Congressional critics blast CIA for selective recruitment

WASHINGTON (July 16, 2002 9:08 p.m. EDT) - CIA officials are not doing enough to allow field officers to recruit unsavory characters to infiltrate terrorist organizations, the chairman of a House homeland security panel said Tuesday.

Rep. Saxby Chambliss said the CIA guidelines hindering such recruitments have been altered since a congressional directive last fall ordered their elimination. But Chambliss, R-Ga., contends the changes haven not gone far enough.

"As of today, those guidelines have not been rescinded," said Chambliss, chairman of the House Intelligence subcommittee on homeland security. "That's one of the continuing parts of the problem and the puzzle at CIA."

His criticism is part of a subcommittee report - the unclassified parts of which were to be released Wednesday - detailing intelligence failures that contributed to the Sept. 11 attacks and outlining ways to prevent future ones.

The report accuses the FBI of failing to communicate effectively among its different field offices and charges that the National Security Agency improperly used resources that should have been targeted toward bin Laden, Chambliss said.

"We've had those systemic problems in each different agency that participated in the deficiencies ... that did allow Sept. 11 to happen," Chambliss said.

CIA officials disputed the finding about recruitment of unsavory characters. The agency loosened and rearranged parts of the 1995 guidelines in October, allowing officers to recruit spies to infiltrate terrorist organizations and simply notify the head of the agency's clandestine services a few days later.

"CIA headquarters has never turned down a field request to recruit an asset in a terrorist organization," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said Tuesday. "The agency does not avoid contact with individuals, regardless of their past, who may have information about terrorist activities."

Under the 1995 rules, field officers had to get approval from headquarters - a process that could take several days or longer - before recruiting a known lawbreaker or civil rights violator.