Fo B5 Public Hearing 4-13-04 Fdr- Tab 3- Suggested Questions For Louis Freeh 740

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS FOR LOUIS FREEH Designated Commissioners: Richard Ben-Veniste and Fred Fielding 1) Terrorist Targeting of US Interests in the 1990s. When you became FBI Director on September 1, 1993, the first World Trade Center Bombing had occurred, and the FBI was investigating the subsequent plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Later, the FBI investigated the January 1995 Manila airlines plot, the November 1995 bombing of the American training mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard in Saudi Arabia, the June 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the August 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa, the December 1999 Millennium plot, and the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. a. What did you know about the threat of terrorism when you became the FBI director? b. What did you learn in your first years as Director about terrorism and the FBI's ability to protect the country from attack? c. Where was counterterrorism on your list of priorities? d. What was your understanding of the threat from Usama bin Ladin and al Qaeda in the final months of your tenure? 2) FBI Counterterrorism Strategy. Due in part to the sheer number of largescale terrorist attacks against US interests overseas during the 1990s, the FBI dedicated substantial resources to investigating attacks after the fact with the goal of prosecution. You have told the Commission that "prevention was the job " of the FBI prior to 9/11, as terrorism investigations often led to preventions (e.g., the FBI disruptions of the 1993 plot against New York City landmarks and the 1995 Manila airlines plot). a. How would you characterize your counterterrorism strategy while Director? b. To what extent was the FBI conducting a coordinated, nationwide, targeted counterterrorism intelligence collection program? Was the FBI adhering to any collection requirements? How did the FBI assess its intelligence gaps during your tenure? c. What actions did you take to ensure that the FBI was coordinating sufficiently with the CIA on this transnational threat? d. How well did the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) work both as information sharing mechanisms and as investigative bodies? e. What was the CIA's role in domestic counterterrorism matters during the 1990s? The role of state and local law enforcement? How well did the FBI work with CIA and state and local law enforcement agencies?

f. What impact did your expansion of the Legal Attache Program have on the FBI's counterterrorism capabilities? g. What accounts for the FBI's limited success in developing sources with knowledge of the activities of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist organizations? 3) FBI Reform Efforts. The FBI appeared to recognize both the growing terrorist threat and, by the late 1990s, its own deficiencies in countering that threat. The FBI attempted several reform efforts such as the Investigative Services Division andMAXCAP 05 during your tenure that were unsuccessful. a. What FBI's reform efforts during the 1990s were the most important? b. Do you consider any to have succeeded? c. To what extent did the FBI's law enforcement approach to investigations (case-specific, decentralized) and goal of prosecution stand in the way of a shift to a more preventive strategy? d. What was the impact of the independence of the field offices (i.e., Special Agents in Charge or SACs) on your ability to implement reforms organization-wide? e. How receptive were the SACs to the MAXCAP 05 strategy? 4) The Primacy of the Field Office. Counterterrorism investigations were run out of the Field in the 1990s, with the New York Field Office being the "Office of Origin "for the al-Qaeda investigation and thus the Office with the bulk of the Bureau's expertise in this area. Also, in 1994, you reassigned 600 headquarters supervisory and administrative agents to the field, ostensibly to make the FBI more efficient and put more FBI agents "on the street. " a. What was the impact of your decision to reduce the size of Headquarters on the FBI's ability to shift to a more preventive counterterrorism posture? b. To what extent did the Field, beyond the New York Office, understand the terrorist threat during your tenure? c. What were the strengths of the "Office of Origin" concept (vs. the FBI's current centralized approach to counterterrorism)? d. You have told the Commission that you disagreed with the decision to run the PENTTBOM investigation out of FBI headquarters. Do you also disagree with Director Mueller's contention that the FBI's counterterrorism program needs to be centralized in order to succeed? 5) Impact of Legal Constraints. During your tenure, there was a "wall" between criminal and intelligence investigations resulting from the governing interpretation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PISA). Also, the Attorney General Guidelines limited the investigative techniques available to agents conducting preliminary investigations of potential terrorist activities.

Both were intended to guard against misuse of the Government's domestic intelligence collection power. a. What was the impact of the wall on the FBI's ability to identify terrorist cells inside the United States? b. Did FBI field offices understand what could and count not be shared between intelligence and criminal investigators? With other agencies? c. How well was FISA working as a tool in intelligence matters at end of your tenure? d. To what extent did the Attorney General Guidelines restrict FBI counterterrorism agents in their investigations? Did you ever request that the Attorney General revise the guidelines? 6) Information Technology Limitations. The FBI's information technology problems are well known. In your interview with the Commission, you indicated that Congress was largely to blame for your inability to address these issues as it would not approve sufficient resources for needed information technology upgrades. Others we 've interviewed have stated that Congress simply did not have confidence in the FBI's abilities to implement the necessary changes in this area. a. Both "Bear" Bryant and Janet Reno have pointed out the FBI didn't know what it knew; there was no good way for one office at the FBI to get access to information held by another office. This was both an information technology problem and an information management problem. What actions did you take to address this issue? b. Did you grasp the severity of the situation and the extent to which it contributed to deficiencies in other areas? 7) Strategic Analysis and Threat Assessment. The FBI completed its first national-level assessment of the terrorist threat to the US Homeland in January 2003. A senior CIA official detailed to the FBI in the wake of the 9/11 attacks told Commission staff that this assessment was completed by CIA analysts detailed to the FBI since at that time FBI analysts were not capable of producing such an assessment. a. Why did the FBI not feel it was important to publish a comprehensive written assessment of the terrorist threat to the United States during your tenure? b. What is your view of the role of strategic analysis? c. How did analysis contribute to FBI's counterterrorism mission during your tenure? What efforts did you make to improve the FBI's analytical capability? What is the role of the analyst in identifying intelligence gaps and setting corresponding collection requirements?

Attorney General Ashcroft told us that "if you had a heart attack at the FBI, they wouldn 't call a doctor, they would call an agent, because they thought that agents could do everything. " a. Did it take the FBI too long to recognize that it required specialized, analytic expertise that agents couldn't provide? 8) Millennium Plot. Ahmed Ressam was arrested in December 1999 attempting to cross from Canada into the United States. He acknowledged to the FBI later that he was planning to take part in an attack on the Los Angeles International Airport. He also provided valuable information on individuals associated with al Qaeda, and on al Qaeda training and modus operandi. Concern about terrorist attacks over the Millennium was high. Several former White House officials we interviewed stated that this time period was the only one in which the FBI significantly shared information with the NSC. a. How directly involved were you in coordinating the FBI's activities in response to the threat during this period? b. To what extent was the NSC or White House involved in coordinating the US Government's response to the Millennium threat? c. What direction did you receive from the Attorney General on actions that the FBI should be taking concerning how to respond to the threat? d. To what extent did the FBI coordinate with the CIA on a response to this threat? e. What information did the FBI share with the NSC and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies during this period? How did you and/or your counterterrorism leadership determine what to share with these agencies? f. To what extent did the Ressam arrest change the FBI's thinking regarding al Qaeda's ability to launch an attack inside the United States? Did you make any changes to the FBI's counterterrorism strategy as a result? 9) Counterterrorism Resources. You obtained significant budget increases from Congress during your tenure, tripling the FBI's counterterrorism budget, yet you have previously testified and told the Commission that resource constraints greatly hampered the FBI's counterterrorism program. a. Former Attorney General Reno told us that she suggested you shift resources from other areas to counterterrorism and you were unwilling to do this. If terrorism was truly one of your highest priorities starting with the FBI's 1998 Strategic Plan, what prevented you from dropping lower priority activities? b. How supportive was the Justice Department of your requests for counterterrorism budget increases? The Office of Management and Budget? Congress?

c. What more could you have done to focus the FBI's resources on counterterrorism? 10) Commission Recommendations. We are considering a range of topics for recommendations. You have expressed your opposition to a reorganization of our domestic intelligence structure that separates the intelligence and law enforcement functions. a. Would you be opposed to the creation of a separate organization within the FBI that is dedicated to investigating and analyzing national security matters? b. Should the FBI outsource its intelligence analysis function to the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) and concentrate its resources on investigations?