Posted on 01/12/2008 8:35:11 AM PST by 3AngelaD
The FBI named a career-long expert in terrorism to its top national security job yesterday as one of its own agents went public with allegations that the bureau still lacks the experience and skills needed to effectively combat terrorists.
Agent Bassem Youssef, a whistle-blower who alleged he was passed over for promotions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said in an interview with The Washington Post that counterterrorism agents and their managers still lack basic knowledge about Middle Eastern culture, Arabic language and terrorist mind-sets.
In some cases, Youssef said, that lack of knowledge has caused agents to investigate people they should not, by claiming emergency circumstances. As a result, he added, they are missing others who should be under scrutiny. Youssef currently oversees a headquarters office involved in the gathering of phone records in counterterrorism cases...."We are...misreading the investigations and the motives and the threats. We're looking at this case as something that is an emergency and exigent when it really isn't," Youssef said. FBI officials disputed Youssef's claims...the FBI began developing true terrorism expertise only in the late 1990s and that it has taken time to find seasoned managers with full terrorism pedigrees ready for top jobs....
But the FBI has made progress, Miller said, and yesterday it announced the appointment of Arthur M. Cummings II, a 20-year veteran and current manager in the bureau's counterterrorism division, as executive assistant director for national security, with responsibility for all of the FBI's anti-terrorism, intelligence gathering and counterespionage efforts...Cummings, a former Navy SEAL...
"Art Cummings is exemplary of the FBI's national security management team," Director Robert S. Mueller III said in announcing the appointment. "At every level, from street agent to field supervisor to headquarters executive, Art's career has concentrated on investigating and managing counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If more officials in anti-terrorism, law enforcement and particularly in Congress understood the principle of Taqiyya, we'd be a whole lot better off.
Taqiyya, coupled with the Quran's command that it is every Muslim's duty to make jihad, are the two most evil principles on earth.
Miller said the FBI decided not to engage in "guesswork" about the suspect intelligence and instead chose to investigate to ensure that the plot was not real.
The fact that the FBI chose to investigate the intelligence instead of just guessing whether it was good or not makes me feel safer.
Like the Pentagon, it looks to me like the FBI has been infiltrated by some people who loyalty to our country and our Constitution is questionable.
I agree. I think they got burned in September of 2001 and it made them rethink a couple of their assumptions. And I think the jury remains out on whether the Coyote Runner case was a bad tip, or not, considering who did the investigation.
Angela, get a copy of "Shadow Warriors" by Ken Timmerman. Read it. I am confident that your statement above will change into the one below.....
Like the Pentagon, it looks to me like the FBI and the CIA have been infiltrated by some people whose lovality whose disloyality to our country and our Constitution is questionable unquestionable.
Curiously, my library in Alexandria, VA, does not own that title, although it does have a room full of books on the subject of what a chump Bush is, and another room full of books about how wonderful Mrs. Clinton is, and another room full of books devoted to Princess Diana. I’ll get it from Amazon.
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