Agent Complaints Lead F.B.I. Director to Ask for Inquiry
The agent, Coleen Rowley, general counsel in the Minneapolis office, also said in a detailed 13-page letter to the Congressional committee that is investigating the government's preparedness for the Sept. 11 attacks that Mr. Mueller had misrepresented the bureau's handling of Mr. Moussaoui's case after his arrest on immigration charges three weeks before the hijackings, according to officials who have reviewed her letter.

Ms. Rowley attacked Mr. Mueller's assertions that no information was available that would have helped the bureau to predict or thwart the hijackings, officials said.

Mr. Mueller responded this evening with a statement saying that he had referred the issue to the inspector general of the Justice Department for investigation.

Ms. Rowley wrote that Mr. Mueller's statements to Congress and the public about the attacks were incomplete, officials who have seen the letter said. She also asserted that Mr. Mueller had played down important warning signs of a developing pattern that the F.B.I. had failed to spot, including a memo on July 10 from an agent in Phoenix about Al Qaeda flight training.

Taken together, the evidence should have alerted headquarters here that Osama bin Laden's followers were planning a strike in the United States, Ms. Rowley contended. Ms. Rowley said Minneapolis agents became so frustrated by inaction at F.B.I. headquarters at one point that they went directly to the Central Intelligence Agency for help in building their case against Mr. Moussaoui. Going behind the backs of their superiors was a breach of bureau protocol, and officials at headquarters reprimanded the Minneapolis agents, the officials said.

Ms. Rowley has sought whistle-blower status at the bureau to protect her from possible reprisals. The agency is exempt from the federal whistle-blower protection law, which shields government employees who disclose misdeeds in their agencies from retaliation by superiors.

Several lawmakers and other officials who have read the letter said it was a broad indictment of the lack of action and attention in the months before the hijackings. They said the letter was being taken as a serious matter by the joint House-Senate intelligence panel that is examining whether the government may have missed warning signs of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Her letter really points to management failures at the F.B.I.," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois who is on the intelligence committee. The panel questioned Mr. Mueller about the letter on Wednesday in a closed meeting.

Ms. Rowley sent the letter to Mr. Mueller and copies to Congress as a personal communication. Today, the bureau ordered it classified.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/national/24INQU.html?todaysheadlines