Obama's CIA memorial: 'Country's call'

by Michael Muskal

President Barack Obama today memorialized seven slain CIA agents as patriots and urged the intelligence community to complete their mission of protecting America from terrorism.

Speaking at a closed memorial ceremony at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Obama praised the seven who died on Dec. 30 during a suicide bombing at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan.

Relatives and more than 1,000 officers of the CIA attended, including the agency chief Leon Panetta and other officials from the intelligence community and Congress, according to the White House. The event was closed to the press for national security reasons.

"There, at the remote outpost, they were bound by a common spirit," Obama told the group, according to the White House. "They heard their country's call and answered it. They served in the shadows and took pride in it. They were doing their job and they loved it. They saw the danger and accepted it. They knew that the price of freedom is high and, in an awful instant, they paid that price.

"There are no words that can ease the ache in your hearts. But to their colleagues and all who served with them -- those here today, those still recovering, those watching around the world -- I say: Let their sacrifice be a summons. To carry on their work. To complete this mission. To win this war, and to keep our country safe," Obama said.

The president also praised the intelligence community for its efforts against al Qaeda and other fundamentalist terrorists.

"The record of their service -- and of this generation of intelligence professionals -- is written all around us,'' Obama said. "It's written in the extremists who no longer threaten our country -- because you eliminated them. It's written in the attacks that never occurred -- because you thwarted them. And it's written in the Americans, across this country and around the world, who are alive today -- because you saved them.''