FOCUS
ON PRIORITIES
Director Mueller Details Realignment
07/26/06
The FBI on Wednesday announced a broad internal
restructuring aimed at better supporting our
investigative and organizational priorities.
The changes align key programs under five
branches to reflect our shift since 9/11 into
a more threat-based, intelligence-driven organization.
Key
among the changes: the appointment of Joseph
L. Ford to the new position of Associate
Deputy Director. A special agent since 1981,
the former head of the FBI's finance division
and San Francisco field office will oversee
management of the Bureau's personnel, budget,
administration, and infrastructure. Director
Robert S. Mueller likened Ford's new position—number
3 at the FBI—to that of a large corporation's
chief operating officer.
"It
cuts across all of our programs and is responsible
for the business side of the house,"
Director Mueller said during a press conference
at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Ford's
appointment to focus on internal matters frees
Mueller's Deputy Director John Pistole to
channel more of his efforts toward operations,
intelligence, and communicating with other
agencies—what Mueller described as "the
programmatic side of the house."
Another
key piece of the restructuring realigns operations
under specific branches, each headed by an
Executive Assistant Director. The branches
include: National
Security (NSB), Criminal Investigations,
Human Resources, Science and Technology, and
the Office of the Chief Information Officer
(CIO).
Under
the realignment, our intelligence and counterterrorism
arms report up the chain to the heads of the
National Security Branch. New to the NSB is
the WMD Directorate, a reflection, Mueller
said, of "substantial concern" about
weapons of mass destruction. Mueller named
Vahid
Majidi, who headed nuclear weapons research
and counter-proliferation programs at the
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico,
to head the new Directorate.
Mueller
described the changes as a new phase in the
realigning of the FBI since the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. The first phase was our immediate
response, which included the investigation,
establishment of new priorities, and the shift
toward countering terrorism. In the second
phase we developed enhanced intelligence capabilities,
including the creation of the Directorate
of Intelligence and a career service that
doubled the number of our intelligence analysts.
The third phase is designed to alter our command
structure to meet the demands of our increased
pace of operations and build the foundation
for the future.
"We
have grown as an organization significantly
since 9/11," Director Mueller said. "It
made sense in my mind to evolve the organization
to what you see today." Bottom line,
the Director said, "We're better aligned
to address our priorities."
Links:
Press
Release | Revised
organizational chart
