Given America's inability to gain advance knowledge of either the 9/11 attacks or the state of Iraq's weapons stockpiles, the need for reliable information from Arab-speaking countries and organizations is obvious.
But someone forgot to tell the FBI. Justice Department auditors found that 123,000 hours of untranslated material in languages used by terrorists remained unreviewed in July, and that the FBI is having trouble organizing its workload to focus on the agency's highest priority cases. The agency has reacted to media reports on an audit with denials and objections, often sidestepping the primary criticisms.
In a response to a news story and editorial in USA Today , the FBI released a letter claiming that the current backlog only totals 2,800 hours among lower priority terrorism matters. The agency said higher priority material, including intercepted messages involving al-Qaida, is up to date. It also insisted that USA Today 's figures included material from cases not related to terrorism in languages used by terrorists. And they cited growing pains resulting from a 30 percent increase in personnel and nearly $50-million rise in funding since 2001.
But the auditors, from the Department of Justice's office of the inspector general, are standing by their report, dated July 2004. An executive summary of their analysis, available online and heavily redacted to remove classified material, noted that the agency had trouble reviewing the work of new hires according to department standards, could not review al-Qaida audio within 12 hours of interception, experienced problems transferring audio from one office to another and didn't communicate the priority of its cases to translators.
The nation deserves an up-to-date analysis that cuts through the technicalities and fairly assesses the FBI's current ability to translate material in counterterrorism cases. You would think President Bush and Congress would demand nothing less from the nation's top law enforcement agency.
