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Panel sees flaws in FBI system

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, APRIL 14. The National Commission looking into the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 has pointed out serious deficiencies in the FBI in the months before the attacks.

"Despite recognition by the FBI of the growing terrorist threat, it was still hobbled by significant deficiencies," it said in a report. Officials of the Bush and the Clinton administrations, who faced some tough questioning, have passed the failure to locate Al-Qaeda operatives on limited staffing, poor communications and the level of funding.

The former FBI Director, Louis Freeh, has rejected the `indictment' charge of the Chair of the Commission. "I would ask that you balance what you call an indictment and which I don't agree with at all with the two primary findings of your staff. One is there was a lack of resources. And two, there was legal impediments," he said meaning the difficulty in pursuing terrorism investigations. Mr. Freeh was the head of the FBI between 1993 and mid-2001.

The former Attorney-General in the Clinton administration, Janet Reno, also referred to lack of resources and argued that the FBI did not have a proper track record on keeping up with information gathered by agents. "The FBI did not know what it had. The right hand did not know what the left hand was doing."

The Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, took a swipe at the Clinton administration for not acting for eight years. "The simple fact of September 11 is this: We did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade our Government had blinded itself to its enemies.

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