Posted on 12/17/2002 8:50:41 AM PST by Asmodeus
On the same day recently the New York Times and the Washington Times ran stories about the management challenges facing FBI Director Robert Mueller. The New York Times obtained internal Bureau documents that show Mueller talking tough to his managers and agents about the need for reform. The story has Mueller warning that he won’t tolerate "bureaucratic intransigence" and quotes senior Justice officials lauding his performance thus far.
But the Washington Times focused more on Mueller’s actions, especially on the sensitive issues of ethics and retaliation against internal critics. On that score, Mueller doesn’t fare quite so well. For example, the "other" Times reported his decision to cut staffing in the Bureau’s office that investigates internal misconduct. The cuts seem particularly ill-timed after the release of a Justice Department review of disciplinary policies within the Bureau. That review found a shocking pattern of internal cover-ups that shielded senior FBI managers from discipline that might harm their careers and reputations.
2002 has been a tough year for Mueller and the Bureau. The now largely forgotten Webster report, released last April, revealed scandalous gaps in the Bureau’s internal security programs. Internal security officers failed to stop convicted spy Robert Hanssen from doing irreparable damage to U.S. national security. He gave hundreds of classified documents to the Russians, compromised dozens of sensitive U.S. operations, and even joked about the Bureau’s inability to catch him.
Webster’s report came after the public learned that the Bureau had missed out on the information revolution, due mostly to bad decisions made during the Louis Freeh years. This came after revelations that the Bureau had withheld thousands of documents from Timothy McVeigh’s defense team. During congressional testimony, Mueller and other Bureau spokesmen stunned observers by their admissions about the inadequacies of FBI information handling systems.
Finally, the Bureau has been the big loser thus far in investigations of the government’s efforts to detect or prevent the nine-eleven tragedy. Its failures to aggressively pursue leads from Zacarias Moussaoui or the so-called Phoenix memo are now well-known. Lately, the Bureau has been accused of failing to follow a money trail that could lead from the nine-eleven hijackers back to members of the Saudi royal family.
Meanwhile, the Bureau has continued its practice of ruthlessly suppressing criticism of its performance. Sibel Edmonds, recently featured on 60 Minutes, sued the Bureau after she was fired for exposing incompetence and corruption in a translation unit supporting counter-terrorism. Mueller had Attorney General John Ashcroft ask a federal court to dismiss Edmonds’ case on national security grounds. John Roberts, an internal FBI critic, was harassed, and his wife, also a Bureau employee, humiliated, after he appeared on 60 Minutes in support of Edmonds. Mueller’s reform efforts might be more credible if he stopped retaliation against the Bureau’s critics.
Reed Irvine can be reached at ri@aim.org
Reform the hold U.S government
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