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FBI still lacks staff with Arabic skills
Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none works in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.
- By Dan Eggen, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
- Published: 00:00 October 12, 2006
Washington: Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none works in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.
Counting agents who know only a handful of Arabic words - including those who score "zero" on a standard proficiency test - just 1 per cent of the FBI's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with the language, the statistics show.
The numbers reflect the FBI's continued struggle to attract employees who speak Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and other languages of the Middle East and South Asia, even as it leads a fight against terrorist groups primarily centered in those parts of the world. The same challenge confronts the CIA and other agencies as the government competes with the private sector for a limited number of applicants with foreign language proficiency, according to US officials and experts.
The shortage of special agents with foreign language skills also shows the extent to which the FBI has focused on translators since the September 11, 2001, attacks, in part because officials believe it is more valuable to have specially trained linguists.
In a recent deposition filed in an employee lawsuit, a senior FBI official testified the bureau's two International Terrorism Operations Sections do not require any agents to know Arabic.
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