Report: FBI Still Needs to Improve Intelligence Efforts

More than a decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks the FBI has still not fully improved its domestic intelligence gathering and must accelerate reforms, an official U.S. report said Wednesday.

Some of the faults found with the gathering and sharing of information at many of the country's intelligence bodies following 9/11 are still not resolved at the FBI, according to the report. 

Commissioned in 2014 by Congress to determine how far reforms have come, the report was much less harsh than similar documents in the past, but reviewers also said the FBI still had problems.

"The FBI has made strides in the past decade but needs to accelerate its implementation of reforms to complete its transformation into a threat-based, intelligence-driven organization," the report by the 9/11 Review Commission said.

It found that many FBI analysts and information gatherers still "do not collaborate closely enough" with other members of the U.S. intelligence community.

Those FBI employees also frequently lack access to information shared by other intelligence agencies due to a lack of secure systems, it said.

Reviewers said the FBI has "transformed" itself to better prioritize intelligence gathering following government recommendations, but more needs to be done.

Training, rotations to different intelligence bodies and other career services for analysts are still lacking, according to the report.

"We believe the FBI has not yet met its potential -- or its mandate from the president and Congress -- to develop a 'specialized and integrated national security workforce' that can serve as the hub of America's domestic intelligence agency," the report said.

FBI Director James Comey said during a press conference that he "overwhelmingly" agreed with the recommendations, which would be used as "an opportunity to improve."

The FBI has a total workforce of around 35,000 people of which there are 3,000 analysts and 13,427 special agents.

Following the 2001 attacks, the FBI was asked to better integrate with the country's myriad intelligence bodies to prevent future attacks, in addition to continuing its federal crime prevention duties.