That's a pretty uncharitable mis-reading of what happened. When a spacecraft is being manufactured there is often an additional, identical space-ready backup article built alongside the primary vehicle. This is so that accident, error, or other mishap don't disrupt the schedule for the craft being developed. If some component tests bad, even as late as when the satellite is being loaded on the launch vehicle, there are space-ready spares, for everything, available. If the vehicle blows up on launch you can assign the backup article to an available launcher. Also, once the satellite is launched they have an identical test article available for troubleshooting and other ground-based testing.

So, what do you do after your mission is a success and its next-gen successor is being built? You surplus the backup articles. That's where the gift articles NASA come in.

None of this is incompetence. It is, in fact, prudent and fiscally conservative program management.

They didn't say they were lost. Maybe they have even better ones now and these are obsolete in the spy business.

This is basically the case here. NRO has newer stuff that is better. Also, they’ve switched to more SAR instead of visual spectrum stuff.