WASHINGTON — The FBI is hampered by a lack of professional analysis and
continues to fall short in its goals to collate and integrate intelligence, according to a review by the Justice Department.
"Our review found the FBI had difficulty pulling information together
from a variety of sources, analyzing the information, and disseminating it,"
the report by the department's inspector general said. "In other words, the
FBI lacked the ability to 'connect the dots' or establish relationships
among varied pieces of information."
The FBI failure in providing strategic assessments regarding insurgency
threats came despite a 37 percent increase in the number of analysts hired
since September 2001. The analysts were meant to help in Arab and other Middle
East language intercepts of suspected Islamic insurgents in the United
States, Middle East Newsline reported.
The report, "Federal Bureau of Investigation's Efforts
to Hire, Train and Retain Intelligence Analysts," said that despite being
better qualified the new analysts have been ordered to perform clerical and
other tasks that take them away from intelligence work.
The Justice Department cited the FBI's failure to hire a sufficient
number of analysts, improper training and inability to collect, analyze and
integrate intelligence from numerous sources. The department said this has
hurt the law enforcement and domestic intelligence community in face of
threats from Al Qaida and related groups.
Analysts were most under-utilized at FBI headquarters in Washington and
received less pay than in other positions, the report said. The FBI analysts
were also provided with less training than counterparts at the CIA or
Defense Intelligence Agency.
"Moreover, the FBI lacked the capability to prepare a strategic or 'big
picture' threat assessment," the report said. "Our report concluded that the
FBI lacked a professional corps of intelligence analysts with a defined
career path, standards for training or experience, and a system for
effectively deploying and utilizing analysts to assess priority threats at
either the tactical, investigative or operational, level or the strategic —
long-term or predictive — level."
But the inspector general report said the FBI has fallen far short of
its hiring goals. The report cited the FBI achieving less than 40 percent of
its goal of hiring 787 analysts by Sept. 30, 2004.
The report said the FBI has failed to determine the total number of
intelligence analysts required to meets the agency's mission. The report
said that over the last few months the FBI's Office of Intelligence began
work on a formal requirements determination.
"However, the FBI has not yet completed an estimate of the number of
analysts needed, nor has it finalized the methodology for doing so," the
report said.