Sept. 11 commission probes FBI management, resources
The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Tuesday will spotlight FBI management and resources prior to the attacks, including a discrepancy that surfaced during a hearing last week.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Thursday that during the summer of 2001, the FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to law enforcement agencies that attacks in the United States could not be ruled out, and ordered its 56 field offices to increase surveillance of known or suspected terrorists, and to reach out to known informants for information on terrorist activities. Commission members, however, said they have found no evidence that the FBI took such actions.
"We have asked for and believe we have gotten all of the documents that reflected actions taken by the bureau," Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton era, told Government Executive. "We cannot find any evidence that the tasking to the field offices occurred."
Former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., another commissioner, told Fox News Sunday that "the FBI has more questions to answer than Condoleezza Rice or [former counterterrorism chief] Dick Clarke or anyone we've had testify before us so far."
Former FBI director Louis Freeh and his successor in 2001, Thomas Pickard, will testify Tuesday during the first of two days of hearings focusing on law enforcement and the intelligence community. Also testifying Tuesday will be Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Attorney General Janet Reno and Cofer Black, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's counterterrorism center during the summer of 2001.
An FBI spokesman declined to answer questions from Government Executive on Monday about actions the FBI took in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, but acknowledged that bureau officials would discuss staffing and structural issues the bureau faced at the time.
"FBI executives from both past and present will address these issues before the commission," he said.
Previous testimony and reports from the commission highlighted critical pieces of information the FBI had before the attacks. For example, French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001 in Minneapolis after officials of a flight school tipped the FBI that he was seeking flight training on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. He reportedly did not want to learn how to take off or land, only how to steer the jet while it was in the air. After he was arrested, FBI agents in Minneapolis asked permission from headquarters to request a warrant to search his computer, but were told by the bureau there was not enough evidence to ask for the warrant.
In July 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix wrote a memo to bureau headquarters highlighting suspicious activity of Middle Eastern men taking flying lessons. Additionally, FBI informants were in touch with two of the would-be hijackers in San Diego during the summer of 2001.
On Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent FBI Director Robert Mueller a letter asking pointed questions about how the FBI has used counterterrorism funds. Grassley said counterterrorism had been a priority for the FBI during the 1990s, but argued that the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent reports make it clear that counterterrorism was not taken seriously enough or managed in the most effective way. Mueller is slated to testify before the commission on Wednesday, along with CIA Director George Tenet.
"Questions and concerns about whether the FBI received enough money to combat terrorism, and whether it used those funds efficiently and effectively, have been a significant issue since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and during the subsequent investigations," Grassley wrote. "Resolving the discrepancies is necessary so the 9/11 Commission, the Congress and the [Bush] administration can make well-reasoned recommendations and decisions about resources for the FBI in the future."
Grassley cited independent reports and government documents showing that the FBI consistently received "huge amounts" of money for its counterterrorism mission, often at levels more than the administration was requesting. For example, a Congressional Research Service study found that total FBI appropriations increased from almost $2 billion to $4.6 billion, or by 132 percent, from fiscal years 1993 to 2003. The study also found an overall increase in the number of agents over the time period, with some minor fluctuations.
"It is important to note that in the same time period the FBI was receiving such large amounts of counterterrorism money from the Congress, terrorists were organizing, plotting, financing and in some cases, striking U.S. interests, both abroad and in this country itself, at the World Trade Center in 1993," Grassley wrote. "As the Congress, 9-11 Commission and the public seek a more clear picture of the events, actions and inactions leading up to that terrible attack, the issue of whether the FBI and other agencies received the appropriate amount of funds, and how those funds were used, is sure to become an issue of increasing concern and attention."
Grassley asked the FBI to answer a series of budget and management questions before Tuesday's Sept. 11 hearing.
"This is merely an example of one of the FBI's fundamental challenges over the last dozen years-it did not suffer from a starvation of resources, but rather from a lack of a concerted effort against and focus on terrorism," Grassley said. "Merely calling for more funds is an easy and over-simplified way to avoid the much more difficult and complex responsibility of effectively and efficiently managing an agency. Moreover, money is not the true measure of effectiveness in fighting terrorism."