FBI Wrestling a ‘Good News, Bad News’ Predicament

26 May 2008

by Barbara Ferguson

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is battling a real “good news — bad news” situation within their ranks.

Bad news first: The FBI’s highest-ranking Arab-American agent told a congressional panel this week that he is not being allowed to work on important counterterrorism assignments, despite a shortage of agents who speak Arabic.

The good news — for the FBI, not the nation — is that senior Bush Administration officials apparently ignored warnings from the FBI over interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new US government report.

Bassem Youssef, chief of the communications analysis unit of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said the bureau’s International Terrorism Operations Sections (ITOS) — which include those that track Al-Qaeda terrorists — are “inexcusably understaffed.”

Egyptian-born Youssef, who has been an agent with the FBI since 1988, said only 62 percent of posts were filled in the counterterrorism unit. In other words, more than one out of every three positions in an elite FBI division that tracks Al-Qaeda terrorists is vacant.

This was confirmed this week by another source, when an internal FBI document was leaked to the press. The FBI’s counterterrorism section is too badly organized and too understaffed to be able to protect the United States effectively against attack, Youssef told lawmakers.

This chronic staff shortage forced the FBI to recruit staff with no relevant experience, specifically with Middle Eastern counterterrorism, possibly lacking pertinent language skills and cultural understanding.

Without cultural knowledge skills, it is difficult to understand how the agents could successfully understand the region.

This reporter has personally known FBI agents over the years, and has been appalled at their ignorance and lack of intellectual curiosity regarding Middle East issues. This reporter asked one agent - whom she learned was specifically dealing with the region - why the agent never asked her any questions about the culture, religion or history of the region, subjects this reporter regularly trains deploying Marines.

The agent’s response: “I didn’t want to have to lie when I took my polygraph.”

In other words, it is better for that agent to remain ignorant, that risk a hassle with the lie detector test about where the agent gained knowledge. Now, efforts are under way at the FBI to canvass for “volunteers” to fill what the agency said is a “critical” need in its counterterrorism efforts.

Inexperience means new operatives take even the slightest threat seriously, and “this happens just about every weekend,” running the staff on the ground ragged.

“If the executives themselves who are managing the entire section or the division are not where they should be... you’re going to see agents, analysts and other folks working in that division that are overworked, because they’re over-assigned,” he said. The FBI has been sanguine over these accusations: “While we appreciate any employee’s views on the state and direction of the FBI, those assessments may be very limited in scope,” John Miller, an FBI spokesman, told reporters.

“It is cynical to write off the work of so many dedicated FBI employees or the accomplishments of the bureau by suggesting that these efforts are failing, especially when they are not.”

Fortunately, the FBI has proof it’s doing some things right, according to recently released documents.

FBI agents repeatedly complained that harsh interrogation techniques used on detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo might violate the law and jeopardize future criminal trials, but administration officials did little to address the concerns, a government watchdog concluded in a recent report.

At one point in 2003, several top Justice Department officials took the concerns about interrogation practices used by the military at Guantanamo to the National Security Council, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in his report.However, Fine said the complaints did not appear to trigger any response from the National Security Council, which includes President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and was chaired at the time by then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Although the FBI’s concerns were previously known, Fine’s report details how top law enforcement and military officials were slow to respond and how, in some instances, administration officials appear to have disregarded them. The 370-page report took four years to complete, with its release delayed by the Pentagon’s attempt to keep a larger portion of the report classified, according to Fine.

The report describes how FBI agents beginning in 2002 became deeply troubled by some of the interrogations they witnessed and details frequent clashes between agents and their military counterparts over the military’s and CIA’s use of harsh techniques that one agent described as “borderline torture.”

President Bush claimed harsh interrogations produced invaluable intelligence, but the FBI agents said the abuse was ineffective. They also predicted, accurately, that it would be impossible to prosecute abused prisoners.

________

Commentary

Possibly, I am a bit naive on this point, but I could never actually see the United States having a real terrorism problem, unless it is because of certain elements of their domestic or foreign policies and this is an idea just thrown out into the wind only.

Otherwise, in my opinion, I cannot actually see the United States having any foreseeable problem towards being victims of terrorism even in the future.

Personally, I am against any of the facets of terrorism and abhor anyone that would wish to commit such acts, towards any people or country.