FBI Whistle-Blower Testifies

W A S H I N G T O N, June 6, 2002 -- The FBI needs more staffing, money, and time and less bureaucracy to prevent further acts of homeland terror, the agency's director and an FBI whistle-blower told a Senate committee looking into missed signals before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"An honest and comprehensive examination of the pre-Sept. 11 FBI reflects an agency that must evolve and that must change if our mission, our priorities, our structure, our work force and our technologies are to revolve around the one central, paramount premise of preventing the next attack," FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee today. "The need for change was apparent even before September 11. It has become more urgent since then."

FBI reform is urgent because "those who want to hurt us remain highly motivated, well-funded and spread throughout the world," Mueller said.

A whistle-blower who claims that FBI headquarters thwarted attempts by its Minneapolis field office to search the possessions of a terror suspect also testified at the day-long hearing, expressing her frustrations with the many levels of the FBI's "ever-growing bureaucracy."

"Like the plant in the 'Little Shop ofHorrors' movie, the bureaucracy just keeps saying, 'Feed me, feed me,'" Coleen Rowley told the committee in a written statement. "Ironically, even with all the management layers at FBI headquarters, it often appears thatthere is little or no real supervision of the mid-management levels."

Rowley was particularly incensed over the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, aFrench citizen of Moroccan descent arrested in Minnesota last year on an immigration violation. A flight school instructor had expressed suspicion of Moussaoui's desire to learn to pilot a commercial jet, but not to take off or land.

FBI headquarters rejected a warrant request from the Minneapolis field office to examine Moussaoui's computer. After theSept. 11 attacks, the FBI got the warrant and reportedly found informationrelated to commercial planes and crop-dusters on the computer hard drive. The government grounded crop-dusting planes temporarily because of what it found.

Authorities now believe Moussaoui had intended to be the 20th hijacker on Sept. 11. He is the only person directly indicted in the attacks.

Phoenix Memo: Another Missed Signal

Rowley became a whistle-blower when she wrote a scathing 13-page memo to Mueller taking apart the FBI headquarters' handling of the Moussaoui matter. "It is critical for the FBI to identify its mistakes, if it truly is to learn from them," Rowley told the committee in written testimony.

Referring to another case of missed signals, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., expressed unhappiness that Congress had not been informed about a pre-Sept. 11 memo from the FBI's Phoenix field office alerting FBI officials to suspicions about several Arabs who were training at an aviation school in Arizona.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine testified that he learned about the Phoenix memo on Sept. 29, weeks after the attacks. Fine said his office had "conducted a preliminary inquiry in the fall of 2001 into the handling" of the memo at FBI headquarters.

Some members of the panel told the FBI chief they should have been notified earlier about the Phoenix memo.

"If we had known about the Phoenix memorandum, we could have made some pretty good suggestions to you," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. said. Mueller said he thought the information about the memo should go to a different committee.

Despite the criticism, Specter and other members of the panel expressed support for Mueller as head of the FBI.

FBI Culture Blamed

Rowley has been openly critical of FBI brass, writing to Mueller that higher-ups removed language from the national security warrant request to search Moussaoui's laptop, thereby making it less likely the request would be approved.

Had the request been approved, the search would have revealed information that sources have told ABCNEWS would have set off alarm bells, including information on planes and links to suspected terrorists.

Rowley blamed the failure on a culture at headquarters that she said is getting in the way of the good work of agents in the field. Layers of bureaucracy promote careerism, an overly cumbersome approval process, and petty paperwork, she told the senators.

In a written statement that took into account the stories of other FBI agents, Rowley told the committee that the field agents are still frustrated.

Rowley, who was the ethics officer of the Minneapolis field office as well as the general counsel, has won hero status among many for coming forward, as well as the strong support of Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the FBI's persistent critics and a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mueller: No Reprisals for Whistle-Blowers

Members of the panel asked Mueller to pledge that whistle-blowers like Rowley would not be punished. "Can you personally assure this committeeunequivocally there will be no retaliation of any kind against either Coleen Rowley or … any FBI employee" for whistle-blowingactivity? asked Leahy.

"Absolutely," Mueller said, adding he would "not tolerate reprisals or intimidation" in such cases.

"I want people around me who will tell me what is happening. I want people in the field to tell me what is happening," Mueller said.

Rowley told the committee no one at the FBI read her written testimony prior to the hearing.

On Wednesday, the House and Senate intelligence committees also met for their second day of joint closed-door meetings into what was known before Sept. 11. Several staff members went to FBI headquarters to question Rowley.

FBI Technology Needs Upgrade

To prevent future attacks, Mueller said Congress should expand surveillance powers that were put into law only seven months ago. He also said it could take two or three years to bring FBI computer systems up to standards needed to deal with information efficiently.

Mueller shocked the senators with tales of the agency's outdated computer system. Technology at the agency didn't allow an agent to searchall existing electronic reports for phrases using two words such as "flight school," for example.

Plans are already under way to reorganize the FBI to devote greater resources to anti-terrorism, including the need to improve its ability to analyze available intelligence.

"This Congress is all too familiar with the FBI's analytical shortcomings," Mueller told the committee.

"Building subject area expertise or developing an awareness of the potential value of an isolated piece of information does not occur overnight," he said. "It is developed over time."

The bureau plans to move a number of high-level positions away from its Washington headquarters out to the field offices and wants to hire nearly 1,000 new agents by September, mostly specialists in computers, foreign languages and sciences. More than 500 agents will be shifted from criminal investigations to augment counterterrorism efforts, Mueller said.

This week's congressional hearings follow troubling reports that the FBI and CIA failed to respond to and communicate about warning signs before Sept. 11, including the Moussaoui arrest and information that two of the eventual Sept. 11 hijackers met with suspected al Qaeda representatives in early 2000.

President Bush is set to announce a new Cabinet-level department charged with homeland security, including an agency to coordinate and analyze intelligence information. When asked by the Senate panel, Mueller opted not to say whether he had been consulted by the White House on the decision to create the new agency.

The new Department of Homeland Security, which must be approved by Congress, will combine responsibilities now scattered in several federal agenciesincluding customs, immigration, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

ABCNEWS' Linda Douglass and Ariane DeVogue contributed to this report.