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FBI Restructured - Given
New Domestic Focus After 911
12-4-1

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Monday he was restructuring the bureau to cover gaps discovered after a series of blunders over the past year and to focus on areas like counter-terrorism, which have grown in importance since the Sept. 11 attacks.
 
Mueller, who has been working on the reorganization since he took over as head of the bureau just before the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, said he had also decided not to name a deputy director to replace Thomas Pickard.
 
"I need to be fully engaged in the day-to-day running of the bureau," Mueller told reporters as he explained the FBI reorganization. In the proposal approved by Congress, there is a slot for a deputy director but Mueller said for the time being he did not plan to fill it.
 
Instead, he has created four new executive assistant director positions that will focus on criminal investigations, counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, law enforcement services and administration.
 
The FBI has been shaken by a series of mishaps over the past year, ranging from misplaced files in the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, to lost or stolen weapons and laptops to a Russian spy within its own ranks.
 
The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also raised questions about the abilities of the intelligence operations of the FBI and other organizations.
 
New divisions or offices on security, intelligence and records management aim to fill the gaps revealed by those incidents, Mueller said.
 
Under the reorganization, the FBI has also created a cyber-crime division aimed at staying abreast of what is going to be a growing focus in the 21st century, Mueller said.
 
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FBI Shake-Up Under Way
BBCNews.com
12-4-1
 
The FBI has launched an organisational shake-up in response to the 11 September attacks on the United States and following months of turmoil at the agency over several high profile errors.
 
Under the reorganisation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will increase its emphasis on counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence work.
 
It will also channel efforts into combating cyber-crime.
 
FBI Director Robert Mueller has appointed four assistant directors to head four new departments devoted to criminal investigations, counter-terrorism, law enforcement and administration.
 
The bureau's investigative services, created just two years ago by Mr Mueller's predecessor, Louis Freeh, will be dissolved, and analysts working there will be absorbed by the criminal and counter-terrorism branches.
 
The hope is that the agency, which has come under fire in the recent past, will be able to respond more quickly to problems of national security and cope better with threats against the country's computer infrastructure.
 
"These reforms and restructuring will sharpen the FBI's capacity to act deliberately and decisively in protecting Americans' lives and liberties in the 21st century," said Attorney General John Ashcroft.
 
Embarrassing Blunders
 
The FBI's reorganisation is part of a sweeping "wartime" restructuring of the Justice Department - which includes the FBI - announced by Mr Ashcroft last month.
 
In the course of the next five years, he intends to shift 10% of jobs from Washington DC to offices across the US and increase the number of FBI agents and immigration workers.
 
Mr Ashcroft wants the FBI to focus more on preventing terrorism and less on solving smaller crimes, which could be left in the hands of local police.
 
But the shake-up also comes in response to a series of blunders in the past year, for which the agency is currently under investigation.
 
The discovery of files misplaced by the agency in the case of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, which led to a one-month delay in his execution, raised serious doubts about the organisation's management of key documents.
 
The agency has also been attacked over the case of veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who recently pleaded guilty to spying for Russia over a period of some 15 years, exposing flaws in the FBI's internal security.
 
Other problems that have dogged the agency include stolen weapons and lost laptops.
 
Needed Update
 
James Lewis with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies says that the FBI "is one of many older bureaucracies that needs updating in Washington."
 
The FBI was established in the 1920s to catch gangsters like Bonnie and Clyde, he said.
 
It made sense at the time because gangs were moving from state to state, and a federal law enforcement agency was needed to operate across multiple jurisdictions.
 
Now, he said that violent crime, drugs interdiction and bank robberies are handled by local law enforcement or other federal agenices, and the FBI can afford to focus on new realities including the threat of terrorism.
 
As Mr Ashcroft said in announcing his wartime restructuring, "we cannot do everything we once did, because lives now depend on us doing a few things very well".
 
Challenges Ahead
 
But Mr Lewis sees several challenges to the refocusing the FBI on counter-terrorism.
 
The overlap between law enforcement and intelligence in the US has not been sorted out, he said, adding, "There are members of Congress who remember with displeasure when intelligence agencies operated in the US."
 
He said that the FBI can avoid the pitfalls of the past by not setting up paramilitary enforcement forces but focusing on investigation and infiltration.
 
But he added, that there cannot be a domestic solution to the transnational problem of terrorism, and "we haven't figured out a way to deal with that".
 
 
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