Ex-director defends FBI record to Congress

WASHINGTON -- The FBI gave top priority to counterterrorism during the 1990s but was hampered by a lack of support within Congress and the executive branch for extra resources, former FBI director Louis Freeh testified Tuesday.

In his first appearance before Congress since stepping down as FBI director in June 2001, Freeh offered an exhaustive, polite rebuff of criticism that the FBI didn't give full attention to counterterrorism efforts before the Sept. 11 strikes.

"The FBI was focused both on preventing domestic and foreign terrorist attacks, and I take exception to the finding that we were not sufficiently paying attention to terrorism at home," he said.

In a series of public hearings and reports in recent weeks, a House-Senate committee examining intelligence failings surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks has sketched a series of shortcomings. Among them were failures by the CIA and FBI to share key information regarding some of the 19 hijackers, miscommunication between FBI headquarters and field agents, and an incomplete analysis of the risk of terrorist strikes within the United States or the use of jetliners as weapons.

A sip from a fire hydrant

While the inquiry has scrutinized a series of missed signals -- such as the failure to act more aggressively on a Phoenix FBI agent's memo suggesting a canvass of Middle Eastern flight school students or FBI headquarters dashing cold water on the Minneapolis FBI's frantic bid to get a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings -- Freeh dismissed those events as "particulars."

"I am not saying that there weren't gaps or disconnects," he said under questioning by Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill. "But, you know, we can talk about particulars or we can talk about the reality of how things are actually being done. And I think it's instructive to talk about both, but not one in isolation to the other."

Freeh said he knows of no information that would suggest the FBI or intelligence agencies could have prevented the deadliest act of terrorism in the nation's history.

"Analyzing intelligence information can be like trying to take a sip of water coming out of a fire hydrant," he said. "The reality is that these unquestionably important bits have been plucked from a sea of thousands and thousands of such bits at the time."

Methodically reading a 24-page statement, Freeh said his requests for budget increases in the FBI counterterrorism program were ignored by Congress and the Clinton administration. For fiscal years 2000 through 2002, Freeh said he requested funds to hire 1,895 new agents, analysts, linguists and other counterterrorism personnel -- and was given authority to hire 76 people.

"The allocations were insufficient to maintain the critical growth and priority of the FBI's counterterrorism program," he said, calling on policymakers to provide major new funding for new agents and support personnel and to improve the bureau's antiquated information technology systems. "To win a war, it takes soldiers," he added.

'Cartoon' perceptions

Freeh credited himself for establishing the FBI's counterterrorism division in 1999. "Nobody in the executive or the Congress suggested that this step be taken," he said. "I took it because I firmly believed that it was necessary to expand and enhance the FBI's counterterrorism capability."

And he lauded the relationship between the FBI and CIA, saying reports of miscommunication and rivalry are inaccurate.

"That's one of those cartoon character perceptions that is just incorrect," he said in an interview during a break. "It's just inconsistent with reality."

Yet LaHood and a few other lawmakers challenged Freeh's assertion that communication between the CIA and FBI, or the FBI with state and local law enforcement agencies, is excellent.

"I do think there is a feeling out there that the culture has to change, and information does have to be shared, and that perhaps it wasn't on the terrorism stuff," LaHood said.

The congressional inquiry's staff director, Eleanor Hill, released a report Tuesday examining the FBI investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, the aborted millennium plot, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

"The FBI increased its focus on terrorism throughout the 1990s, but the joint inquiry staff has found that it did not systematically and thoroughly make the changes necessary to fight terrorism in the United States," Hill testified. And, she added later, "No agency appears to have been responsible for regularly assessing the threat to the homeland."

In comments to reporters, Freeh said he would not discuss the committee staff findings because they are preliminary and don't represent conclusions the committee members might agree to formally.

Freeh is now a vice chairman at MBNA, the credit card giant in Delaware.