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Authorities strive for better collaboration

"Information sharing between us all is as important now as it ever has been," FBI director Robert Mueller said Thursday.

By Manuel Perez-Rivas
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The effort to assign responsibility for the September 11 terrorist attacks -- and to prevent similar acts of destruction -- in the future involves 7,000 FBI special agents and other personnel, as well as officials from dozens more federal agencies.

Top FBI officials said they're also relying on state and local law enforcement to help out in the largest investigation in United States history.

"Information-sharing between us all is as important now as it ever has been. And anything and everything that helps facilitate that is really welcome," said FBI director Robert Mueller, speaking in a recent news conference at which he and Attorney General John Ashcroft were joined by members of several state and local law-enforcement organizations.

The massive task that confronts U.S. investigators in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon -- and the urgency of stopping future acts from being carried out -- is putting a new premium on the ability of federal, state and local officials to work together: It's prompting calls for improvement in a relationship that historically has been marked by friction and turf battles.

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Much has been said September 11 about the need to streamline the flow of communication and intelligence-sharing among federal agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. But some officials and analysts also point to a need for greater collaboration vertically, among all levels of law enforcement -- federal, state and local -- to better confront the new challenges posed by terrorists operating in the United States.

"We have to have a seamlessness to our intelligence gathering, overseas and in the United States," L. Paul Bremer, former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, told CNN on Saturday.

The FBI has in place 35 joint terrorism task forces, which include state and local law-enforcement officials. Tim Caruso, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, said at a recent congressional hearing that threat warnings and law enforcement intelligence is shared electronically with police agencies. "In this way, we reach approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies instantly," he said.

Following last month's attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he will establish antiterrorism task forces at U.S. attorney offices across the country to help disseminate intelligence information between the federal and local levels. And the issue of interagency cooperation is to fall under the purview of the new Office of Homeland Security, to be headed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. He's scheduled to step into the post on Monday.

"I hope that this is something that Gov. Ridge does right away, which is to find a way to disseminate even classified material down to appropriately cleared state and local officials so they can get into the mix of knowing what is really going on," Bremer said.

Better use of local officers?

The call for greater cooperation has taken on an added urgency under the potential threat facing cities and towns across the nation. There's a clear need to follow up quickly on the leads and tips that have flooded the FBI in recent weeks -- a total of more than 260,000. Some officials say they believe more needs to be done to utilize local officers fully in that effort.

"Neither we, nor any other local law enforcement agency we know of, have been asked to contribute manpower in any broadly coordinated way," Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward Norris told a House Government Reform subcommittee on Friday, adding that police want to be of greater help to the effort. "Local law enforcement has the manpower to follow up on a very high volume of leads. The federal agencies do not."

Norris said the nation's 650,000 police officers could be an invaluable source of street-level intelligence and enforcement in a war against terrorists who have shown they can blend into the populations of towns and cities before striking. But police aren't getting the information they need to fill that role, he said.

Special Agent Peter Gulotta, spokesman for the FBI Baltimore field office, said the office's agent in charge of the investigation has briefed Norris on progress, and that the federal agency and local police have had an excellent relationship.

The immediate focus in recent weeks, Gulotta said, has been on the criminal investigation, to track down the activities and whereabouts of the 19 men officials say hijacked the four jetliners used in the attacks.

"But we will be shifting gears, and we will be reaching out to them at the appropriate time," Gulotta said. "We truly welcome their assistance."

Gulotta added that if there were information of any potential risks to people, it would be promptly shared. And that no such information has been withheld.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney, rumored to be a possible top aide to Ridge in his new post, has said change will have to go both ways.

"There are agencies within the federal government and also local governments … that are used to going it alone," he said, agencies whose members feel they're in the best position to accomplish their mission. "That's true. However, I think this is a time now that we need much better coordination, integration of the various agencies, particularly at the federal level, but also state and local," he told CNN in a recent interview.

'Room for improvement'

"There is room for improvement," said Frank Cilluffo, a senior analyst and terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. CSIS issued a report in December 2000 calling for greater collaboration among agencies at all levels of government as a way to better defend the United States from the new threats of the 21st century.

Concern over compromising sensitive classified information, Cilluffo noted, is often the reason why information isn't shared. But he said there should be ways to "dumb down" intelligence information so that it can be shared with local police without compromising sources or endangering investigations.

Beneath the concerns about classified information, there's a more basic issue at play. "It comes down to a matter of trust."

Still, he said, it's not an intractable problem. He noted some successes among federal, state and local law enforcement. He cited the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, which is made up of investigators from federal, state and city agencies, as a noteworthy example.

The scope of the attacks and the call for a marshalling of resources to fight terrorism and prevent future attacks will spur greater collaboration, Cilluffo said.

"This was a transforming event."