Ex-federal officials question pace of FBI reforms

A panel of former government officials expressed concern Monday about the FBI's ability to effectively carry out its counterterrorism mission, given a series of recent public reports highlighting problems within the bureau.

The FBI continues to struggle to make needed reforms and fights efforts to transfer some counterterrorism responsibilities to other agencies, panel members said during the first of nine public forums designed to review how recommendations of the 9/11 commission are being implemented.

The commission issued its final report and recommendations almost one year ago. Most of the proposals were written into law through the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. Commissioners plan to issue a "report card" on how much progress has been made -- and where gaps still exist -- sometime toward the end of the summer.

In its final report, the commission said that the FBI should not be dismantled because it appeared to be heading in the right direction under Director Robert Mueller. Recent problems, however, are causing critics to question that recommendation.

For example, Mueller announced in March that the bureau was scrapping its $170 million Virtual Case File project, which was intended to give agents a state-of-the-art case management system to investigate terrorism. Also in March, a study by the National Academy of Public Administration found that the FBI lagged in developing effective information technology capabilities. A presidential commission on weapons of mass destruction also cited FBI problems in its final report at the end of March.

"We have been taken aback collectively by the failure of the Virtual Case File and by some of the findings of the WMD commission and the NAPA review panel about the degree to which the changes that are necessary have not been implemented," said former 9/11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick, who chaired the first panel Monday.

Gorelick said commissioners will discuss whether the FBI should be dismantled and replaced with a new domestic intelligence organization.

"I don't know where we will end up," she said.

John Gannon, former chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, said the FBI is "clearly in deficit" of where it needs to be. Gannon said, however, that he believes improvements can be made within the bureau, adding that he "strongly opposes" creating a new domestic intelligence agency.

"We are relatively better than we were in 2001, but I think we are far away from where we need to be," he said.

The FBI in particular, according to Gannon, does not value its intelligence analysts. He said agents regard analysts as "furniture" or "carpet dust."

Bureau officials also continue to challenge authority, said Gannon. He said the FBI hasn't proven yet that it should be the lead agency in domestic threat analysis.

"I think a fundamental problem for the FBI is that it has tended to claim very aggressively the authority to do the domestic threat [analysis] but it has not demonstrated a great confidence in doing it," Gannon said.

Former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who chaired the NAPA panel on FBI reforms, pushed for more agency reform. He cited high turnover within the bureau, especially for senior special agents in charge and the Senior Executive Service. He said NAPA plans to do another study specifically on the FBI's human resource needs.

"There's no more important product of this whole process than the threat assessment capability," Thornburgh said. "For the time being, I guess, when the question arises 'should the FBI carry this out,' the answer has to be 'as compared with whom'? In spite of the fact there are a number of candidates out there where this might be lodged, I think for the time being that the bureau, with whatever its shortcomings may be, is the logical depository."