FBI Director, Whistleblower Testify Before Senate Committee

The hearings follow recent disclosures that the FBI and CIA failed to respond adequately to warning signs of possible terrorist activity before Sept. 11.

Mueller, asserting that the FBI must “become more proactive” in its approach to terror threats, said he is working to implement changes in the FBI’s culture to avoid further bureaucratic bottlenecks. Mueller has admitted the FBI mishandled possible clues before the terrorist attacks.

The director, who assumed control of the FBI on Sept. 5, said he hopes the intended reforms “will help provide a more agile, flexible and focused FBI that we need to meet that primary objective of preventing the next attack.”

To that end, the FBI will shift much of its decision-making away from headquarters to the field offices, and hopes to hire some 900 new agents. Hundreds of agents will be reassigned to counter-terrorism.

Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent whose memo to Mueller excoriated the bureau for mishandling terror warnings from her office prior to Sept. 11, also testified Thursday. Rowley accused the Bureau of “stifling initiative” and for not doing more to prevent the terrorist attacks.

“Mistakes are inevitable,” she told the committee. “But a distinction can and should be drawn between those mistakes made when trying to do the right thing and those mistakes…due to selfish motives.”

The Minneapolis FBI branch had been investigating Zacarias Moussaoui, who is currently in federal custody for his alleged involvement in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rowley shocked the FBI last month by sending a 13-page letter to Mueller, and some members of Congress, questioning his handling of information and accusing the FBI of hampering efforts to investigate Moussaoui, who she said could have provided details that may have prevented the attacks. Thursday’s hearings mark her first public comments since sending her memo.

The hearings coincide with the House and Senate intelligence committees’ joint probe into the failure of U.S. intelligence officials to stop the Sept. 11 attacks. They come as President Bush prepares a primetime announcement of a major reorganization of homeland security efforts.