FBI bureaucracy targeted as congressional reviews begin

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is weighed down by bureaucracy, "make-work paperwork" and a culture that discourages risk-taking, an agency whistle-blower told Congress on Thursday, venting frustration with an organization she said could have done more to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Seven to nine levels of bureaucracy is really ridiculous," Coleen Rowley, a lawyer in the FBI's Minneapolis office, told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and a nationwide television audience.

Rowley appeared after FBI Director Robert S. Mueller suggested that Congress expand surveillance powers that were put into law only seven months ago, and said his storied agency needs to be "more flexible, agile and mobile" if it is to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Mueller also disclosed it could take two or three years -- far longer than the one year he originally hoped -- to bring FBI computer systems up to standards needed to sift intelligence information efficiently.

At the same time, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees met in a guarded room in the Capitol to continue their own review of the events of Sept. 11. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said the session included a staff-led review of the growth of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

Praised by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, as a patriot for stepping forward, Rowley told lawmakers she would not talk about the details of the case of Zacarias Moussaoui that prompted her explosive letter last month. In a 13-page memo, the FBI agent accused bureau headquarters of putting roadblocks in the way of Minneapolis field agents trying to investigate the foreign-born Moussaoui, who is charged with conspiring with the hijackers in the attacks.

Instead, she focused her remarks on the frustrations of working in an "ever-growing bureaucracy" that she said led to risk aversion, make-work paperwork and so many layers of officials that effective decision-making was impeded.

"We have a culture in the FBI that there's a certain pecking order and it's pretty strong, and it's very rare that somebody picks up the phone and calls a rank or two above themselves," Rowley said.

In his turn in the witness chair, Mueller won praise from several senators for his efforts to reform the agency.

At the same time, he faced sharp questioning about the FBI's failure to alert the committee earlier this year about the so-called Phoenix memorandum, a document sent to agency headquarters last summer noting that several Arabs were suspiciously training at a U.S. aviation school in Arizona.

Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., asked Mueller why the headquarters agent to whom the memo was addressed, David Frasca, had not told the Judiciary Committee about it in January when Frasca met with the panel's staff. Mueller said he did not know.

Sens. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Schumer introduced a measure on Wednesday to make it easier for agents to obtain wiretaps and conduct searches in foreign intelligence cases, saying that if the FBI had been able to listen in on Moussaoui it might have been able to prevent the attacks.

"This is a problem, and we're looking for solutions to address this problem," Mueller replied, adding that the Justice Department would be issuing a formal opinion on the legislation in the future.

"We are looking at ways to tweak" the legislation passed by Congress late last year, he added.

Mueller had previously outlined plans to reorganize the FBI to devote greater resources to anti-terrorism, including its ability to analyze available intelligence. "This Congress is all too familiar with the FBI's analytical shortcomings," he said. "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."

He told one senator the agency had begun hiring additional translators skilled in Farsi, Pashto and other languages, and said the FBI now has the ability to translate intercepts "in real time" in terrorism cases.

At the same time, he told seemingly incredulous senators that computer technology at the agency didn't allow an agent to search all existing electronic reports for a key phrase -- the term "flight school," for example.

Asked time after time whether Rowley's letter or the Phoenix memo could have prevented the disastrous attacks, he sidestepped.

"I'm hesitant to speculate as to what would have happened if, ..." he said at one point.