Posted on 10/25/2001 7:19:00 AM PDT by LiveFree2000
October 25, 2001
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Behind the facade of cooperation following the Sept. 11 attacks, less than amicable relations between New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the FBI have further deteriorated. According to New York City sources, the mayor has engaged in more than one shouting match with FBI Assistant Director Barry Mawn.
It's the same old problem because it's the same old FBI. Newly appointed, much-acclaimed Director Robert Mueller makes little difference. The bureau refuses to share information with local police agencies. It won't permit security clearances for high local officials. Law enforcement officers around the country say that attitude lent itself to catastrophe Sept. 11 and could permit further disasters.
Last Friday in Washington, Mueller--amiable and agreeable--sat down with big-city police chiefs and promised things will get better. The chiefs doubt whether Mueller or Tom Ridge, the new homeland security director, can change the bureau's culture--described to me by one police chief as ''elitist and arrogant.'' Efforts to enlist members of Congress into pressing for reform find politicians awed by the FBI mystique.
The FBI's big National Security section in New York City long has grappled with the New York Police Department. ''The FBI's attitude has been that if you need to know, we'll tell you,'' one New York police source told me. That ''need'' never occurs, with the FBI adamantly against any local anti-terrorism activity. The locals, in turn, complain about the feds failing to follow important leads.
Giuliani is not venting his outrage in a time of national crisis, but sources report a high decibel level in private by the mayor. The complaint to Mawn is that the NYPD is out of the loop, its senior officers not even granted security clearances.
Such complaints are common across the country, but only a few police chiefs speak publicly--notably Edward Norris of Baltimore (who complained in congressional testimony), Michael Chitwood of Portland, Maine, and Dan Oates of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Chitwood's experience is most bizarre. He was infuriated to learn that the FBI knew of a visit to Portland by two Sept. 11 hijackers but did not inform him. When his police pursued a witness of that visit, the FBI threatened to arrest the chief. ''I ignored them,'' Chitwood told me. Has cooperation with the bureau improved? ''Not a bit,'' he said. Only Tuesday he learned from reading his local newspaper about a plane under federal surveillance parked at the Portland airport for seven weeks.
Oates is familiar with the FBI, having tried to work with the feds during 21 years with the NYPD before retiring this year to go to Ann Arbor. As a deputy chief who was commanding officer of NYPD intelligence, he describes the FBI as ''obsessed with turf.''
Closing doors to police officers particularly infuriates Oates. ''The security clearance issue is a tired old excuse that allows the FBI not to share,'' he told me. ''They should hand out 10,000 security clearances to cops around the country.'' Oates and other police chiefs believe Sept. 11 might have been averted had the FBI alerted local police agencies about a Minnesota flight school's report of an Arab who wanted instructions for steering a big jet, but not for landing or taking off.
Police chiefs would open the FBI to the same probing of decisions and actions that they routinely perform after the fact. They also would like the same rules for the bureau that govern most of the nation's police departments. In the FBI, nobody takes the fall for blundering.
A promise that things will change in the FBI was implicit in Mueller's remarks to city police chiefs last Friday. Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney, another NYPD veteran who is more cautious in his criticism of the feds than his former colleague Oates, sounded skeptical after the meeting. ''I'm hopeful,'' he told me, but would make no predictions.
What he hopes for is the safety of the American people. The police chiefs of America want a top-to-bottom cleansing of the FBI that will require leadership from the Oval Office. If George W. Bush doubts the urgency, he should ask Rudy Giuliani.
October 25, 2001
It's time we throw out the leftovers.
Is anyone surprised?
For a Historical comparison, I do not think the 'Roman Praetorian Guards' shared any intelligence with the local Roman law enforcers. (Unless they needed to tap their 'snitch' database)
People can legitimately complain about alot of things Guiliani has done, but corruption isn't one of them. In fact, he has fought harder than any NY Mayor in memory to root out corruption in NYC. For instance, he didn't back down an inch when he was trying to root the mob out of the Fulton Fish Market. As a result, the only thing the mob could do about his efforts to eliminate their influence was to burn down the Fish Market.
Also, you should do your homework on Tammany Hall. That was a Democratic machine and last time I checked Guiliani is a Republican, so I really can't believe that you would claim that Guiliani would be bringing the 'expertise of Tammany Hall' to the FBI.
Talk about "sleepers"!! I'll bet that the FBI is full of Clintoon/Reno/Freeh dreck.
Directly before the 11 SEP attacks, the FBI was futilely trying to dig its way out of a LaBrea tarpit of incompetence, scandal and Clinton-favoring stonewalling. Then - "Voila!" - they're great again because we were attacked.
Sorry folks, things don't change that fast in a bureaucracy, and that's is exactly what Clinton, Reno and Freeeh made the FBI into, a tame police force.
prambo
Excellent suggestion. Rudy would clean up the pink panty wearing, affirmative action oriented, diverisity quilting oriented Clinton/Reno road blocks to having an effective FBI!
The mind set of these perverse/mentally ill FBIers is that Microsoft was more a danger to America, than terrorist from outside. Then re terrorists, the White Male Christian, who served honorably in military service and believed in the first and second amendment was the dangerous terrorist.
To begin with, use lie detector tests on all hired and promoted during the Clinton/Reno era of destroying America. Establish when they are telling the truth or lying. Then ask them to repeat their loyalty oath and oath to protect this country from enemies outside and within! As soon as they show any lying during the new oath, lock them up and investigate them and their files, bank accounts and run a new security check on them!
90% of those hired and promoted from 1993 to Jan 2002, would probably flunk this simple test. If they flunk this simple test, they should be fired, locked up and then investigated for acts of sedition and/or treason against America! Those found to be guilty should be shot as traitors!
We have just found out that Jake Reno banned any FBI investigation of the eco terrorists groups like Alf, Elf, Earth First, the Anarchists operating and living in the open in Eugene and Portland, Oregon!
Robert Novak nails it again.
could not agree with you more. Mueller was one of those Bush appointments made to be pleasing to both parties. He is a bureaucrat, politically correct and obviously slow in getting started. In 6 weeks since 9/11 there has not been one significant arrest or even slowing down of the terrorism happening in our land. Do we have 13,000 agents pounding the pavement like a good NYC Detective would be doing, or do we have a bunch of bureaucrats worrying about being politically correct, holding meetings, more meetings and more meetings while they drink their 8 cups of coffee per day.
We are at war guys. Lets get going!!
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