Moreover, satellite imagery of the target provided no indication that the building was an embassy no flags, no seals, no clear markings. Multiple databases within the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense all reflected the Embassy in its pre-1996 location in Belgrade. Despite the fact that U.S. officials had visited the Embassy on a number of occasions in recent years, the new location was never entered into intelligence or military targeting databases. It is important to understand that our ability to locate fixed-targets is no better than the data bases, and the data bases in this case were wrong. The data bases are constructed to catalog targets not non-targets.
Military targets are the top priority because of the danger they pose to our own forces.
In this context I would add my belief that too much public emphasis has been given to the fact that the 1997 U.S. Government map did not reflect that the Chinese Embassy had moved. This criticism overstates the importance of the map itself in the analytic process. Maps of urban areas will be out of date the day after they are published. What is critical is having accurate data bases. Some of our employees knew the location of the Chinese embassy.