Editorial: Who needs experts?

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 | 9:09 a.m.

On Sunday the Associated Press unearthed some disturbing information about the United States' war on terrorism. Despite the FBI's repeated assurances that, in the wake of 9/11, the bureau would boost its expertise in fighting terrorism, FBI officials have been saying something very different behind closed doors in sworn testimony involving an employment case. A lawsuit brought against the FBI by one of the bureau's top anti-terrorism agents, an agent who says he was passed over for promotions, has revealed that top FBI officials actually aren't looking for terrorism expertise in hiring some of the top officials.

"You need leadership," Executive Assistant Director Gary Bald testified in his deposition in the case involving FBI agent Bassem Youssef, the most senior Arab-American agent, who at one time was in charge of the bureau's office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. "You don't need expertise. It certainly is not what I look for in selecting an official for a position in a counterterrorism position." This bewildering lack of understanding about the need for anti-terrorism expertise wasn't confined to Bald. "A bombing case is a bombing case," said Dale Watson, who, believe it or not, was the FBI's terrorism chief in the two years following 9/11. "A crime scene in a bank robbery case is the same as a crime scene, you know, across the board."

The depositions provided to the Associated Press included other embarrassing revelations, too. Watson, for example, didn't know the difference between the two major groups of Muslims, the Shiites and the Sunnis. FBI Director Robert Mueller, according to The New York Times, acknowledged in his deposition that he wasn't aware of the ties between Osama bin Laden and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a spiritual adviser to bin Laden who was convicted in 1996 of terrorism charges. This appalling lack of understanding of Middle Eastern terrorism not only demonstrates why expertise in this area is so crucial, but it also reminds us of the same kind of myopic vision and bungling regarding anti-terrorism efforts by the FBI and the CIA prior to 9/11.

Youssef's lawyer has written a letter to U.S. senators about the case, detailing what he has found. We don't know if Youssef was qualified for the jobs he was seeking -- that will be for a court to determine -- but it is clear that the depositions of FBI leaders reveal that their stated commitment to having leadership with real expertise in fighting terrorism was just spin for public consumption. Congress should take a hard look at just what is going on at the FBI. It's time for accountability.