Risk city. Change may come slowly for other reasons. Some FBI supervisors believe it would be a mistake for special agents to stop investigating bank robberies, white-collar crimes, and drug syndicates because they develop sources working those kinds of cases. U.S. attorneys also control powerful fiefdoms around the country and can exert a strong influence on what kinds of cases FBI agents in their jurisdictions pursue. In January, Thomas DiBiagio, the U.S. attorney in Baltimore, excoriated the FBI field office there for having become "a marginal presence at best." In a letter, DiBiagio complained to the special agent in charge of the Baltimore field office, Gary Bald, that the bureau's focus on terrorism had distracted agents from DiBiagio's top priorities--violent crime, white-collar fraud, and public corruption. "The FBI has become distracted," DiBiagio wrote, "and almost useless." Bald says terrorism "is the FBI's No. 1 priority, and if it causes us to be providing fewer criminal cases for prosecution, it's an undesirable byproduct, but it's got to be tolerated." Sources say Mueller and DiBiagio exchanged sharp words. DiBiagio got the message. "There was a failure on my part to adjust to the change quickly enough," he now says. ". . . I wish I would have figured iit out sooner."
It's not just philosophical, cultural, or bureaucratic obstacles that could stymie Mueller's changes. There's also the reality that proactive operations to penetrate terror cells are riskier than straight criminal investigations. "When you are proactive, it's a double-edged sword," says Tom Corrigan, a retired New York detective who spent 16 years on the FBI-NYPD joint terrorism task force. "If you get your feet dirty, it can come back to kick you in the ass." In the early 1990s, FBI officials shut down surveillance operations on radical Islamic fundamentalists in Brooklyn and Jersey City, N.J., who would turn out to be players in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and other planned attacks. Why? Supervisors feared costs and liabilities. Recently, the FBI has taken flak for interviews of Iraqi exiles here and research on mosques. These efforts "don't keep us safer, but destroy fundamental freedoms," says the American Civil Liberties Union's Dalia Hashad. Some FBI officials are nonplussed. "The bureau was beaten following 9/11 for not knowing," says an FBI official. "And now [we're] beaten for trying to find out." Still, some agents find the prevention concept legally suspect. "How do you grab someone who hasn't done anything," asks former agent Ed Stroz, "but you knew he was about to do something?"
And how, in an intensely careerist place like the FBI, will performance of agents be measured in Mueller's brave new world? In the old days, supervisors counted the number of arrests an agent made; even today, promotion rests on making cases. But what is the right way to measure prevention? Mefford is trying to develop a new performance-measurement system. No longer will agents be rated simply on things like how many bank robberies they solved. It's going to be how many criminal and intelligence wiretap applications they write, how many informants they develop, and the quality of the intelligence that they come up with. In the meantime, Mueller's prevention mantra may be catching on, albeit slowly. The number of nonterrorism criminal cases the FBI referred to U.S. attorneys has plunged since 9/11 (chart, Page 22), though it's unclear how much o┝f this reflects a shift toward more proactive, preventive operations.
The change, skeptics say, is going to come grudgingly, if at all. "I believe Mueller is trying to make the FBI . . . more responsible," says Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican and FBI critic. "But there's an institutional disease there that is going to be very difficult for him to change." Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat--and presidential contender--believes the FBI is juggling two inherently incompatible missions: intelligence gathering and law enforcement. "The nature of law enforcement is linear," he says. "Intelligence is never-ending."
Insular institution. Others say the FBI's demographics are ill-suited to combating terrorism. With 500 agents eligible to retire this year and with a young and inexperienced workforce--average age, 31--the FBI's institutional memory on terrorism is largely gone. Worse, Mueller must combat radical Islamic fundamentalism, global terrorism, and international crime syndicates with a workforce that's mostly white and male. Only 76 agents speak Arabic. Mueller has hired nearly 300 language translators and created an FBI language center. He wants to hire 700 intelligence analysts. But his efforts have been stymied by stiff security checks. "The bureaucracy is stifling," says one senior official, "and he's trying to break through it."
On every front, Mueller keeps pushing, trying to instill a sense of urgency. "We can't take any information or source for granted," says Van Harp, who just retired as the head of the FBI field office in Washington. "It all has to be vetted, run to the ground." Agents' workloads have dramatically increased, supervisors say. "You used to look at threats; you knew what had validity; you'd get to them after you got all these other things out of the way," says one official. "Now, no matter how bizarre or how routine, you go after them."
All terror threats get flashed on the pagers of senior executives, whether it's a suspicious package on a subway or an anthrax hoax. "You'll sit at a table with management," says Rolince, "and simultaneously every pager will go off." The agents say they are exhausted from chasing leads constantly. Mueller says he wants supervisors to use their judgment, but he insists that no lead can be ignored. "The possibility of that lead, if that lead were followed, identifying somebody who wanted to kill Americans," he says, "is such that we just cannot afford to have that happen."
Last November, Gebhardt, the deputy director, sent an E-mail to field supervisors saying he was "amazed and astounded" by the failure of field agents to develop sources. "You need to instill urgency," Gebhardt wrote. ". . . You are the leaders of the FBI. You cannot fail at this mission. Too many people are depending on us." Gebhardt says his memo was meant to energize agents, not to scold them.
Perhaps. Many agents appreciate Mueller's efforts to solve problems. "He seems to be very honest, very approachable," says Nancy Savage, president of the FBI Agents Association. "He wants to know directly if there's a problem." But others are resentful of his push for change. "A lot of agents are saying, `To hell with it--get someone else to do this,' " asserts former agent Stroz. They construe Mueller's urgency as impatience, his directness as a lack of regard. So far, Mueller and his laser focus on terror aren't creating a lot of warm and fuzzies among the troops. During one of Mueller's trips to a field office, an agent asked him about the status of "office of preference," a perk that allows agents to select a field office, once in their careers. It's especially important to New York agents, because that posting is considered the pits. The agents say Mueller was unsympathetic and replied that if an agent didn't like his posting, there were 70,000 applicants waiting to take his place. Mueller says he never indicated he would discontinue the program. "I do believe it's important," says Mueller. "I have told agents, though, that . . . if there are skills that are needed someplace in the organization that sacrifice is necessary. . . . The needs of the organization come first."