Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

CIA Analysts Will Aid FBI Intelligence Analysis

Aired May 29, 2002 - 14:04   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: But here now with the benefit of some hindsight is a timeline of crossed signals and missed opportunities, compiled by CNN's Bruce Burkhardt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All this talk about connecting or not connecting the dots. Well, for the record, here are the dots we know about as of now.

April 2000, Phoenix: The FBI field office there starts looking into the surprising number of Arabs attending flight schools in Arizona.

A little more than a year later, an FBI agent in Phoenix sends a memo to headquarters, warning that bin Laden followers might be attending American flight schools in preparation for some sort of terrorist activity. This information never reaches the president or his closest advisers.

But on August 6, while the president was in Crawford, Texas, he was briefed, in general, about the possibility that al Qaeda followers might hijack jets in the United States.

Ten days later, in Minneapolis, Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested on immigration charges after a flight school instructor there reports his suspicions. Moussaoui wanted training on the Boeing flight simulator.

August 28: The FBI rejects the request of the Minneapolis field office for a Moussaoui search warrant that would have included his laptop computer. According to the recent and now famous memo from Colleen Rowley of the Minneapolis office, that rejection was seen as part of a larger effort by the FBI bureaucracy to thwart the Moussaoui investigation.

And finally, and maybe the biggest dot of all, by late summer 2001, the FBI task force charged with monitoring radical terrorists had received information on both the Arizona and Minneapolis investigations. But whether or not the same set of eyeballs saw both pieces of information is still not clear.

Bruce Burkhardt, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: All right. So, joining us right now with an inside perspective on what these changes really mean is counter-terrorism expert and former FBI deputy director Robert Heibel. He is currently head of the Research Intelligence Analysts Program at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Thanks so much for joining us today, Robert.

ROBERT HEIBEL, MERCYHURST COLLEGE: Good afternoon.

LIN: As you listened to the director of the FBI, what really stood out in your mind -- the biggest change that is going to impact how the FBI can prevent future terrorist attacks from occurring here?

HEIBEL: The major thing in my mind is the product that they have to produce -- is that they're going to have to actually produce an intelligence product.

American law enforcement and the FBI have -- we've been very, very good at collecting. We're very, very good investigators. But when it comes to the correlation of the information and the analysis of the information for intelligence purposes, we have fallen down dismally.

LIN: Well, he's talking about hiring a team of experts, analysts in all different areas of terrorism -- cyber-terrorism, bio-terrorism.

HEIBEL: Well, the decision of the bureau to partner with the CIA is a great decision, because the CIA is a premier agency when it comes to analysis, and the culture and the experience that they can bring to the FBI in partnership, as far as the production of products approaching analytical products, things like that, could be very, very positive for the FBI analysts.

The thing about analysis, about the intelligence process, is that this is a very, very intellectual process, and these analysts that the FBI are talking about brining in to this scenario, they have to be trained somewhere, and they've got to have -- they really cannot do the job without training and the proper background.

LIN: And the thing is, when you talk about the relationship that the FBI and the CIA are now going to have, I mean, isn't that like mixing bulls and bears? These are two agencies who have worked quite differently in the past, and frankly in the past haven't had much respect for one another.

HEIBEL: They both bring a lot to the table, and I think that what we're going to see here is a very, very professional hybrid coming out of this.

It's not just the FBI that's going to benefit from this relationship. I think also the CIA will benefit from the relationship.

I have -- I feel very positive about what's happening. LIN: It seems to me, though, what Mr. Mueller is shooting for is a change in attitude -- empowering people who are actually working out in the field offices and will likely be the first people to get their hands on any suspicious information.

HEIBEL: In the past in the bureau, there has existed a we-they philosophy between the field and headquarters.

The role of headquarters, really, is to oversee the investigations, to provide coordination. With 55 field offices furnishing information, it's going to be headquarters that puts the pieces in the puzzle together. An individual office can't do that.

And there's got to be turnaround. There has to be feedback to the offices. Headquarters has to service the field, because it's going to be the field where the information is developed. That's where it's going to start, and that's where it should end up, back in the field.

LIN: Well, the FBI is going to be bigger, but it's going to operate in smaller units. It's going through this major reorganization. Isn't it like turning a barge, a ship? I mean, this is going to take months, if not years?

HEIBEL: Maybe not a barge. How about an ocean liner?

LIN: Yes, there you go. All right. Well, it sounds like changes are already underway, as Robert Mueller had announced, that he's already put some people in those positions of authority. We'll see what happens.

Thank you very much, Robert Heibel, for joining us.

HEIBEL: My pleasure.

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