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CNN Live Today

FBI Expects New Terrorism Squad

Aired May 28, 2002 - 13:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we want to shift our focus right now. The FBI has been under intense scrutiny over intelligence failures surrounding the September 11 attacks. And earlier today, in an interview with Paula Zahn on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING," journalist Seymour Hersh said his investigation calls into question the conventional wisdom about the terrorists -- namely, that they were brilliant and cunning operatives.

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SEYMOUR HERSH, JOURNALIST: It turns out that various flight members, groups from flight 1, flight 2, flight 3 and flight 4, the four planes that went down, were flying together in sort of a basic violation of what we call operational security. In other words, if you capture one, you then have the whole operation.

They were flying together at a very almost clumsy, amateurish ways for weeks before 9/11, which means not only as I say the operational security wasn't that good, but they hadn't figured out what they were doing, which plane they were going to hit until probably sometime in August, which doesn't make this the most well- planned -- you know, it turns out maybe the Marx brothers could have gotten together and hijacked a plane before 9/11. We just weren't ready.

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LIN: And furthermore, Hersh says the FBI did make mistakes and points to the agency's inability to pull together information from various intelligence sources and draw conclusions and work with the other agencies. All, he says, longstanding problems at the FBI.

And in fact, the FBI is responding to some criticisms of its intelligence failures by launching a major reorganization with a focus on preventing terrorism.

CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena has been working this story from Washington -- Kelli.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Carol.

Well one senior FBI official says that the changes at the FBI will be dramatic. Now director Robert Mueller has been working on a restructuring immediately following the attacks on September 11, and tomorrow afternoon he is expected to announce his plan in some detail.

Now the bottom line here, there will be whole new way of doing business at the FBI. The number one priority, at least according to officials, will be on analysis and prevention of terrorism instead of prosecution. And one official says that -- quote -- "what was most apparent after 9/11 was that the FBI did not have the sufficient analytical capacity to deal with the volume of information coming in."

Now to deal with that problem, Mueller is going to announce the creation of a terrorism squad based at headquarters. Now that squad will be mobile and dispatched to places around the globe when the need arises. He also will announce the addition of about 500 analysts with expertise in several areas, including language, Middle Eastern cultures and technology.

Now terrorism resources, we are told, will be doubled with personnel being redirected from the criminal division. Now according to a congressional source, 400 agents will be redirected from narcotics, 60 agents from the white collar crime unit and then another 60 agents from the violent crime squad.

Now CNN has already reported on the creation of an Office of Intelligence, which will be led by someone from the CIA. Twenty-five CIA agents will be sent to work at FBI headquarters and vice versa, FBI officials will be sent to work at CIA's counterterrorism center.

Now even before Mueller has made his plans public there is some criticism, surprise, it's here in Washington. Well one congressional source who was briefed by Mueller says that he is concerned about centralizing power at headquarters, saying that FBI agents in the field have better contacts, better sources, better information, why should we have this sort of supersquad operating out of headquarters? But the FBI has said in public testimony previous to this that they believe they need a group of people who can see the whole picture and not just see problems locally -- Carol.

LIN: Kelli, is it too early to tell, though, how taking resources away from say narcotics or while collar crime division is going to affect domestic crime fighting?

ARENA: You know that is a concern that has been expressed. And at least on the drug fighting front the thought is you can transfer some of that responsibility over to the DEA and that they can -- they can deal with that. Some of the violent crimes can be handed over to state and local officials. So this is just bringing in other agencies that do have the capacity.

The question is do they have the manpower, the resources to do it and that is something that Congress is going to have to take a good hard look at in terms of appropriating resources and money to these various other agencies. But this was -- this was something that was -- that was a tough balancing act for the FBI. I mean there are certain things that only the FBI can do because of its national jurisdiction, but there are some other, you know, situations that ATF, DEA can be brought in on to deal with. So I think at this point it looks good on paper. We'll see how it -- how it turns out in real life.

LIN: Yes, and when it goes into effect.

Thank you very much.

ARENA: You're welcome.

LIN: Kelli Arena following that story from Washington.

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