Papers on (FBI) Terror Expertise to Be Released (AP)

[Eugene]

Papers on Terror Expertise to Be Released

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

(12-13) 06:15 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Lawyers for a once-decorated terror-fighting FBI agent will make public hundreds
of pages of testimony from the bureau's top brass declaring that terrorism expertise
has been given little weight in promoting agents since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The evidence gathered during Agent Bassem Youssef's ongoing lawsuit against the FBI
includes statements from the agency's director, Robert Mueller, and many of his top
supervisors on how little Middle Eastern experience, Arabic language skills or formal
anti-terrorism training has played in promotion decisions.

The testimony, some of which was reported by The Associated Press in 2005, is being
posted Wednesday to a Web site for the public to see. It includes:

_Mueller defending the 2003 appointment of agent Gary Bald to the top terror-fighting
job on grounds that he was qualified because he ran the Baltimore office when it
investigated the 2002 Washington-area sniper shootings.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/12/13/national/w061539S27.DTL