Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on FBI Oversight (This is a Partial Transcript) July 23, 2003 SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE SUBJECT: FBI OVERSIGHT CHAIRED BY: SENATOR ORRIN HATCH (R-UT) WITNESSES:FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT S. MUELLER ASA HUTCHINSON, UNDERSECRETARY FOR BORDER & TRANSPORTATION SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FEINGOLD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the ranking member very much. Welcome, Director Mueller and Mr. Hutchinson. I first want to thank you, Mr. Director, for the very good meeting we had last week to discuss a lot of aspects of the work of the FBI. And I want you to know publicly as well that I have tremendous respect for the time and dedication and sacrifice by you and all of the men and women at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in the fight against terrorism. I do appreciate that you and your employees have been under incredible stress and demand since September 11, and I hope you understand that I raise some concerns in the spirit of assuring the American people that their government is doing all it can to protect them and to protect the Constitution. Mr. Hutchinson, I want to thank you. It's good to see you again, and also for your comments about the inspector general's report on the September 11 detainees. I think I was the first senator to raise some questions about these detainees. I was glad to hear that you're committed to addressing the concerns, and I look forward to being informed about how your department will implement the IG's recommendations and take additional steps to prevent instances of abuse from occurring again in the future. Mr. Mueller, these questions are somewhat far off field, but I think that's in the nature of the fight against terrorism. So let me first ask you a question relating to Indonesia. Director Mueller, I would like to ask you about the status of the FBI investigation into the murder of American citizens in West Papua on August 31, 2002. I am concerned about the integrity of the investigation process, specifically whether the FBI has been able to conduct interviews without Indonesian military minders present, and whether the FBI has been provided access to all of the evidence previously requested as part of the investigation. I wonder if you could update us? And how would you characterize the cooperation that the FBI has received from the Indonesian government and the Indonesian military since the investigation began almost a year ago? MUELLER: Let me answer the question with what I know. I have not been briefed on this in several weeks. But I know that early on, the investigation was going in fits and starts. More recently, we have had a team over in Indonesia working with the Indonesians. I know part of the process while they were there was obtaining all of the evidence necessary to the investigation. And my understanding is that that evidence is currently being flown back to our laboratory for analysis. I will have to get back to you to the status of the interviews. I know a number of interviews had been undertaken. Whether they had been undertaken without having persons present from the military I would have to check before I give you an answer. But I would be happy to get back to you on that. FEINGOLD: I appreciate that, and in light of what you said about the evidence, I will submit a question to you in writing, because I'd like to know whether there's any indication of tampering with any of the evidence that you've been able to obtain. And I assume your response anticipated that your analysis will... MUELLER: Determine. FEINGOLD: ... will determine. MUELLER: Yes. FEINGOLD: Now, let me switch to Yemen. Dr. Mueller, as you know, in October 2000, USS Cole was attacked during its stop in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, resulting in the deaths of 17 crew members, including one of my constituents, and wounding 39 others. Like most Americans, I was surprised to learn that on April 11, 2003, 10 men, including men suspected of involvement in the Cole bombing, escaped from a prison in Yemen. One month later the Justice Department unveiled a 51 count indictment against two of the escapees, Jamal al- Badawi and Fahd Al-Quso, who were indicted on various terrorism offenses. FEINGOLD: Now, Mr. Director, I'm troubled that these people were able to escape, particularly when there was an active, federal investigation underway that resulted in the indictments of two of the escapees. What steps did the FBI take to get access to the suspects in order to question them? What steps did the FBI take to assist the Yemeni authorities or to encourage other U.S. government agencies to assist the Yemeni authorities to prevent any possible escape by these suspects? MUELLER: Let me answer the first question. I would have to get back to you on whether or not we question these individuals. And I would have to find out specifically whether or not we were ourselves given access to the individuals, or whether we obtained access for the Yemenis. So I can't give you a specific answer on that question now. I'll tell you that we were equally disturbed by the escape and that on two occasions I been to Yemen. And on the second occasion, it was (inaudible) escape, and I talked to President Saleh about that. He assured me that he is doing everything in his power to rearrest those who got away. I do know that immediately following that escape, he made substantial changes in the hierarchy whom he held responsible for that escape. And generally, the cooperation from the Yemeni authorities has been substantial since September 11. FEINGOLD: I appreciate that. And I would appreciate any information you can get me because I've tried every way I know to get an answer. And it just strikes me as mystifying that when we knew the Al Qaida operatives were in jail in Yemen, we had just a paucity of information about what we were doing to make sure they'd stay there. And I can't figure out how that happened. So I'd very much like to be kept informed. I'm going to thank you for responding recently to my written questions of June 6, 2002. Several of my questions focused on FBI efforts to recruit agents and translators who speak Arabic, Farsi, Pashto or do in other foreign languages. And you've said on a number of occasions that this was a priority for the FBI. So I was surprised to learn from your written responses, which I received just two days ago, that not a single special agent with proficiency in Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, or Urdu has been hired during the period from October 2001 to at least October 2002, and perhaps to date. It's unclear from your responses whether the figures on the number of translators and special agents hired are current as of sometime this year, or as of October 2002. So my first question is just a clarification. Do these actual higher numbers correspond to the period October 2001 to the present or to some other end point? MUELLER: I think they must be to some other end point. And I would have to get back to you on those figures. I had today the figures on the language specialists, which I gave in my response to the chairman's question. FEINGOLD: I want to be clear. I'm talking not about translators, but agents. MUELLER: I do not have the answer on the number of agents. I do know we have had a number of Arab-American agents, and it may be small. I think it is a small number. But I know because I have recently been at graduations which we have been graduating agents with that capability. But I would have to get back to you on the numbers. We are doing everything we can to recruit all communities around the United States. And we have, I think, since September 11, something like 100,000 applications to be a special agent in the FBI. And a number of those, approximately half, have self-described skills in language or computer or otherwise. But we are finding that we need to more aggressively recruit Arab-American, Muslim-American, Sikh-American agents, to assure that we have the numbers we need in the bureau. FEINGOLD: Let me just say more with regard specifically to the languages. I mentioned rather than proficiency in foreign languages in general. In your written responses, you also described the skill set sought by the FBI for new special agents you plan to hire in fiscal year 2002. One hundred ninety-three of these agents were to have expertise in foreign languages, but only 3 percent of those 193 would have expertise in Arabic. In other words, the FBI sought to hire no more than six special agents who could speak Arabic. No plan to hire agents with proficiency in Urdu, Farsi and Pashto are even mentioned. These low hiring numbers and goals coupled with the allegations in a law suit recently filed by the FBI's highest ranking Arab- American special agent that he has been systematically excluded from work on terrorism investigations because of his ethnicity I think raised very serious concerns about the FBI's preparedness and ability to truly meet its number one priority, the prevention and disruption of terrorist attacks. FEINGOLD: The picture that emerges is the FBI seeking to hire only minimal numbers of language-proficient agents who would be actually helpful in investigations of Al Qaida and other terrorist groups based in the Arab of Muslim world, failing to recruit even that minimal number of special agents it has identified, and then once hired keeping them away from terrorism cases. Am I interpreting your statements and responses correctly, and if not can you explain why the FBI has failed to aggressively hire special agents with language proficiency in Arabic or other specifically regional languages? MUELLER: I will tell you that I would have to look at those answers, so I can't really opine on your interpretation of them. I will tell you that every special agent in charge who is responsible for recruiting in our communities understands the necessity to go out in the community and have the recruiting agents seek speakers of Arabic, Pashtu, Urdu, all of those languages. And that has been hammered home for the SACs just about every meeting we have with them. I will have to look at the percentages and the like, and what we had in our answers, but I can assure you that we all understand the necessity of having those language capabilities within the bureau. And I will tell you that those agents who do have those language capabilities are used -- I don't want to say used, but have a special capability to represent us in a number of countries, to participate in investigative efforts with foreign counterparts, to assist in questioning of detainees down at Guantanamo. And everybody in the bureau understands that if we could clone a number of them, we would be more than happy to do so. So I share your concern about those numbers, and we are moving to address that. HATCH: Senator, your time is... FEINGOLD: Can I just make one remark and then conclude. I just want to be clear. You and I don't agree on every single aspect of all these issues, but this is one where we do agree, we want ... MUELLER: Absolutely. FEINGOLD: ... my questions are in the spirit of wanting to get this done, because I think it is critical to protect American lives, and I'm sure you do, as well. So I look forward to working cooperatively with you to help try to solve this problem. I thank the witness, I thank the chairman.

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