FBI NEEDS AN OUTSIDE WATCHDOG, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL SAYS

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department inspector general, who forced major
changes in the FBI crime lab, believes the bureau needs a permanent outside
watchdog rather than investigate its own misdeeds and missteps.

"It's very important that there be an external oversight body that has full
and unlimited jurisdiction to conduct whatever investigations it thinks
appropriate," Inspector General Michael R. Bromwich said.

The bearded and spectacled 45-year-old lawyer spoke in an interview this
week as he leaves office after five occasionally stormy years. Under
Bromwich, the office for the first time took on systematic problems in large
special investigations, such as the lab and the FBI's handling of secrets
about Chinese spying.

Bromwich's 400 investigators have unlimited authority to probe other Justice
agencies, such as the Marshals Service, Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and
Naturalization Service and department lawyers for conduct other than legal work.

But the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration have internal
investigative arms with primary authority to investigate their agents. Only
in large public controversies has Attorney General Janet Reno ordered
Bromwich into FBI or DEA probes.

"Because of the FBI's enormous power and support, particularly in Congress,
the issue of expanding oversight of the FBI has never gotten any traction,"
Bromwich said. "People get interested in it on specific issues," such as the
lab; Richard Jewell, the Atlanta security guard wrongly suspected of the
Olympic bombing; or the Ruby Ridge, Idaho, siege where an FBI sniper killed
an unarmed mother.

"But eventually the bureau, because of their continuing clout, gets restored
to their favored position," Bromwich said.

FBI spokesmen did not respond to questions regarding Bromwich's remarks. In
recent years, FBI Director Louis Freeh enlarged and strengthened the
bureau's internal investigations office, and even Bromwich concedes its has
become more professional under Freeh.

But he said, "Our doing an investigation has a greater deterrent effect, and
it has more credibility with the public than the FBI and DEA policing
themselves."

And one outside watchdog would be fairer, he said. Currently, an immigration
officer and an FBI agent face "potentially different standards, different
outcomes for the same misbehavior and a difference in the objectivity of the
result," Bromwich said.

Bromwich's intervention made a dramatic difference in the handling of years
of complaints about the crime lab from FBI chemist Frederic Whitehurst.
Virtually all of his complaints had been dismissed by several internal FBI
reviews.

But the inspector general, aided by private forensic experts he recruited,
discovered flawed scientific work and inaccurate testimony biased in favor
of the prosecution in major cases, including the Oklahoma City and World
Trade Center bombings.

At the inspector general's recommendation, the lab has revised procedures
and training, finally obtained its first accreditation by outside experts,
and is now headed for the first time by a scientist, Assistant FBI Director
Donald Kerr.

"If we had not done the review, they'd have another agent in that job --
nobody like Donald Kerr, a top-ranked scientist," Bromwich said.

Some department officials viewed Bromwich as prickly, because he fought
regularly over jurisdiction with Michael Shaheen, who headed another Justice
watchdog agency. Reno restricted Shaheen to monitoring the legal ethics of
Justice lawyers, and Bromwich said problems subsided when Shaheen retired in
1998.

Bromwich took another dispute all the way to Reno, forcing her to exercise
for the first time her authority to block publication of an inspector
general report. Justice officials felt his report might incidentally
jeopardize an ongoing drug case. Released months later after that risk
passed, the report found no evidence of a CIA role in the crack cocaine
epidemic.

"Reno understands, but other officials have to get used to the fact that an
inspector general is not part of the team in the regular sense," Bromwich
said. "An IG has an independent mandate under the law and can't be a
straight subordinate."