NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: FBI Has Few Arabic-Speaking Agents Who Can Handle Intelligence Gathering, Analysis: Part II
Since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the FBI’s strategy has been to gather information on nascent terrorist plots by “strengthen[ing] ties to Muslims through advisory councils, community group meetings and other contacts” because they “often lack language skills and deep understanding of immigrant enclaves, must rely on insiders to help guide them through the maze of cultural issues,” reports The Washington Post. Which means they continually run the risk of relying on insiders who are “double agents” - like Queens imam Ahmad Afzali, who was allegedly both a police stool pigeon and the canary who tipped off Najibullah Zazi (fourth item) that he was the focus of an investigation.
Additionally, Afzali and other insiders may only be telling the agents what they want to hear. According to the Muslim practice, al-Taqiyya, it is permissible to withhold or dissemble about one’s “beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of eminent danger, whether now or later in time." One Muslim scholar likens "al-Taqiyya" to "diplomacy," explaining that “it encompasses a comprehensive spectrum of behaviors that serve to further the vested interests of all parties involved.”
The vested interest of a double agent is to encourage the authorities believe he is a reliable source of intelligence, while deflecting their attention so as to protect his community. The vested interest of the FBI investigator is to believe that he is adequately performing his duties. As Jack Cloonan, a retired special agent for the FBI who worked in the Afghan community in Queens from the late 1980s until 2002 tells the WaPo:
"Your job is to know everything that's going on in that mosque – everything. What is going on in this community? Do I know what's going on within the mosque? Do I know who's coming in? Do I know what's going on in terms of criminal activity? Who will know this?"
Cloonan, a counterterrorism expert, did not speak Arabic and relied on an interpreter when he was in the field or conducting interrogations. How can an FBI investigator know what Cloonan says he needs to know without seeing and hearing first-hand what goes on behind closed doors – not to mention being trained in techniques to draw people out that don’t constitute entrapment?
In the eight years since the terror attacks on our soil, the agency has not made it a priority to have its investigators and analysts become fluent in Arabic or other Middle Eastern languages. Not for nothing, but Israeli police and interrogators all speak Arabic. For an FBI special agent to be assigned to counterterrorism investigations, fluency in a Middle Eastern language should be a threshhold qualification. Ignorance should be a nonnegotiable disqualifier.
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