Minneapolis FBI agents investigating terror suspect 
        Zacarias Moussaoui last August were severely hampered by officials at 
        FBI headquarters, who resisted seeking search warrants and admonished 
        agents for seeking help from the CIA, according to a letter from the 
        general counsel for the FBI's Minneapolis field office.
        
        
        Coleen 
        Rowley also wrote in a letter Tuesday to FBI Director Robert S. 
        Mueller III that evidence gathered in the Moussaoui case, combined with 
        a July 10 FBI warning that al Qaeda operatives might be taking flight 
        training in Arizona, should have prompted stronger suspicion at FBI 
        headquarters that a terror attack was planned, according to officials 
        familiar with Rowley's letter. 
        
        
        "There was a great deal of frustration expressed on 
        the part of the Minneapolis office toward what they viewed as a less 
        than aggressive attitude from headquarters," said one official. "The 
        bottom line is that headquarters was the problem."
        
        
        The sharply worded letter from Rowley stands in 
        stark contrast to statements by Mueller and other FBI officials, who 
        have insisted that the bureau did all it could to determine whether 
        Moussaoui was part of a terrorist plot. It is also the clearest sign of 
        dissent within the FBI over whether the bureau mishandled clues to the 
        Sept. 11 attacks last summer, an issue that has mushroomed this month 
        amid increasingly fierce questioning from lawmakers.
        
        
        Mueller released a statement last night saying that 
        he has referred Rowley's complaints to the Justice Department's 
        inspector general for investigation. 
        
        
        "While I cannot comment on the specifics of the 
        letter, I am convinced that a different approach is required," Mueller 
        said. "New strategies, new analytical capacities and a different culture 
        makes us an agency that is changing post-9/11. There is no room after 
        the attacks for the types of problems and attitudes that could inhibit 
        our efforts." 
        
        In her 
        classified 13-page letter, which includes detailed footnotes, Rowley 
        said Minneapolis investigators had significant evidence of Moussaoui's 
        possible ties to terrorists, including corroboration from a foreign 
        source that Moussaoui posed a major threat, sources said.
        
        
        But agent Dave Rapp and his colleagues in Minnesota 
        faced resistance from headquarters staff that Rowley considered 
        unnecessary and counterproductive, according to officials who have seen 
        the letter. 
        
        FBI attorneys in Washington determined there was 
        not enough evidence to ask a judge for warrants to search Moussaoui's 
        computer under routine criminal procedures or a special law aimed at 
        terrorists. Officials have said there was no evidence of a crime and no 
        solid connections between Moussaoui and any designated terrorist group.
        
        
        Moussaoui, who was detained Aug. 16 after arousing 
        suspicions at a Minnesota flight school, has been charged as a 
        conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the 
        Pentagon. 
        
        Mueller, who took over as FBI director on Sept. 4, 
        was questioned about the letter during an appearance Wednesday before 
        the Senate Intelligence Committee, sources said. One official said 
        Mueller "was very forthright in saying the course of action should have 
        been more aggressive." 
        
        Rowley, who officials said has worked for the FBI 
        for more than 20 years, declined to comment yesterday. "Our office has 
        been very diligent in not leaking anything," Rowley said. "I'm going to 
        have to stick with that in this case."
        
        
        In Berlin yesterday, President Bush said he opposed 
        having an independent commission investigate intelligence failures 
        before the Sept. 11 attacks. The House and Senate intelligence 
        committees are currently conducting a probe.
        
        
        More than a month before Moussaoui was arrested on 
        immigration charges, Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams wrote a memo 
        July 10 to FBI headquarters outlining his investigation of Islamic 
        radicals enrolled at a Prescott, Ariz., aviation school. He cited bin 
        Laden and raised the possibility that the al Qaeda terror network was 
        using U.S. flight schools as a training ground.
        
        
        Williams's suggestion that the FBI canvass U.S. 
        flight schools was rejected within weeks by FBI counter-terror division 
        mid-level managers, who decided they lacked the manpower to pursue it. 
        The memo was not shared with agents who later investigated Moussaoui, 
        and it was never given to any other intelligence agency.
        
        
        Williams told lawmakers in closed-door briefings 
        this week, however, that he did not expect his request to be acted on 
        immediately and did not believe his memo could have thwarted the Sept. 
        11 attacks. None of the men named in the document, including several 
        associated with a militant London group that has praised bin Laden, has 
        been connected to the deadly hijackings.
        
        
        Rowley's correspondence, by contrast, underscores 
        the depth of frustration within the Minneapolis field office over the 
        way the Moussaoui case was handled. 
        
        
        "It really paints a very grim and troubling picture 
        about the institution of the FBI at the end of August last year and how 
        many obstacles the Minnesota office ran into," said one official 
        familiar with the letter's contents. "Clearly she feels this was handled 
        very poorly." 
        
        At one point, according to accounts of Rowley's 
        letter, agents in Minnesota went to the CIA for help, only to be 
        admonished by headquarters. 
        
        
        The FBI first notified the CIA about Moussaoui soon 
        after arresting him, a U.S. government official said. The CIA found 
        nothing in an initial check of Moussaoui's name, but over the next 
        couple of weeks, French intelligence interviewed Moussaoui's brother and 
        the parents of a man who blamed Moussaoui for radicalizing their son, 
        according to U.S. sources, and turned over the information.
        
        
        In late August, CIA officials learned from "FBI 
        agents in the field" that they hoped to obtain a warrant under the 
        Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which would have allowed the 
        government to search Moussaoui's laptop computer without notifying him, 
        one government official said. He could not confirm that this was the 
        contact that brought the admonishment.
        
        
        The hard drive of Moussaoui's computer, which was 
        finally searched several hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, was found to 
        include detailed information on crop-dusting and on the type of jetliner 
        hijacked. The computer also included the names of Moussaoui associates 
        in Singapore and elsewhere that could have opened new paths for 
        investigators, two sources said. 
        
        
        "The argument is that there was already probable 
        cause and headquarters didn't move aggressively enough," one source 
        said. "If you had the analysis from Phoenix, that would have made the 
        case even better." 
        
        Two officials who have read the letter said Rowley 
        indicated she was upset by Mueller's public statements about the extent 
        of the FBI's knowledge before Sept. 11.
        
        
        In testimony earlier this month before the Senate 
        Judiciary Committee, Mueller acknowledged that the FBI should have 
        responded more aggressively to the Phoenix memorandum, but he argued 
        that the FBI did all it could in pursuing Moussaoui.
        
        
        "The agent in Minneapolis did a terrific job in 
        pushing as hard as he could to do everything we possibly could with 
        Moussaoui," Mueller said. "But did we discern from that that there was a 
        plot that would have led us to September 11th? No. Could we have? I 
        rather doubt it." 
        
        Staff writer Dana Milbank in Berlin contributed 
        to this report.