Author: Joyce Howard Price
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: May 4, 2003
URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030504-61291512.htm
The al Qaeda terrorist network is
recruiting in the United States, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said
yesterday.
"There are areas in which there
are individuals who are seeking others, recruiting others to go for training
outside the United States," Mr. Mueller said, "with the expectation that
training might provide the backdrop for participation in a terrorist act
in the future.
"On those individuals, we have open
investigations and are pursuing them hard," he said yesterday during an
interview on CNN's "The Novak Zone."
Mr. Mueller was not asked to identify
the areas of the country where terrorist recruitment is under way, and
he provided no further information on that topic.
Both the FBI and the CIA were criticized
for being unprepared for the September 11 terrorist attacks that the al
Qaeda network carried out.
The FBI received especially harsh
criticism for ignoring warnings by some of its own agents about foreign
Muslims who were undergoing flight training in this country and concerns
that terrorists might fly some kind of aircraft into the World Trade Center.
In the CNN interview yesterday,
host Robert Novak reminded Mr. Mueller of Colleen Rowley, an FBI veteran
who charged that the director ignored a letter she sent to him. In the
letter, she accused senior FBI officials of "undermining" efforts by agents
in Minneapolis to search the home computer of Zacarias Moussaoui. He is
accused of conspiring with al Qaeda terrorists in the September 11 attacks.
Mr. Novak asked Mr. Mueller how
the bureau treats employees with complaints.
"Every time I go out and speak ...
to one of our offices, I say the good news gets to the top, but I need
to know the bad news. I need to know ... [what] needs to be fixed," Mr.
Mueller said, adding:
"If there's a whistleblower that
comes forward immediately, I take the information and act on it. But at
the same time ... to ensure that there is no retaliation, I refer any allegations
of retaliation over to the inspector general."
Mr. Mueller said information provided
by whistleblowers "can be useful and valuable." Because of it, he said,
"we, as an institution, ought to take that information, determine whether
we have stumbled, admit it, change it, and move on."
Asked yesterday by Mr. Novak if
he believes active terrorist cells are operating in the United States today,
Mr. Mueller reiterated that he does.
"Every month since September 11,
I become more confident that we know what is out there," said the director,
who stated that the improved intelligence is the result of "shifting resources
and doing a better job analyzing intelligence."
"What you always are uncertain about
is what you do not know," he said. "There could be groups ... or individuals
out there who have not come across our radar screen, who are sleeping,
so to speak, with the expectation that at some point in time, they'll be
activated to kill persons."
At a hearing before the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence in February, Mr. Mueller said several hundred
Islamic militants linked to the al Qaeda network are living in the United
States. At that time, he acknowledged the FBI had not located or identified
all of them.
