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American Morning

Rowley Will Speak About FBI Communication Problems

Aired June 06, 2002 - 09:03   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Also "Up Front" this morning, a public hearing on mistakes made by the FBI leading up to 9/11 starts in just a few minutes.

CNN Congressional Correspondent Kate Snow joins us live from Capitol Hill with a preview of the Senate Judiciary Committee's probe against the backdrop of some news maybe coming out of the White House a little later today about some restructuring in Homeland Security -- what do you have for us this morning?

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I will tell you about the hearing first. Senator Patrick Leahy who is the chairman of this committee, Paula, telling us that they not out to hang people on the wall, as he puts it. They are not out to blame people during this hearing. What they're out to do, he says, is discover what mistakes were made, particularly at the Justice Department and the FBI, since that's what this Judiciary Committee has oversight over, and then take a look at how they can make things better, to prevent another attack, or before another attack happens.

Some of the issues we think they are going to be talking about later today, number one, the FBI's performance before 9/11, clearly.

But also more broadly. This committee will look at FBI reorganization just announced by Director Robert Mueller, that they are going to reorganize things.

Also, number three, new intelligence gathering rules announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft. For example, that FBI agents would be able to go in to churches or mosques if they want to gather intelligence in public places.

And then finally, Agent Coleen Rowley's concerns about FBI management. Now, Agent Rowley was here in Washington yesterday. She testifies later this afternoon. She was questioned yesterday by another group of congressional investigators in private. Today, of course, she speaks out at this public hearing. This will be the first time that we have heard from this woman out loud in public. You will remember, she wrote that letter to the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller.

She gave that letter over to Congress. And in it, she said that the FBI headquarters here in Washington had undermined efforts by her office in Minneapolis, Minnesota to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now accused of being part of the 9/11 plot, and she will address problems today between the field office in Minneapolis and between headquarters, but she will not address the Moussaoui case directly. She has been very clear about that. She's not going to get into that because, of course, there is an ongoing investigation.

Now, we have learned that Director Mueller also wrote to the committee panel saying that he is not going to address the Moussaoui investigation either in public. He said he would be glad to do it behind closed doors, but he is not going to be talking about that this afternoon.

What we do think he will talk quite a bit about is his effort to reorganize the FBI. Now remember, Director Mueller has been on the job for not very long. He started just one week before 9/11. And again, he has announced these sweeping reorganization changes that he will talk a lot about today. He said, at one point last week, that it was possible, possible, that the FBI missed leads that -- quote -- "would have led to the hijackers." Now, he's saying it is just a possibility.

Also up this morning, Glenn Fine, a name you might not know. Glenn Fine is the inspector general of the Justice Department. Now, he has been conducting an investigation of the FBI's handling of terrorism information. That includes focusing on the Phoenix information, that memo from Phoenix warning about flight schools, and also the Minneapolis warning from Coleen Rowley.

We understand that there are going to be a lot of questions for Glenn Fine. One thing the members want to know is why did those memos not end up on one person's desk, so that one person could have put all of this together, Paula.

Last night, Senator Bob Graham, who is the head of the Intelligence Committee came out and said he thinks that if one person or one group of people had had all this disparate information, it might have made a difference. He also said, Paula, he thinks there is more information that his committee has gathered. That are other pieces, as he put it, other points that could have connected some dots -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right. Kate, thanks for the update.

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