Wary of Risk, Slow to Adapt, F.B.I. Stumbles in Terror War
The problems have been apparent for years. In 1999, the chief of the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism unit, Dale Watson, concluded that too few agents around the country were working to thwart terrorism. In March 2000, he convened a meeting at headquarters of the agents in charge of all 56 field offices. Some agents called the meeting "Terrorism 101" or "Terrorism for Dummies."

Mr. Watson and other senior officials were startled to learn how little some bureau offices around the country, operating independently of headquarters, had done to investigate terrorism.

Even after the meeting, in the months before Sept. 11, senior agents at headquarters were reduced to repeatedly cajoling the special agents in charge of the field offices to work harder on counterterrorism inquiries. They even threatened to withhold managers' raises and bonuses if they did not pay more attention to the problem.

The F.B.I.'s current state — so unready, so unprepared and so unable to assess the accumulating warning signs of the hijackings — is the result of years of neglect by the successors to J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the agency for 48 years. Each missed repeated opportunities to change a law enforcement agency that many critics believe was better suited to catching criminals of the Bonnie and Clyde era than trying to prevent crimes plotted by Osama bin Laden's terror network.

Current and former F.B.I. agents have long believed that one of the bureau's great weaknesses is its failure to properly analyze the immense amount of information that it collects, and to share it among its field offices. That, too, must change, former agents say.
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