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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
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Event:
Type of Event: Interview of Hector Pesquera (Special Agent in Charge, Miami Field
Office)
Date: October 3, 2003
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Michael Jacobson
Team number: 6
Location: FBI, Miami Field Office
Participants Non-Commission: Assistant General Counsel Randy Blair
Participants Commission: Barbara Grewe and Michael Jacobson
Background
Pesquera graduated college with a degree in finance and management. He then
served in the National Guard as a Security Office. After leaving the National Guard, he
worked in private industry for about 10 years. He joined the FBI as a Special Agent in
October 1976. He was assigned to the San Juan out of Quantico. At the time, any
Spanish speaking agent processing through San Juan was sent back to San Juan. In San
Juan, he worked white collar as well as FCl/IT matters. In July 1982, he transferred to
Tampa, where he worked primarily Iranian IT matters. In October 1984, he was
promoted to FBIHQ, where he worked in the Intelligence Division, on
In July 1987, he became the ALAT in Uruguay. He has regional responsibility for
Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay as well. There were 2 agents in the office. The vast
majority of their work was criminal work. Probably 80% of the work was just handling
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incoming leads. They were allowed to develop sources on the criminal side of the house
but only with the host country.
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byl I In July 1989, he took over a criminal squad at the Miami Field
Office. This was the squad the initiated the JTTF concept. They were called an
extraterritorial squad, and had a local component on it. Their focus was DT matters. In
March 1990, the SAC at the time decided to make some drastic changes. He reassigned
almost all of the supervisors. They moved his squad to the national security side of the
house. This was a big deal because the espionage/FCI people now had to work With State
and local officials. The City of Miami, Metro Date, INS, Border Patrol, FDLE,'were all
on the task force, and were fully integrated members. The only other office doing that at
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the time was NY. In December 1992, he was promoted to ASAC San Juan, where he was
the only ASAC. In December 1995, he was promoted to SAC San Juan. In May 1998,
he reported to Miami as the SAC. At the time, there was only 1 CT squad in Miami. It
wasn't much of a CT effort, in his opinion. Eventually, they created a separate
extraterritorial squad. He noted that he is the first Hispanic to be the SAC of Miami. In
his opinion, it is wrong that it took that long for this to occur.
FBI Hiring process
In 27 years, the FBI has not solved the critical need for Spanish speakers. When
he came on board, this was one of the FBI's critical needs and it still is today. He's not
sure exactly what the problem is and why they can't solve it. Maybe it's that the Field
Offices still don't have control of hiring. Six months ago, they changed the policy so that
the SAC is now allowed to make cuts and review applications, and determine which of
the applications go forward to HQ. Before this, they had no say at all in the process. He
would rely on the applicant recruiters in the field office to make the determination. They
would know something about the candidates, and could recommend them. It is too early
to say whether this new process is making a difference. The applicant recruiters are rated
on the quality of the applicants they bring in, and many of the people they bring in make
it through the process. He finds this absurd.
Crime Surveys
. They were doing crime surveys, which would give them an idea of how to focus
their resources. But even the most sophisticated crime surveys wouldn't have picked up
15 of the 19 hijackers. To perform the crime surveys, they go to the local jurisdictions
and ask what the problems are. They address resources based on this review. He
acknowledges that this does not work on the CT side of the house.
Since 9/11, they've been told by HQ not to do crime surveys on the CT side of the
house. When HQ came down to do the mini-inspection after the Greenacres incident, HQ
said not to do a crime survey in response. As a side note, the inspectors said that there
was no issue with Greenacres and that they had handled this acceptably, but the Director
disagreed (Note: the FBI received a tip that a Saudi family in Greenacres had abruptly
departed the area after 9/11, and that one of the members of the family had trained at the
same flight school as one of the hijackers. )
Relations with HQ
They were getting no guidance from HQ on CT matters prior to 9/11 He does not
recall the March 1999 EC from HQ. He said that prior to 9/11, CT was certainly a major
priority but not the number 1 priority. Most of the time what HQ says and what they do
are incompatible. They can say what they want about CT being the number one priority,
but if they don't give the field offices the flexibility to move personnel then it won't
work. Drugs, pre 9/11, were their number 1 priority. HQ just told them about overall
priorities, but there was no real guidance from HQ as to what to do.
Until Director Mueller came on board, if he had removed people from drugs to
work some other program, he would have lost those spots the next year. Right now, he's
not allowed to move FCI agents to work anything else, unless he has the approval of the
Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division. He's here for a purpose; he is
accountable and should be held as such. But don't tell him that he can't move people,
and that there are restrictions on what he can do. He thinks that he should have the
flexibility to move agents as he sees fit. This is not sustainable. Prior to Mueller, FCI
was not one of the top priorities, so the agents were being diverted. Now they cannot.
Some of this is part of the globalization of HQ. Decisions are being made at HQ,
and the field offices have no input. HQ controls the money. Budget allocations are
completely "wacked. " HQ doesn't even allow them to move money between their
accounts. He has a $50-60 million budget, and he can't even rent a Xerox machine
without HQ approval. These decisions are made by personnel in the HQ budget unit,
who do not consult with him before making these decisions. He needs to have the power
and flexibility.
How can you do your work and work cases when other offices are working in
your territory and not even coordinating with you? This is done with the blessing of HQ.
For example, they had the subject of an investigation traveling through their territory to
the Dominican Republic. This was in the same time frame as Governor Bush. The
Governor's staff only found out by happenstance. This case was being briefed to the FBI
Director, and was known to the FBI's Houston office. This occurred about 3 weeks ago.
They were not on notice pre 9/11 that they should be looking for certain types of
people, etc. He does recall that HQ had asked them to do a self assessement in terms of
their CT vulnerabilities. In his opinion, this was basically another crime survey.
In the Hassoun case, main DOJ made the call where it should be prosecuted.
That's wrong, in his opinion. They chose Detroit, which was the right decision, but it
was made in the wrong place. This should have been a HQ decision, not one made by
DOJ.
Patriot Act
With regard to the Patriot Act, no one knew what it meant, and they were getting
different opinions and interpretations from FBIHQ.
FISA Process
The FISA process takes an inordinate amount of time. In one case they were just
fighting at HQ about which foreign power the individual was connected to. Miami has
put together a timeline illustrating just how long it all took. In his opinion, who cares
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which group the person is connected to? This was a person directly connected to the
hijackers.
Miami Reorganization
The post 9/11 field office reorganization was his idea. He had ideas as to what
needed to be improved. He knew where they were going. The ASACs came up with the
concept. The parameters he set were that they needed an intelligence center, which he
wanted to be 24/7. It would have centralized everything, in terms of complaint calls,
actions taken, etc. Unfortunately, they had to abandon this idea, because they got no
additional money to fund a 24/7 operational intelligence center. He wanted an
operational squad, and a tactical and strategic squad. He also wanted a squad to figure
out how to penetrate these groups technically. He also wanted a CT squad in West Palm
Beach. He told the ASACs to go ahead and create a structure and assign people. He
wanted the best people working CT. They did research on the agents before assigning
them to CT. He did not tell the ASACs which of the branches they would end up with
beforehand. Many of the best agents in Miami were previously working drugs. As a side
note, the primary complaints he has heard is from drug agents who are now working CT.
The squad in West Palm was a problem to create. HQ said no to it, but then the
Director got involved. The problem, in his view, is that the FBI is not designed for
immediate switches. It is more like a destroyer. They were trying to create an
infrastructure, but were constantly being hindered.
When they completed the reorganization, they brought in an outside speaker.
As far as their facilities, Director Freeh had authorized a new facility for them in
1999. Congress said no. This was after he had created a study, showing the many
problems with this office, including security.
Training
They received no training from HQ when they transitioned over. Miami had to do
it all themselves. They have not gotten as much as they should. Quantico is so far
behind, and he has no idea what they are doing. It took a year to get their first inservice.
The reality is that the experienced agents end up training the less experienced agents.
PENTTBOM
They had no guidance from HQ as to how to conduct the post 9/11 investigation.
They tracked down every threat of evidence that there was a support cell in Florida for
the hijackers. What they found was that the hijackers were very disciplined in Florida.
GTMO



Seery
In his opinion, Miami is isolated to this day in terms of the overall CT picture.
His office was the one that started the GTMO initiative. They are the controlling office
now in name only. I
Relations with CIA
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NJTTF/flying squads
The NJTTF has not helped with the disconnect from HQ. In some cases, the
NJTTF is dealing directly with state and local, and bypassing the field offices. For
example, they have sent things straight from DC to the NY Governor's office. How
absurd can this be? As a result, the NJTTF has run into major opposition. Pat D'Amuro
said that they never intended the NJTTF to allow bypassing to happen. He's not sure
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SOUTHCOM is in charge of
GTMO. HQ and the military are making these calls. His point is that they are the office
of origin on these matters.
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what the benefit is of the NJTTF. Why do they need to duplicate the field JTTFs? This
situation might cause the dots to not be connected.
They are going to end up with situations where the state/local are telling the FBI
Field Offices what is going on. This is a major disconnect.
He doesn't understanding the flying squad concept. They will just react. They
will only fly away when there is a problem, after the fact. They have taken experienced
people out of the division to do this. The agent in Miami could have been here, doing
proactive work (her name is Chris Cedrholm, and was assigned to T-1).
U.S. Attorneys' Anti-Terrorism Task Forces
He thinks that the Attorney General's ATAC creation is "scary. " For the first
time ever, it's now in writing that in instances where the JTTFs priorities differ, the
ATACs will run CT cases. In districts where there is 1 JTTF and 2 Judicial districts, this
could occur. He said that we should look at paragraph #4 of the AG's directive.
They requested that the EOUSA permanently assign people to the U. S. Attorney's
office to work on CT matters. They have done that. Paylor works with the squads and
works well. She has direct contact with the agents. They have run into problems though
deciding which cases to prosecute. They had cases which could have been prosecuted as
material support cases which haven't been, and they are working through the legal issues
on these.
Pre 9/11 "chatter"
He was never informed about the "chatter" occurring in the spring/summer of
2001. This was an inside the Beltway kind of thing. He found out about the messages
and all of that by reading it in the papers after 9/11.
JTTFs
The best thing they can do with outside agencies is to give them full ownership.
He thinks that the detailees should for all intents and purposes be FBI agents. They
should be the case agents. The typical problem in the task force concept is that they are
sometimes treated like 2nd class citizens. He wants to make sure that they are fully
integrated. The bad news is that some agencies are reluctant to assign personnel full time
to the JTTF. But, he notes, part time is better than nothing. Even some of the full time
people have other duties. Some of the JTTF members have cases of their own and some
do not. He has talked to his state and local counterparts about the value of being on the
JTTF. They have had increased participation since 9/11. But they can't physically
accommodate everyone. They have equipment they ordered 2 years ago that still hasn't
shown up. He should not be getting bad personnel; the JTTF should not be a dumping
ground. If there was evidence of this, he would call and ask that the person be removed.



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With local police, there was no program to filter information up or down so that a
beat cop might know that a person he stopped was suspicious. Now, post 9/11,
everything Middle Eastern in nature is considered suspicious. Now if a local cop stops
anyone named Mohammed, they would consider that suspicious.
T-4
Pesquera wants T-4 to eventually be intelligence and analytic in nature. It should
be publishing products for their partners. But without the analytic support, it can't work.
Right now, they are trying to take baby steps. This should be the squad that would get
the raw products and analyze them strategically. In Miami, they are now in the tactical
mode. With their current case loads, they don't have anyone available to work
strategically. He doesn't think that being on T-4 is a bad assignment. What they are
doing is potentially very important. He hasn't had anyone request a transfer off of T-4.
But he acknowledged that their heavy hitters are going to T-1, T-3, and T-5. In the ideal
world, he would like all of the intelligence to be sent to T-4, but right now it would just
die there. They have to work with what they have.
The best analysts have been sent to HQ. How does the FBI expect them to do
analytic work in the field without analysts?
Relations with NSA
NSA has not had a representative in Miami. When they have a request for NSA,
they go through FBIHQ.
Department of Homeland Security
DHS will not work without a local entity. Right now, it's still like 22 separate
organizations. The changes have made no differences on the ground level in the law
enforcement agencies under DHS's rubric.
Post 9/11 Operational Environment..and threat reporting
It's a circus now. HQ wants even the most minor information reported to them.
In the past, the field office was allowed to look into raw reporting and to check it out, but
not any longer. He said that it's so bad that they almost have to file an "urgent" report
with HQ for wipeout's in the men's bathrooms. There is a fury of reporting, and he
thinks it should be more at the discretion of the field. In some cases, they've got analysts
at HQ telling the field offices what to do.

Pesquera gave the example of th investigation. Miami figured out

who he was based on sketchy reporting. was ighting with them the whole time
about their identification. Once HQ decided that Miami wa:s. right, they gave Miami 2
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hours to try and find him before they released his name to the media. When they finally
agreed with Miami, it seemed like HQ just panicked. As Miami was running their
command post, CNN released it. They were in the middle of the neighborhood check
when this happened. There were traditional investigative steps they needed to take and
this release cut it off. He thinks that this was just a "CYA" action by HQ. They are
losing common sense, in an effort not to get blamed for holding on to information. When
they got to the site, ABC was already there. He thinks that the leak came from
Washington. They didn't consult with him on what to do. They should at least consult
with him. He asked AD Medford for 4-6 hours and was told 2.
It's hard to explain to their local colleagues that they didn't know, and that they
weren't withholding information from them. This has also occurred with some of the
alerts. CNN is killing them with their local partners. It's just embarrassing.
They are doing the best they can. It's hard to turn around a big organization.
Right now, they are shadowboxing, following everything that happens. They should be
doing more than just following baby powder at airports. They need to be able to focus
more and allocate their priorities. Two years after 9/11, and it hasn't really changed.
There is a disconnect, which they cannot afford. For example, they provide that there
was a person in Miami connected to the hijackers and it has taken forever with the FISA.
He has dealt with this at the highest levels. He wanted to make sure that if something
happened that he could show that he did his part. In that case, it took 18 months to get
the prints from the bags with the hijackers' prints. How is this more important than
reports on boxcutters?
One of the issues may be that with HQ, everything is just "briefing, briefing,
briefing. "
In the post 9/11 investigation, banks were complaining that they were getting 5
subpoenas on the same account from 5 different FBI offices. He would tell HQ. Their
response was that it was better to send 5 than to miss it entirely. In his view, if an attack
happens because our society is so open then that is one thing. But if it happens because
of a lack of communication and ineptitude, we cannot afford that.
Right now, HQ is trying to run everything. He thinks that the running of cases
from HQ will backfire. This cannot work from an operational perspective. The structure
is not there to make that happen. You can't control a fire from Interior HQ, he noted.
HQ has to pick their priorities. CIA and FBI are very different. Does FBIHQ
want them to be intelligence or law enforcement? They have to pick their priorities.
Technology
The technology is still hindering them. He can't email the USAO. Rapid Start
crashed on them after 9/11. He's been hearing that Trilogy will fix everything, but he's

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been hearing that for a long time. They have even tried to bring in the experts. They
brought in a retired IBM executive, who couldn't take it and left.
He does think that Congress should have paid more attention to Director Freeh on
the enc ration is
Solutions/Recommendations
Terrorism will not go away. They have to approach this strategically, and it
cannot be approached as just a law enforcement problem. The terrorists hate us, and
don't think like us. He thinks that by definition, the FBI should be a part of DHS. How
"else can you protect the homeland without having the FBI in there. This was probably
discussed during the Administration's planning sessions. Eventually, they will have to do
it. Right now, who is in charge between DHS and DOJ/FBI?
He doesn't really know the answer but knows that they have a major problem. If
they continue to conduct business the way they are now, they will have major problems.
They are going in the right direction overall and will eventually get there, but right now
they are in the bridge.

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