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THE MILITARY
4 Commanders Seek Staff Role for the F.B.I.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/20/national/20COMM.html?todaysheadlines
November 20, 2001
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — The military's four major
regional commanders have asked that F.B.I. and
Treasury Department agents be assigned to their staffs
to improve coordination between the military and
civilian agencies in the global war against terrorism,
Pentagon and administration officials say.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has prodded his
top combat commanders to think more creatively about
fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and beyond, and has
promised to give them the resources they need.
In response, these commanders asked last month for
F.B.I. and Treasury Department liaison officers to be
assigned to their staffs, which have long included
personnel from intelligence agencies and the State
Department. These agents could help speed
interrogation of suspected terrorists detained by the
military and coordinate the effort to freeze
terrorists' bank accounts.
The idea has powerful supporters, including Mr.
Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it is also
meeting some resistance.
The regional commanders in chief, known as Cincs, who
are responsible for Europe, the Pacific, Latin
America, and the Middle East and South Asia, have over
the years accumulated such broad military and
diplomatic powers in their slices of the globe that
some in Washington now call them modern proconsuls,
after the ancient Roman military officials who
exercised great autonomy from the central government.
Some administration officials, including top aides to
Mr. Rumsfeld, say that assigning F.B.I. and Treasury
agents might expand the Cincs' (pronounced sinks)
power and ultimately undercut the defense secretary's
authority. This new enlarged group of liaison officers
would be a miniature Washington-style bureaucracy that
would report to the Cincs and their parent agencies.
Meanwhile, the F.B.I. and Treasury department are wary
about giving up any of their experts.
"This is something to be mindful of," a Pentagon
official said. "How do you do this and make sure that
decision makers in Washington, and the secretary of
defense, are properly connected to the activities of
the Cincs?"
The chain of command runs from the regional commanders
to the defense secretary to the president.
So what seemed like a simple request to help cut
bureaucratic delays for commanders as many as 10 time
zones away from Washington, has ignited a spirited
dialogue inside the Pentagon and within the
administration about how to give the regional chiefs
more tools to wage an unconventional war without
giving them too much more power, officials said.
"There's some debate about this," Gen. Richard B.
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
acknowledged last week in a speech at a Washington
conference attended by diplomats and military
officers. "But we're looking at assigning liaison
officers from different agencies to the staffs of the
combatant commands. They want that kind of
cooperation."
American soldiers in Bosnia, for example, detained
suspected terrorists but experienced delays waiting
for F.B.I. agents to interrogate the suspects because
of cumbersome procedures followed by the military and
the Justice Department, the F.B.I.'s parent agency, a
military official said.
Had an F.B.I. liaison officer been assigned to the
military's European Command headquarters in Stuttgart,
Germany, the official said, that agent could have cut
through the red tape and the interrogations could have
been set up much faster.
Mr. Rumsfeld has said the campaign against terrorism
will require American intelligence, financial and law
enforcement agencies to work more closely with the
military to deny terrorists any support or haven.
In Washington, this approach of bringing all
instruments of national power to bear under one roof
seems to be working. Federal agencies are sharing
liaison officers with each other and opening up new
lines of communication.
The F.B.I., for instance, now has a representative on
the crisis-action team for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We are sharing information, we're sharing people, and
we're sharing resources like never before, and we need
to push this new level of cooperation now to the
theaters as well," General Myers said in his speech
last week. "We do it pretty well inside the Beltway.
We can do it a lot better outside the Beltway, with
the combatant commands."
Under the new plan, the regional commanders would form
what General Myers called joint interagency
coordinating groups, in effect task forces mirroring
the functions of the main agencies in Washington.
On its face, the request appeared modest: maybe one or
two agents to each command from the F.B.I., Treasury
Department and possibly other federal agencies.
Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the head of the Pacific Command,
and Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, the head of the European
Command, have been especially forceful in advocating
the change, military officials said.
With long experience in Washington, the two are expert
in the bureaucratic wrangling that often grips the
capital. Admiral Blair served on the staffs of the
National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. General Ralston was the vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff before assuming the European
command.
"It would provide a more efficient response from
across the region and our farthest embassies to
Washington," Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, a spokesman for
the Pacific Command, said.
The United States Southern Command, which oversees a
region that encompasses 32 countries from its
headquarters in Miami, already has extensive ties with
law enforcement agencies as part of an antidrug
mission that dates to the 1980's. The command's Joint
Interagency Task Force, based in Key West, Fla., also
has representatives from many Central and South
American countries.
Some resistance from the federal agencies is
predictable. The F.B.I. and Treasury are both strapped
for experts, officials say. "We're aware of the
proposal, and it will be given appropriate
consideration," an F.B.I. spokesman, Steven Berry,
said.
A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, Tasia
Scolinos, said she could not discuss the specific
request, but said the Treasury "looked forward to
sharing our expertise with all government entities
engaged in the fight against terrorism."
Even some of Mr. Rumsfeld's top aides are skeptical
about the plan.
"The Cincs are offering up a lot of ideas, and this is
just one of them," said one senior aide, who has
questions about the proposal. The aide said the Cincs
would probably get more assistance, but not
necessarily in the way they requested.
Military officials overseas expressed exasperation at
the delay in dealing with the commanders' request. "In
the end, if they say no, it's not catastrophic," one
said. "It'll just take us longer" to do what is
needed.
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