9/11 panel praises direction of FBI

Few agencies came in for more criticism than the FBI for missteps before the September 11 attacks, but now the bureau is getting good reviews for reforms undertaken by Director Robert S. Mueller III.

The September 11 commission said Mr. Mueller is doing what is necessary to address the problems that may have prevented detection of the hijacking plot.

“We think he’s doing exactly the right thing,” said Thomas H. Kean, commission chairman and a former Republican governor of New Jersey.

In a major victory for the FBI and Justice Department, the commission came down firmly against creation of a new, separate domestic intelligence agency and opted instead to send a “stay the course” message of support for Mr. Mueller.

The strong backing for the FBI was surprising, considering the criticism the bureau endured after the attacks. Of the 10 missed “operational opportunities” identified by the commission to potentially disrupt the plot, at least three fell squarely on the FBI.

They include not recognizing that flight student Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota might be connected to intelligence indicating an al Qaeda plot involving hijackers and not quickly locating two soon-to-be hijackers the government knew were in the United States.

In addition, the commission said the FBI suffered from a broader inability to “link its collective knowledge of agents in the field to national priorities.”

“It is mystifying that the commissioners didn’t take this on,” said Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor and former Justice Department counterterrorism official during the Clinton administration. “Mr. Mueller has been responsive to the things they were interested in. He has managed to finesse the situation.”

Since the attacks, Mr. Mueller has made counterterrorism the FBI’s paramount mission. He has put in place several initiatives to strengthen the FBI’s intelligence capabilities and methods of sharing information, both internally and with other government agencies.

More than 1,450 FBI personnel now work on intelligence in the 56 FBI field offices. Also, there is a new FBI intelligence service and an aggressive program to hire more intelligence analysts.

After last week’s release of the September 11 report, Mr. Mueller said he was “gratified and encouraged” by the support. “I am confident that we will successfully complete our transformation,” he said.

The report said it would be a mistake to create a new domestic agency for intelligence similar to the British Security Service, known as MI5. Such an agency, the commission concluded, could be more likely to violate constitutional rights and civil liberties, would take years to put into place and would lack law-enforcement powers needed to turn terrorism investigations into criminal prosecutions.

Mr. Mueller, Attorney General John Ashcroft and their predecessors in the Clinton administration all opposed the creation of a domestic intelligence service, in part because it would simply duplicate FBI work.

The idea of a separate intelligence agency was pushed for months by Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the Democratic candidate for vice president. His running mate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, chose not to endorse the proposal.

The commission warned that the FBI must not be allowed to revert to its old ways: closely holding intelligence for use in criminal prosecutions and rewarding agents more for making arrests than keeping tabs on suspected terrorists.

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