Ex-Justice officials oppose domestic intelligence agency

Former Justice Department officials on Tuesday told the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that the government should focus on reforming the FBI rather than creating a new domestic intelligence service.

A staff report from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks released Tuesday outlined pervasive problems at the FBI that spanned several administrations prior to the attacks, such as the failure to manage data and share information with other federal agencies.

"I read our staff statement as an indictment of the FBI over a long period of time," said commission Chairman Thomas Kean, former governor of New Jersey. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Attorney General Janet Reno testified before the commission Tuesday morning during a hearing on law enforcement, counterterrorism and intelligence collection prior to Sept. 11.

The 12-page staff report cited FBI deficiencies from the early 1990s until the Sept. 11 attacks, even though senior Justice officials consistently said they were implementing reforms.

"Prior to 9/11, the FBI did not have an adequate ability to know what it knew," the report said. "In other words, the FBI did not have an effective mechanism for capturing or sharing its institutional knowledge."

The report concluded: "The FBI attempted several reform efforts aimed at strengthening its ability to prevent such attacks, but these reform efforts failed to effect change organization-wide. On Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI was limited in several areas critical to an effective, preventive counterterrorism strategy. Those working counterterrrorism matters did so despite limited capacity to share information both internally and externally, insufficient training, an overly complex legal regime and inadequate resources."

Commission members said they are evaluating whether the FBI is capable of being reformed to handle counterterrorism missions, or whether a new domestic intelligence service should be created.

Reno acknowledged there were problems within the FBI prior to the attacks. "It was common knowledge that the bureau sometimes didn't know what it had and didn't share the information," she said.

Freeh, who was in charge of the FBI until June 2001, disagreed that the staff report was an indictment, saying that the report correctly cited that the bureau faced resource constraints and legal impediments. He defended FBI actions under both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Freeh and Reno both said they oppose creating a new domestic intelligence service. "I think that would be a huge mistake for the country, for a number of reasons," Freeh said. "One, I don't think in the United States we will tolerate very well what, in fact, is a state secret police, even with all the protections and constitutional entitlements that we would [have].. Secondly, if you look at the models around the world where this has been tried, it hasn't worked very well in my opinion. The other thing is that it would take a long time to integrate."

Freeh noted that it took two years to set up the Homeland Security Department after the Sept. 11 attacks, and said starting up a new domestic intelligence agency could take a decade.

"I think we ought to have the Department of Justice supervised by the attorney general and FBI agents who are schooled in the Constitution and have a transparent operation with respect to oversight by courts as well as by Congress," he added.

The staff report also said that White House national security officials were "frustrated" with the FBI's unwillingness or inability to share information.

According to the report, former national counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke said the National Security Council never received anything in writing from the FBI. And former deputy national security adviser James Steinberg stated that the only time the FBI provided the NSC with relevant information was in late 1999 during a heightened state of alert around the turn of the millennium.

Clarke said Reno was notified that the NSC "could not run an effective counterterrorism program without access to FBI information," the report said.

Freeh said he does not believe the staff statement presented an accurate characterization of communication between the FBI and the White House. He acknowledged that he did not provide written memos to White House national security officials, but said he and Reno met on a biweekly basis with NSC staff to review threat information during the last 15 months he held his post.