The failure of the American intelligence agency, the CIA, to detect India's plans to carry out nuclear tests has been blamed in part on a blinkered mindset within the organisation.

An independent inquiry, ordered by the CIA, has found that agnecy analysts failed to appreciate sufficiently that the Indian government would not think in the same way as they did.

A retired admiral who conducted the review, David Jeremiah, also criticised the CIA's leadership and spoke of coordination problems in the agency's intelligence gathering work.

The CIA's failure to predict the tests meant that American leaders were denied any chance of dissuading India from going ahead with the blasts last month.