Sept. 11 didn't redefine the term "hero," as so many people have intimated; it merely re-emphasized the fact that, for too long, we have under-emphasized (to the point of ignoring) the many thousands, even millions, of every day heroes who affect our lives 24/7. To your own personal list of heroes, add the name Coleen Rowley.
Rowley is a 21-year veteran of the FBI and the chief counsel of their Minneapolis office. On May 21, Rowley committed professional hari kari; she wrote a 13-page memo to the FBI's director, Robert Mueller, expressing her frustration with the Department's failure to respond to pre-9-11 information developed by field agents - information that gave strong indications of the presence of terrorists taking flight lessons in both Minneapolis and Phoenix. Read the "TIME" article, which includes Rowley's memo, at cnn.com. She also details numerous instances of senior officials ignoring agents' requests for search warrants.
Rowley, who decided she wanted to work for the Bureau at the tender age of five, not only takes the director to task for multiple procedural lapses, she chastises him directly for making and/or authorizing post-attack statements designed specifically to "circle the wagons at FBI headquarters in an apparent effort to protect the FBI from embarrassment and the relevant FBI officials from scrutiny." She adds that the standing joke in the Minneapolis office in reference to headquarters' refusals to permit some further investigations was that "someone in HQ must be a mole working for Osama bin Laden."
What's the big deal, you ask? Why is she a heroine? Mueller, in his remarks at the big unveiling of the "new" FBI, said regarding Rowley's memo, "As our focus changes to terrorism prevention, we must be open to new ideas, to criticism from within and without and to admitting to and learning from our mistakes."
Isn't that just peachy keen? Aren't we being magnanimous? Doesn't Mueller just adore Coleen Rowley? Yeah, and the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl this year. Note that Rowley, although she "would hope it is not necessary," decides that she needs to "take advantage of the federal 'Whistleblower Protection' provisions by so characterizing [her] remarks."
Note also that many, if not most, of the changes in procedures announced by Mueller Wednesday (nine days after Rowley's memo) address concerns she raises. No, that's not to say Rowley is the force behind the changes; they have been under consideration for months. It is to say that, by golly, she must have some good ideas. And isn't it strange that Rowley flew to Washington and gave copies of the memo to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee (yes, it's an oxymoron)? Not strange at all, when you note the fact that Mueller, or somebody, made the memo a classified document in an attempt to hide it. Not strange, when you remember that one of the officials who was the biggest obstacle to the Minneapolis investigation has since been promoted.
Sure, she has "Whistleblower Protection." That means that the agency can't take any action against her that could be interpreted as "reprisals." It doesn't mean Rowley will ever get another raise and/or promotion - and she should.
If he wants to do something really good for this country for a change, and not just try to rectify his daddy's mistakes, the NITWH should fire Mueller, along with nine-tenths of FBI headquarters executives, and elevate the FBI's real hero to the Directorship.
Oh. NITWH? Nitwit in The White House.
Terry Moore is a graduate English student. Reach him at terry.moore@asu.edu.
