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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Author Ron Kessler

Aired June 02, 2002 - 11:38   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: We're going to focus on this book now, or the author rather. The book is "The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI," and it gives us an inside look at the agency.

Ron Kessler is the author and he joins us live from Washington. Well, you heard Mr. Mueller. He says he wants to at least applaud the FBI for having done a great job post 9/11, but the scrutiny is the result of what took place before 9/11. Is he to blame, as he gets ready to go to the Hill for various intelligence hearings? Should he be to blame or is this the problem of a very antiquated system that he merely inherited and he inherited a week before the 9/11 attacks?

RON KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE BUREAU": Well, I think you just answered the question. Senator Leahy was quoted in the "Washington Post" today as saying that this is almost a parity of the Washington blame game, where someone becomes director a week before September 11 and he gets blamed.

The real culprit in my opinion is Louis Freeh, who for eight years mismanaged this agency tremendously, to the point where the computers were 386s. There was this risk-adverse culture. There were all kinds of problems.

But beyond that, look at what happened when bin Laden went after the American embassies in Africa. What was the response of the U.S. government? It was to send a few cruise missiles into his tents. That sort of symbolized the whole approach of the government before September 11.

WHITFIELD: Well, you know, you mentioned Louis Freeh. He was at the helm for about eight years. Should he be subpoenaed or should questions be asked to him as intelligence hearings get underway?

KESSLER: Well, if you want to find a scapegoat, fine. But you know, it's not going to do much good to beat up on Louis Freeh either. I don't think, you know, he was up to the task of managing this agency. He focused on a few cases that he micromanaged. He has no concept of technology. He, himself, did not use e-mail, but you know what are you going to do? The idea...

WHITFIELD: What are you going to do? I mean...

KESSLER: What you're going to do is... WHITFIELD: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) said it's time to hire some more investigators. It's time to incorporate CIA intelligence with the FBI. Is that way in which to help fix this problem ...

KESSLER: Well, that's part of it.

WHITFIELD: ... where obviously the communication is a major hurdle between the intelligence agencies or worse?

KESSLER: Absolutely. I wouldn't be at all unhappy if they doubled the size of the bureau. You know I don't know why anybody is not talking about that, when already billions of additional dollars are being spent on the Defense Department, the amount of increase that we're talking about for the additional FBI counterintelligence or counterterrorism agents is minuscule.

The bureau has 11,500 agents. That compares with some 60,000 New York City police officers. Why can't we have not only many more counterterrorism agents, but also go after all the other kinds of crimes which the FBI should be going after.

WHITFIELD: So you would recommend doubling the size of the agency where there are many critics who say it's time to dismantle it altogether, eliminate an agency of the FBI?

KESSLER: You know, people talk about the culture of the FBI as if the agents are at fault. They're not at fault. In fact, they do a wonderful job every day. They actually have uncovered some 40 terrorist plots in the past five or six years, including the plot to blow up the tunnel around Manhattan.

You saw in the Phoenix and the Minneapolis memos just how on top of things the agents are. The problem has been the leadership, whether you go back to J. Edgar Hoover, who abused individual rights and taped Martin Luther King's sexual activities, or whether you go to Louis Freeh who was in charge for eight years and each of these fiascos is traceable to Louis Freeh.

Now we have a director who does know what he's doing. Let's let him do what he's good at, which is managing. I think everything he's doing now is in the right direction.

WHITFIELD: And one recommendation he's making in terms of managing, he says they should have what's called a "Flying Squad" so that the field offices can be getting more information from headquarters.

But Coleen Rowley, who was the whistle-blower from Minneapolis, said the field office there is saying that that was indeed a problem, that the field offices have the majority of the information but she couldn't and her field office couldn't get the attention of headquarters in which to direct that information, so.

KESSLER: I think, you know, there was a misunderstanding about what Mueller meant by flying squads. The idea was not that information from the field would be funneled through many layers at headquarter, but rather that at headquarters, there would be agents who are career people assigned to counterterrorism, who would become involved in the investigations that the field office conducts.

WHITFIELD: All right, now...

KESSLER: The idea is, you have to have an institutional memory in headquarters.

WHITFIELD: OK, Ron, before I let you go too, "Newsweek" is reporting that the CIA had been watching at least two of the hijackers that were involved in 9/11. Does this in any way sort of take some of the heat off? The FBI is not the only agency that's got a big problem here potentially.

KESSLER: I guess you could say that, although the CIA was really was more on top of al Qaeda than the FBI was. But again, this is one of the dots. They all should have been connected, but even if they had been connected, none of them by themselves would have necessarily led to uncovering the plot.

WHITFIELD: OK.

KESSLER: They should have been looked at and there should have been more focus and there should have been a penetration of al Qaeda. That's the way to really stop these plots.

WHITFIELD: All right, Ron Kessler, thank you very much. Your book is "The Bureau, The Secret History of the FBI," appreciate it. Thanks for joining us this morning from Washington.

KESSLER: Thank you.

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