G-Men in Crisis

The celebrated crime fighters of the 20th century have a new challenge that may be a mission impossible

In the name of fighting terrorists (and covering their own asses), Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller have caused an upheaval in American law enforcement. Crimes of all sorts are ignored now while federal investigators operate with a single objective: detect and prevent the next terrorist attack.

Within hours of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the FBI began moving resources from law enforcement functions to counterterrorism. Since then, the FBI has transformed itself into a counterterror organization.

"We are not going to be judged in the future by how many successful prosecutions we have of terrorists. We'll be judged by our capacity to prevent additional terrorist attacks," Mueller announced last year.

The next attack

The problem is that it's an impossible task. Shortly before he talked about preventing more attacks, Mueller said bluntly, "There will be another attack. We will not be able to stop it."

The assignment to predict and prevent another attack is unreasonable and, according to many people in law enforcement, ultimately dangerous. These officials fear that efforts to prevent the sorts of fiascos that happened in the past may create even worse fiascos in the future.

"This one-trick pony—to discover what can't be discovered—is going to do us in," one investigator said.

Having reported and written about law enforcement issues for two decades, I have gotten to know men and women from the FBI, other intelligence services and police departments. When I talked to them about the post—September 11 FBI, they spoke candidly but in most cases anonymously. You will understand why.

Many agents told me that Mueller and Ashcroft want, above all, to prevent further embarrassment to government officials.

For the old hands in law enforcement, "detect and prevent" really means, as one FBI veteran said, "Take actions now that will exculpate you and your bosses once the attack actually happens."

An FBI manager put it this way: "I worry every time I hear talk of reorganizing. The words restructuring and reorganizing are too often euphemisms for 'we're making us look good.' It's nothing but a ball of confusion. It wastes a tremendous amount of time and paper. When we are done restructuring, all that will have changed is our routing slips. We've changed the wiring diagram but haven't improved anything. We haven't really made it any more efficient."

To be sure, most agents have enough loyalty to the institution, to say nothing of a sense of self-preservation, that they follow orders as best they can. No one needs to tell them how serious the danger is, nor how important their own resourcefulness is, given the new, highly politicized circumstances. They tend to keep their misgivings to themselves and to trusted friends.

Finger Pointing

Mueller sent the word out early that agents should keep their complaints inside the bureau. That did not keep Special Agent Robert Wright Jr., working out of the Chicago office, from going public last May with this statement: "The FBI has proved for the past decade it cannot identify and prevent acts of terrorism against the U.S. and its citizens at home and abroad. Knowing what I know, I can confidently say that until the investigative responsibilities for terrorism are transferred from the FBI, I will not feel safe."

If that sounds bleak, consider what Louis Freeh, who ran the FBI for eight years until he retired in June 2001, told a joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees last October: "Al Qaeda–type organizations, state sponsors of terrorism like Iran and the threats they pose to America are beyond the competence of the FBI and the CIA."

Both agencies, prior to September 11, failed to share and exploit information each had received. (See The FBI vs. the CIA on page 70.) Nevertheless, Freeh boasted about his own performance in the fight against terror and complained that Congress had never given the FBI enough money. In fact, between 1993 and 1999, the number of agents assigned to terrorism rose from 600 to 1300. "While at first blush that may sound like a lot," Freeh said, "the FBI had requested significantly more counterterrorism resources during this period."

With so many FBI personnel now assigned to catching terrorists, many traditional investigations have been ignored. Since the FBI reorganization began, the national crime index (prepared by the bureau), which counts murders, rapes, aggravated assaults, robberies, burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts, among other crimes, has risen two percent.

Crimes of Opportunity

Murder has increased by 3.1 percent, robbery by 3.9 percent. The moment die FBI was pulled out of various car-theft task forces, incidents of that crime went up 5.9 percent. "Ever since September 11, it's been a great time to be a white-collar criminal or a drug dealer," said Elaine Smith, a former supervisor of FBI special agents.

Nearly 60 agents who had been working on white-collar crime were reassigned to the terrorist hunt. Philip Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton years, told The New York Times, "The country is in as much danger on the white-collar crime front as it is on the terror front. False accounting, false pushing of stocks can do as much damage to the economy as a plane flying into the World Trade Center."

Indeed, white-collar criminals may even benefit from the new FBI. Entities such as the Securities and Exchange Commission were responsible for picking up the slack after the FBI was pulled away from what the Bush administration called an "all-out war on corporate corruption." When corporate felons were in the news, President Bush asked for $100 million to augment the SEC's efforts in fighting white-collar crime. In October 2002, when corporate corruption had ebbed in the headlines, Bush withdrew the request for additional funds.

The FBI no longer investigates government corruption, leaving that to the Inspector General's Office. Prosecutions are expected to decline next year, according to veteran agents—good news for crooked politicians.

The FBI is pulling out of investigating violent crimes, except for the highest-profile murders. And it is out of the business of chasing drug traffickers.

FBI agents, especially along the U.S. border with Mexico, have been told to hunt down terror cells, meaning they no longer work with U.S. Customs to keep out drugs, illegal aliens and weapons.

My sources told me diat they saw the difference quickly once the FBI all but abandoned the business of law enforcement.

"We've had information involving leading international organized crime figures, whom we have essentially kept out of the country—and not just physically," a veteran FBI official said.

"Now they're saying, 'It's time to go back; the FBI's busy.'"

Some criminals have expressed their new confidence in encounters that sound like the movies. A young Mobster, for example, explained to a former federal investigator, whom he had known for years, that his family's fortunes had changed. For many years they had been in eclipse. But in the past year, the family had managed to regain its footing in die New York metropolitan area with a lucrative car-theft and chop-shop business. "We're diankful," he said. "God has smiled on us again. No surveillance, no wiretaps, no pressure." The explanation was simple: The FBI had virtually disappeared and, the Mobster said, "When the cat's away, the mice will play."

Terrorists, too, have every reason to like die new FBI. For one thing, they no longer have to worry about being discovered dirough a criminal investigation. Before the shift to all-terror, the FBI had helped the Drug Enforcement Administration in an investigation of a methamphetamine distribution ring in several Southern states. Eventually, die investigation led to Middle Eastern communities, Pakistan and on to Al Qaeda. Now, unless a crime has an obvious terror link, there is no enthusiasm, manpower, time or (continued on page 143)G-Men(continued from page 66) money to pursue it.

Terrorists can read newspapers and watch television, where the political opportunism that distorts America's war on terror is frequently displayed. "A press conference may cover Ashcroft's ass," said one investigator who travels frequently between Karachi and Washington, "but we know that real terrorists laugh at sound bites. Real terrorists prefer real sounds."

Terrorists and international underworld figures have figured out how to exploit the Bush administration's need for good news. Even seasoned agents have to pause now before they decide not to make an official report of a wild and implausible tip. It might be true.

Tipsters around the world know they will have a receptive audience if they provide the stuff of press conferences. In June 2002 John Ashcroft, while visiting Moscow, announced that the FBI had thwarted a "dirty nuke" attack by arresting Jose Padilla, a.k.a. Abdullah al-Muhajir. Padilla remains in custody, even while prosecutors and law enforcement officials admit that the case against him is weak. Indeed, reporters for The Philadelphia Inquirer sensed the possibility of official exaggeration early on. By December 2001, the newspaper's investigation prompted an ongoing inquiry by the General Accounting Office to find out if the figures for "terrorist arrests and convictions are accurate, and if the cases labeled as terrorist cases meet any generally accepted definition of terrorism." (See The FBI vs. Prosecutors on page 70.)

Underworld figures sometimes pass along scary tips to ingratiate themselves with American investigators. There is also the danger that real terrorists in U.S. custody provide false information to cover their tracks or mislead their pursuers.

In these circumstances, authorities often reach for the usual suspects. The crucial question is whether the people who have been arrested are harmless stooges who happened to encounter AI Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and Afghanistan (and may even passively sympathize with them) or whether they are potentially dangerous sleepers who, on a signal at some time in the future, might attempt to wreak havoc on the U.S.

There's no doubt that the FBI has a large pool of suspects. This past October The New York Times confirmed what I had heard from my sources, that every major FBI office devotes enormous amounts of time to keeping an eye on hundreds of people, mostly young male Middle Easterners. The Times described piles of photos, transcripts and tapes accumulating in FBI offices, the result of 24-hour coverage of the suspects' phone and e-mail communications, what sites they visited on the Internet and what they bought with credit cards.

It was surveillance of this sort that led to the well-publicized arrests of 15 alleged terrorists in Lackawanna, New York, Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere last autumn. Ashcroft announced some of the busts on the same day John Walker Lindh was sentenced and accused "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid pleaded guilty. The attorney general called it "a defining day in America's war against terrorism."

Not compared with September 11.

Had the FBI really prevented an attack, as Ashcroft seemed to imply? Prosecutors admitted there was no evidence that anyone arrested was actually plotting a crime. Some investigators suggested that Ashcroft had elevated luckless usual suspects to starring roles. "This broad net may produce some arrests," a veteran investigator said, "but I doubt it will catch real terrorists. It trivializes the real efforts being made."

According to a source quoted in the Times, those Al Qaeda sympathizers who were detected "tended to be hapless malcontents and not disciplined terrorists. They are hangers-on and wannabe terrorists, for the most part. Mohammed Atta wouldn't have asked most of these guys to take out his trash."

A sleeper who avoids detection is a successful sleeper. Is the FBI watching the right people?

"If you have these sleeper cells—and we're the ones sleeping, not the cells—if they're out there and they're plotting something and it's two, five, 10 people; there's no hope of stopping that," a senior FBI agent said.

Another agent made the same point: "They're out there right now and we don't have a clue what they're doing. Bin Laden probably doesn't have a clue what they're doing, in many cases. It's like, take your own initiative, do whatever you want to do."

Another veteran, recalling past blunders, put it this way: "If we can't keep track of them within the continental borders of the U.S., we're certainly not going to be able to track them worldwide."

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When Ashcroft insisted that a semi-nude statue, Spirit of Justice, at the Justice Department be covered, some joked that the repressive Taliban had pulled the same sort of stunts in Afghanistan. Ashcroft's publicly pious pose was silly but consistent with a steady and dangerous politicization of the agency.

Distaste for the fundamentalist attorney general among rank-and-file law enforcement has deep roots. Early in Ashcroft's reign, he downsized the FBI, cut budgets and played the usual political game that new administrators play. The trick is to cut back first, announce an assault on crime and then put the numbers back to where they were. It's smoke and mirrors, but it doesn't look clever in light of September 11. The bureau's request for more analysts, more agents and better computers was to make the administration look tough on crime.

Can the FBI survive its new identity? Cliff Van Zandt, who worked for the FBI for 25 years before he became a private security consultant, says, "The bureau will have to adapt. The threat is no longer Bonnie and Clyde. Will the FBI ever be able to back up to its old identity? The answer is probably no. Everydiing changes once you tell state, local and other federal agencies they have to handle these crimes themselves because the FBI is chasing terrorism. If there happens to be less of a terrorist threat 10 years from now, die FBI will be looking for work."

G-Men

Abbreviation allegedly coined by Machine Gun Kelly, who was pressed for time. His words— "Don't shoot, G-men!"—were uttered as the FBI agents broke Into his bedroom with guns drawn early on the morning of September 26, 1833. The G, of course, stands for government.

"Real terrorists laugh at sound "bites. Real terrorists prefer real sounds," said one investigator.

The FBI Vs. Prosecutors

Triumphant press conferences have become part of the landscape since September 11, as Attorney General John Ashcroft and other government officials try to assure the American public that the FBI is catching terrorists. The numbers seem comforting. Before September 11, the FBI sought the prosecution of individuals labeled as international terrorists at the rate of about 10 per month. The monthly average jumped to nearly 60, with a total of 395 referrals for prosecution, in the first six months after the attacks Most of them were said to be crooks or illegal aliens from the subcontinent or the Middle East with suspected ties to Al Qaeda.

U.S. attorneys refused to prosecute 61 percent of those referrals, citing in at least half the cases what Trac- FBI, a watchdog group associated with Syracuse University, characterized as "lack of evidence of criminal intent" or "no federal offense evident."

The FBI vs. The CIA

Congressional investigators discovered a series of pre-September 11 incidents in which the FBI and the CIA failed to share important information. In July 2001, for example, agents in the FBI's Phoenix office warned Washington headquarters that terrorists might be training at flight schools. The memo named two men who were, it turned out, on a CIA list of suspected Al Qaeda agents. The CIA never saw the memo.

On August 6, 2001 a CIA report to President Bush warned Al Qaeda might hijack airplanes in the U.S. The FBI did not get a copy of that report, which might have reminded investigators, at least in Arizona, of the flight school tip.

Commenting on these and other screwups, one FBI agent said: "We talk. The problem is, we don't always listen."

Recruiting weirdos for the cause

The Justice Department fact sheet "Crafting an Overall; Blueprint for Change—Reshaping the FBI's Priorities," issued in May 2002, included this exhortation: "Encourage citizens to join law enforcement in being vigilant and watchful for suspicious activity." Lewis Lapham, editor of "Harper's" magazine, called that statement "a casting call for informants of every known description—for neighborhood gossips and public scolds as well as for professional criminals and amateur conspiracy theorists."

A sleeper who avoids detection is a successful sleeper. Is the FBI watching the right people?