Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Former FBI Terrorism Task Force Agent Discusses Restructuring

Aired May 29, 2002 - 11:02   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Up first on CNN, the FBI shifts priorities and shuffles resources to focus on preventing terrorism. The changes will be announced later on today.

Joining us with a preview look inside the new FBI is CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena, live in Washington.

Hi, again -- Kelli.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Fredricka.

Well, this reorganization, as you know, has been in the making for months. The plan will more than double the bureau's anti-terror forces, devoting more than 2,000 agents to counterterrorist units. Now, that's about a quarter of the bureau's entire agent population.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): The new priority for FBI clear cut: protecting the United States from a terrorist attack. It's part of a major reorganization aimed at changing the culture and structure of the FBI from crime fighting to prevention.

Even long-time critics are somewhat optimistic.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: I believe that the FBI mind-set can change. Will it change? I don't know, and it will be a few months or years down the road before we know for sure. I do happen to know that Director Mueller's heart in right place.

ARENA: Mueller will announce the creation of flying squads, elite mobile terrorism units that can be dispatched around the globe to give field agents a big-picture perspective. The FBI will hire about 500 analysts with expertise in languages, world cultures, and technology. Officials say that currently the FBI does not have the analytical capacity to deal with the volume of information coming in.

On the agent side, more than 500 will be reassigned to terrorism units, from narcotics, white collar crime, and violent crime squads. The thinking is the Drug Enforcement Agency and state and local law enforcement can pick up the slack.

BILL BERGER, INTERNATIONAL ASSN. OF CHIEFS OF POLICE: There's certainly a lot of duplication. Over the previous administration, just about every crime was being federalized. And we saw a great exception to that. So I think, if anything, as long as it's done in a prudent manner...

ARENA: As CNN previously reported, the FBI will also establish an office of intelligence, to be led by someone from the CIA, it's goal to be proactive, rather than reactive.

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: We must refocus or mission and our priorities, and new technologies must be put in place to support new and different operational practices.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Now, along with what the FBI is proposing, officials say that the Justice Department is rewriting investigative guidelines to give agents more flexibility in the field. Now, specifically, those new rules would give agents the authority to open terrorism investigations and undercover operations without clearance from headquarters -- cut out the middleman, and get right to the source.

Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: Thanks very much, Kelli Arena, from Washington.

Now joining me here on the set in Atlanta, Mike Brooks, a former member of the FBI terrorism task force. He joins us to talk about the reorganization plan for the agency.

You're with D.C. police, a detective for 26 years; you also assisted in the FBI's efforts there.

MIKE BROOKS, FORMER FBI TERRORISM TASK FORCE: That's correct -- for six years, assigned to the FBI's joint terrorism task force in Washington, D.C. -- from '93 to '99.

WHITFIELD: So you're familiar with the structure and the culture. This is a plan that's designed, as Kelli explained in her report -- this is not just one to restructure the foundation of the FBI, but a cultural one. That seems like a pretty daunting task in which to take on.

BROOKS: I hope that they're not reinventing the wheel. They talk about one of the things they want to do is to make a joint terrorism task force at FBI headquarters. There are 38 joint terrorism task forces right now within the 56 field divisions of the FBI. I hope they're not reinventing the wheel. They've got to keep in mind too that they are still a law enforcement agency. Yes, they are still an intelligence agency for domestic issues, where CIA handles international issues, but then, I hope they don't lose focus of their mission, which is also law enforcement.

WHITFIELD: The way it has been, under J. Edgar Hoover, this has been an agency that has been focusing most -- at least that the criticism -- that it has been focusing most on traditional crimes. But times have changed, and we are seeing this as an agency that hasn't evolved with the times. So it seems as though this is almost like reinventing the wheel.

BROOKS: A little bit, but their focus us now towards terrorism, both on anti-terrorism and counterterrorism. Before I think they were a proactive organization, instead of being reactive. The are also very good at on the reactive side. I think they want to become a little more proactive than they were before, and to strengthen the relationship they had between the CIA and the FBI.

There were -- right now and prior to 9/11 -- there were supervisors from the FBI out of CIA headquarters in the counterterrorism center in Langley, and there were also CIA officials, high-ranking CIA officials, at FBI headquarters in Washington.

So I think they are going to expand that -- expand the roles of those officials at each other's agencies, and they are also bring and refocus some of the agents from the criminal side to the counterterrorism and anti-terrorism side.

But right now, I think, the Drug Enforcement Administration, looks like that they are going to take up some of the slack from some of the 500 agents they are taking off of some of the drug squads, and putting them into counterterrorism.

WHITFIELD: But in addition to reassigning people, Director Mueller said he wants to hire, over the next couple of years, about 800 people. So where do you go about looking for the expertise or tapping into the right expertise in which to train for this new kind of FBI?

BROOKS: I think they are going to be looking for agents that have specific language capabilities, these kind of things, for hiring the new 800 to 900 agents.

WHITFIELD: Because it is apparent now that that department is lacking in that department?

BROOKS: They were lacking a little bit on the language specialists. Most of the language specialists they had were devoted to foreign counterintelligence. And they would take some of those language specialist and then plug them in as the need arose to handle counterterrorism cases, if they got intelligence on, let's say, Osama bin Laden or, you know, other radical fundamentalists.

WHITFIELD: Well, we have even heard, over the last 24 hours, French authorities and Italian authorities have said that even they admit to having a difficult time being able to find the right kind of trained personnel who are diverse enough to be able to understand all of these transcriptions and recordings from various languages, various cultures. They're not tapped in. So how is it the United States is going to be able to be a little bit more proactive in that department?

BROOKS: It's going to be difficult. It's going to be very difficult because when you are talking about some of the different languages, you get into one area of Africa, for instance -- when we were working after the embassy bombing -- and you have Swahili, but you also have tribal languages. Getting into that, it's very difficult. But I think the FBI will be able to adapt to it.

WHITFIELD: Mike Brooks, thank you very much.

BROOKS: Thank you, Fredricka.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com