Washington — The FBI failed miserably over several years to reorganize and respond to a steadily growing threat of terrorism, and U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft rejected an appeal from the agency for more funding on the day before al-Qaeda struck, the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks said Tuesday.
"On Sept. 11, the FBI was limited in several areas," the commission said in a staff report. It cited "limited intelligence collection and strategic analysis capabilities, a limited capacity to share information both internally and externally, insufficient training, an overly complex legal regime and inadequate resources."
The commission released its unflinchingly critical report at the outset of two days of hearings from several current and former officials at the Justice Department and FBI.
Former FBI director Louis J. Freeh was the first to take the witness chair. "We had a very effective program with respect to counterterrorism prior to Sept. 11, given the resources that we had," he said.
That seemed a reference to internal bureaucratic wars covered in part in the commission staff report.
Former attorney-general Janet Reno said that while the FBI never seemed to have sufficient resources, "director Freeh seemed unwilling to shift resources to terrorism from other areas such as violent crime."
On Sept. 11, 2001, the commission staff said, "about 1,300 agents, or 6 per cent of the FBI's total personnel, worked on counterterrorism."
Ms. Reno was scheduled as the day's second witness, following Mr. Freeh.
Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA counterterrorism centre; former acting FBI director Thomas Pickard and Mr. Ashcroft also were on the witness list for the day.
The report said the FBI had an information system that was outdated before it was installed, further hampering efforts to battle terrorism. The report also cited legal impediments — the need to separate the fruits of intelligence from criminal prosecution — as complicating anti-terrorism efforts.
Creation of a new Investigative Services Division in 1999 was a failure, the commission said, adding that 66 per cent of the FBI's analysts were "not qualified to perform analytical duties."
A new counterterrorism strategy a year later again fell woefully short, and a review in 2001 showed that "almost every FBI field office's counterterrorism program was assessed to be operating at far below 'maximum capacity.'
"The FBI's counterterrorism strategy was not a focus of the Justice Department in 2001," the first year of the Bush administration, it said.
Mr. Ashcroft has testified previously that the Justice Department had "no higher priority" than protecting Americans from terrorism at home and abroad.
Yet the commission staff statement quotes a former FBI counterterrorism chief, Dale Watson, as saying he "almost fell out of his chair" when he saw a May 10 budget memo from Mr. Ashcroft listing seven priorities, including illegal drugs and gun violence, but not terrorism.
Additionally, on Sept. 10, Mr. Ashcroft rejected an appeal from Pickard for additional funding, the commission said.
