FBI REMDODELING JOB TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

The FBI reorganization announced by Director Robert Mueller hardly lives up
to the promise to "fundamentally change the way we do business." But it
includes an implicit admission that deserves more exploration.

By announcing that 400 FBI agents would be shifted immediately from drug
law enforcement to anti-terrorism units, Mr. Mueller acknowledged without
saying so that the "drug war" is a distraction from the main mission of
preventing terrorism. It's too bad that he didn't acknowledge this
explicitly - or take the next logical step and admit that drug prohibition,
by increasing the profits available to the most ruthless of traffickers,
helps to fund international terrorism - but his actions had a certain quiet
eloquence.

Other than that, however, the reorganization plans amount to superficial
patchwork - and might aggravate the problems posed by the uncontrolled
recent growth of dozens of federal law enforcement agencies.

Consider the implications of the recent flap over memos and requests from
FBI field offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis. The Phoenix memo got lost in
the paperwork shuffle; hundreds of similar memos hit headquarters every
day. The Minneapolis request to issue a warrant to search Zacarias
Moussaoui's computer fell victim to bureaucratic timidity and fears of
being accused of "ethnic profiling."

Creating a more centralized anti-terrorist operation with more FBI agents
is not likely to solve such problems. It is more likely to make a paperwork
glut and communications difficulties even worse.

As Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley put it, "Mueller should take the advice of FBI
whistleblower Coleen Rowley and not try to investigate terrorists out of
bureaucrat central, FBI headquarters."

The Bush administration has missed a golden opportunity to effect genuinely
fundamental reform of the federal law enforcement octopus.

At least 40 federal agencies have some responsibility for gathering
intelligence with some relationship to terrorism. Even if they all had the
latest and most sophisticated computer database and networking systems -
they're in the Model-T era, computerwise - it would be difficult for them
to share information effectively. Furthermore, each agency has more
powerful incentives to protect its own turf than to work well with others.

As Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal
Justice, put it: "The Sept. 11 attacks gave the administration a historic
opportunity to do a real overhaul of federal law enforcement, perhaps to
roll up all those agencies into one focused unit and return more law
enforcement responsibility to states and local jurisdictions. But that
would have required taking on entrenched bureaucratic interests. This
announcement suggests President Bush has no stomach for what needs to be done."

Many of the reforms announced by Mr. Mueller require congressional
approval. Several congressional committees have also announced probes into
the pre-9/11 lapses. They should broaden their scope to consider more
fundamental reform.