Have you seen the latest headlines from the 9/11 Commission? "FBI Weak on Terror Threat Response"

I'm going to try to thread this carefully because I don't want to seem to be picking on either administration. It won't work, but I'll try. Here's the article and some quotes:

FBI Weak on Terror Threat Response

"On the day of the attacks, 'about 1,300 agents, or 6 percent of the FBI's total personnel, worked on counterterrorism'", according to the commission.



"'We had a very effective program with respect to counterterrorism prior to Sept. 11 given the resources that we had,' Freeh said, noting that the report found that inadequate resources and legal restrictions were key ingredients in the agency's failings. That seemed a reference to Congress, which approves funding, and former Attorney General Janet Reno, who issued guidelines meant to strengthen American civil liberties protections by keeping the fruits of intelligence separate from criminal prosecution.

But Reno was quoted in the report as saying that while the FBI never seemed to have sufficient resources, 'Director Freeh seemed unwilling to shift resources to terrorism from other areas such as violent crime.' Freeh said he shifted resources to meet specific emergency needs, but congressional limits prevented permanent shifts."



"More broadly, Reno said the FBI faced huge challenges in learning how to use all the information it collected on intelligence and criminal matters. 'The FBI didn't know what it had. The right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing,' she said."



"Creation of a new Investigative Services Division in 1999 was a failure, the commission said, adding that 66 percent of the FBI's analysts were "not qualified to perform analytical duties."

A new counterterrorism strategy a year later again fell woefully short, and a review in 2001 showed that "almost every FBI field office's counterterrorism program was assessed to be operating at far below 'maximum capacity.'"



"Ashcroft has testified previously that the Justice Department had 'no higher priority' than protecting Americans from terrorism at home and abroad.

Yet the commission staff statement quotes a former FBI counterterrorism chief, Dale Watson, as saying he 'almost fell out of his chair' when he saw a May 10 budget memo from Ashcroft listing seven priorities, including illegal drugs and gun violence, but not terrorism."

Italics added. Plenty of blame to go around this time. The FBI's been screwed up a long time.