FBI to unveil reorganization,
sharper focus on terrorism
By Mike uorning
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON — FBI Director
Robert Mueller will announce a re
organization of the FBI today that
envisions a major retreat from the
agency’s past commitment to fight
ing drug crime as it focuses on pre
venting future terrorist attacks,
sources in the Justice Department
and Congress said.
The shift, which includes moving
400 agents out of anti-drug work, is
aimed at bolstering the bureau’s
counter-terrorism operations, in
cluding improving the agency’s
ability to analyze intelligence and
the creation of “flying squads” of
agents, who would be on call to pur
sue terrorism investigations around
the world.
Mueller would use the agents
freed by the redeployment to sup
plement new counterterrorism
agents that Congress already has
agreed to fund. Some 1,770 field
agents would be permanently as
signed to counter-terrorism duty, ver
sus 1,151 before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The reorganization has been in
the works for months, but the an
nouncement comes as the FBI is un
der criticism that it should have
paid more attention to clues that
hinted at the Sept. 11 attacks. Those
attacks occurred a week after
Mueller took over as director.
According to officials in Congress
and the Justice Department who
have been briefed on the plan, the
reorganization includes reassigning
one of every five FBI agents from
drug entorcement and related activ
ities. The plan also calls for a more
modest reassignment of agents as
signed to violent crime cases and
white-collar crimes. The bureau has
about 11,500 agents.
As a result, the burden of enforc
ing the nation’s drug laws would fall
more heavily on the Drug Enforce
ment Administration as well as
state and local police agencies.
Since President Ronald Reagan
recruited the FBI into the war on
drugs 20 years ago, the number of
agents devoted to the cause has
swelled, standing at about one-fifth
of the bureau's agents on the eve of
Sept. 11. But in a reflection of how
much the bureau’s mission has
changed, a list of 10 priorities for the
reorganized FBI—presented to key
members of Congress in advance of
Wednesday’s announcement — did
not mention drugs.
The realignment could come at a
cost of higher crime rates and, de
spite the focus on terrorism, pres
ents some long-term political risks
for the Bush administration, ob
servers say.
Local police chiefs already com
plain that they are overwhelmed,
and a drop in tax revenues from the
economic slowdown has added to
budget pressures on state and mu
nicipal governments. The DEA may
need a large funding increase to take
up the slack from the FBI’s reduc
tion in anti-drug work.
Drug-related crime has been a po
litically sensitive issue for some
time, with candidates in the past
few decades frequently using pub
lic perceptions of out-of-control
narcotics traffic to rally voters. In
addition, the Clinton administra
tion’s highly visible focus on street
crime helped nurture links in pub
lic opinion between the White
House and the falling crime rates of
the 1990s.
Still, Mueller’s plan won initial
praise from Senate Judiciary Com
mittee Chairman Sen. Patrick
Leahy, D-Vt., whose committee
oversees the FBI.
“The FBI cannot be all things to all
people, and that means making
some hard choices, and these should
not and will not be the last of them,”
Leahy said. “The FBI needs to be
come agile enough to respond to the
changing needs of the country. ”
The reorganized counterterrorism
division would have closer links to
the CIA and a new Office of Intelli
gence to improve the agency’s ability
to spot patterns of suspected terror
ist activity from diffuse field reports.
In a separate development, The
Washington Post said that Attorney
General John Ashcroft is revising
Justice Department guidelines to
give FBI officials in the field author
ity to open terrorism investigations
and undercover probes without
clearance from headquarters. The
changes, also scheduled to be an
nounced Wednesday, are intended
to place more decision-making
power in the field.
©2002, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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AMNESTY International
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International Solidarity
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U of O Anthropology
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