FBI Picks Terrorism Expert to Lead Agency's National Security Sector

The FBI named a career-long expert in terrorism to its top national security job yesterday as one of its own agents went public with allegations that the bureau still lacks the experience and skills needed to effectively combat terrorists.

Agent Bassem Youssef, a whistle-blower who alleged he was passed over for promotions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said in an interview with The Washington Post that counterterrorism agents and their managers still lack basic knowledge about Middle Eastern culture, Arabic language and terrorist mind-sets.

In some cases, Youssef said, that lack of knowledge has caused agents to investigate people they should not, by claiming emergency circumstances. As a result, he added, they are missing others who should be under scrutiny. Youssef currently oversees a headquarters office involved in the gathering of phone records in counterterrorism cases.

"We are . . . really misreading the investigations and the motives and the threats. We're looking at this case as something that is an emergency and exigent when it really isn't," Youssef said. FBI officials disputed Youssef's claims. "Thousands of investigations have been run, intelligence has been gathered and analyzed and made actionable, and a dozen plots targeting U.S. soil have been averted either by arrests or disruptions working with U.S. intelligence and our international partners," Assistant Director John Miller said.

Miller acknowledged the FBI has had difficulty recruiting Arabs despite aggressive efforts, mostly because of strong competition from higher-paying private sectors such as science and medicine, and competition from other intelligence agencies. "We're all competing for a limited number of people," he said.

He said the FBI began developing true terrorism expertise only in the late 1990s and that it has taken time to find seasoned managers with full terrorism pedigrees ready for top jobs.

But the FBI has made progress, Miller said, and yesterday it announced the appointment of Arthur M. Cummings II, a 20-year veteran and current manager in the bureau's counterterrorism division, as executive assistant director for national security, with responsibility for all of the FBI's anti-terrorism, intelligence gathering and counterespionage efforts.

Cummings, a former Navy SEAL, replaces the retiring Willie T. Hulon, whose rise to the top national security job followed a more traditional path through the ranks of criminal investigations and field office management jobs and typified the staffing of the FBI's top jobs in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

"Art Cummings is exemplary of the FBI's national security management team," Director Robert S. Mueller III said in announcing the appointment. "At every level, from street agent to field supervisor to headquarters executive, Art's career has concentrated on investigating and managing counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations."

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the FBI promoted numerous managers to top counterterrorism jobs who had more experience investigating crimes than fighting terrorism, prompting criticisms from both Congress and its own ranks.

Youssef was among those inside the FBI to raise concerns. A decorated counterterrorism agent in the 1990s who was singled out for praise by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, Youssef was passed over for promotions after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and pursued a discrimination lawsuit.

As a result of Youssef's litigation, several of the bureau's top terrorism managers acknowledged in depositions that they had limited experience in terrorism or limited knowledge of Middle Eastern culture before taking their jobs. An internal investigation eventually substantiated Youssef's claims that the FBI retaliated against him.

Youssef was scheduled to speak publicly today about the FBI at the American Library Association's meeting in Philadelphia. His lawyer accused the FBI of refusing to let him deliver a speech there, but bureau officials said they simply asked Youssef to put his planned remarks through a standard clearance process. Instead of giving a speech, Youssef plans a question-and-answer session.

Youssef said that in 2005 his entire office was diverted to work on the "Coyote Runner" case in which raw intelligence suggested Iraqi agents were being smuggled across the Mexican border for some sort of dirty-bomb plot. The intelligence proved wrong, and Youssef said he tried to tell his boss at the beginning that the tip was suspect, but he was overruled.

Miller said the FBI decided not to engage in "guesswork" about the suspect intelligence and instead chose to investigate to ensure that the plot was not real.