NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, July 19, 2001

The FBI revealed Tuesday that hundreds of weapons and laptop computers have gone missing from the bureau since 1990.

The news was the latest in an avalanche of bad press for the FBI. Recent missteps have included the withholding of thousands of documents and pieces of evidence in the Timothy McVeigh case. Earlier this year, 27-year FBI veteran Robert Hanssen was arrested by his fellow agents on charges of spying for Moscow.

Ashcroft, however, refused to join the bureau's critics in responding to reporters' questions.

"If I've learned one thing about the FBI since I've come to the Justice Department" earlier this year, it's "that it is essential to the survival and success of America as a nation," Ashcroft said.

The attorney general said the public has a right to know about the FBI's problems. But, "It is important to understand that … this is a very successful institution. It is … without a doubt the most highly regard law enforcement institution in the world, and I am concerned that the institution not be discredited unduly."

Ashcroft praised the FBI for coming forward and revealing problems as they occur.

"You don't evaluate the quality of an organization by whether it has problems," Ashcroft said, but "in how it responds to problems."

Meanwhile, the FBI confirmed that one of the hundreds of weapons missing from the agency since 1990 was apparently involved in a homicide in the South. The bureau gave no other details.

The weapon was one of about 180 stolen from the cars and homes of FBI agents over a decade. An additional 265 weapons appear to be unaccounted for, according to an FBI audit. The weapons include mostly sidearms, but some assault weapons are also missing.

The FBI says it has about 50,000 weapons in its arsenal.

Bureau officials also have said that more than 180 of the FBI's laptop computers are missing. Of those, about 13 are believed to have been stolen. One of the missing laptops contained top secret information on two closed investigations.

The FBI has about 13,000 laptop computers.

Ashcroft said Wednesday that many of the missing items might still be located by the bureau.

Given its mounting problems and the number of investigations into bureau conduct, reform of the FBI seems inevitable.

Hanssen pleaded guilty earlier this month to spying for Moscow in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and assets.

The accidental withholding of more than 4,000 files and pieces of evidence produced by the massive investigation in the McVeigh case had no bearing on McVeigh's guilt or innocence in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, officials insisted. The materials were not turned over to defense lawyers, as required by a sweeping pretrial discovery agreement. In May, Ashcroft delayed McVeigh's execution for almost a month to allow the lawyers enough time to examine the newly discovered documents and evidence.

McVeigh was executed on June 11 after the federal courts refused to grant a stay.

"The problem of the Hanssen case joins the difficulty with the files in the McVeigh case in injuring the public trust," Ashcroft told the bureau in a major address at FBI headquarters last week. "And these cases harken back to earlier tragedies in Texas and Idaho."

Ashcroft referred to the fiery end of the 1993 federal siege in Waco, Texas, where more than 80 Branch Davidians died as cult leaders allegedly killed their followers and themselves rather than surrender to the FBI; and to the 1992 federal siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where a shot fired by FBI marksman passed through an armed man holding off authorities and killed the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver.

The FBI has been the target of a number of investigations this year.

The attorney general signed an order last week transferring the primary responsibility for FBI misconduct probes from a bureau unit to the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General.

The Justice Department inspector general's office is already conducting an investigation into what FBI officials did or didn't do in the period leading up to the arrest of Hanssen in February. A department statement, released in March, said Ashcroft had requested the "thorough review" by Inspector General Glenn Fine.

Last month, Ashcroft ordered a comprehensive review of the FBI, including an evaluation from the private sector, as a first step in broadly reforming the bureau. The review would be overseen by the department's new Strategic Management Council, which was ordered to submit recommendations by Jan. 1.

In May, Ashcroft announced the members of a special commission to recommend changes in the FBI's internal security procedures in light of the Hanssen case. The panel is led by former FBI and CIA Director William Webster, and its review is separate from the Justice Department inspector general's probe and the evaluation by the Strategic Management Council.

The FBI audit of missing firearms and computer equipment came at the request of Webster's panel and of congressional investigators.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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