the confetti to be dropped over the crowds. They include appeals for the safe return of troops fighting overseas, continued employment and a cure for diabetes.

The hundreds of thousands of revelers in New York City brought out heightened police security, displayed a day earlier when police evacuated several blocks around Times Square to investigate a parked van without license plates. Only clothing and clothes racks were found inside.

Police and other officials planned sweeps to detect traces of radiation or biological agents in the area, while a command center was to be staffed by FBI, New York and regional police.

Thousands of officers were scattered around Times Square, some heavily armed, and revelers were banned from carrying backpacks and open bottles.

WASHINGTON – A federal judge dismissed all charges Thursday against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007.

Citing repeated government missteps, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed a case that had been steeped in international politics. The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. The Iraqi government wanted the guards to face trial in Iraq and officials there said they would closely watch how the U.S. judicial system handled the case.

Urbina said the prosecutors ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials and built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Urbina said that violated the guards’ constitutional rights. He dismissed the government’s explanations as “contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility.”

“We’re obviously disappointed by the decision,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. “We’re still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options.”

Prosecutors can appeal the ruling.

Blackwater contractors had been hired to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said insurgents ambushed them in a traffic circle. Prosecutors said the men unleashed an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

The shooting led to the unraveling of the North Carolina-based company, which since has replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

The five guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

Defense attorneys said the guards were thrilled by the ruling after more than two years of scrutiny.

“It’s tremendously gratifying to see the court allow us to celebrate the new year the way it has,” said attorney Bill Coffield, who represents Liberty. “It really invigorates your belief in our court system.”

“It’s indescribable,” said Ball’s attorney, Steven McCool. “It feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off his shoulders. Here’s a guy that’s a decorated war hero who we maintain should never have been charged in the first place.”

The five guards had been charged with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms.

Urbina’s ruling does not resolve whether the shooting was proper. Rather, the 90-page opinion underscores some of the conflicting evidence in the case. Some Blackwater guards told prosecutors they were concerned about the shooting and offered to cooperate. Others said the convoy had been attacked. By the time the FBI began investigating, Nisoor Square had been picked clean of bullets that might have proven whether there had been a firefight or a massacre.

The Iraqi government has refused to grant Blackwater a license to continue operating in the country, prompting the State Department to refuse to renew its contracts with the company.

In a statement released by its president, Joseph Yorio, the company said it was happy to have the shooting behind it.

“Like the people they were protecting, our Xe professionals were working for a free, safe and democratic Iraq for the Iraqi people,” Yorio said. “With this decision, we feel we can move forward and continue to assist the United States in its mission to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan find a peaceful, democratic future.”

The case against the five men fell apart because, after the shooting, the State Department ordered the guards to explain what happened. In exchange for those statements, the State Department promised the statements would not be used in a criminal case. Such limited immunity deals are common in police departments so officers involved in shootings cannot hold up internal investigations by refusing to cooperate.

The five guards told investigators they fired their weapons, an admission that was crucial because forensic evidence could not determine who had fired.

Because of the immunity deal, prosecutors had to build their case without those statements, a high legal hurdle that Urbina said the Justice Department failed to clear. Prosecutors read those statements, reviewed them in the investigation and used them to question witnesses and get search warrants, Urbina said. Key witnesses also reviewed the statements and the grand jury heard evidence that had been tainted by those statements, the judge said.

The Justice Department set up a process to avoid those problems, but Urbina said lead prosecutor Ken Kohl and others “purposefully flouted the advice” of senior Justice Department officials telling them not to use the statements.

It was unclear what the ruling means for a sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, who turned on his former colleagues and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another. Had he gone to trial, the case against him would likely have fallen apart, but it’s unclear whether Urbina will let him out of his plea deal.

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On the Net:

Read the judge’s opinion: http://bit.ly/7q0G2r