FBI ‘failed to act over growing terrorism threat’

THE FBI failed miserably over several years to reorganise and respond to a steadily growing threat of terrorism, the commission investigating the September 11 attacks said yesterday.

It revealed that Attorney General John Ashcroft rejected an agency appeal for more funding on the day before al-Qaida struck,

“On September 11, the FBI was limited in several areas,” the commission said in a report. It cited “limited intelligence collection and strategic analysis capabilities, a limited capacity to share information both internally and externally, insufficient training, an overly complex legal regime and inadequate resources.”

On the day of the attacks, “about 1,300 agents, or 6% of the FBI’s total personnel, worked on counterterrorism,” reported the commission investigating the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania and destroyed the World Trade Centre twin towers.

The commission released its unflinchingly critical report at the outset of two days of hearings in Washington from current and former officials at the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, the first to take the witness chair, took issue with the findings.

“We had a very effective programme with respect to counterterrorism prior to September 11 given the resources that we had,” Mr Freeh said.

The hearing unfolded in the same Senate hearing room where National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified last week and former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke a few weeks before that.