http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061018/OPINION02/610180321IN AN astonishing admission of dereliction, the FBI has revealed that five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, the bureau's proficiency in Arabic is negligible at best. Even more stunning is the fact that none of the 33 agents with even limited proficiency in the language is involved in coordinating the investigations of international terrorism.
It is as though the law enforcement agency that fumbled so spectacularly in connecting the dots to 9/11 aims to stubbornly retain the culture that crippled it in fighting terrorism five years ago. An essential transformation of mission from domestic crime-fighting to preventing terrorist attacks has not significantly occurred at the FBI.
Let that sink in. According to its own statistics, just 1 percent of the bureau's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with Arabic or other languages of the Middle East where terrorist groups are primarily centered. Astonishingly, the bureau's two International Terrorism Operations Sections (ITOS) that coordinate all foreign terrorism investigations do not require any agents to be fluent in Arabic - and not one of them is.
The FBI says it relies on the work of linguists who can translate documents or interviews. Agents in the field rely on translators who speak Arabic and other foreign languages.