Director Mueller Details Realignment

Focus on Priorities
Director Mueller Details Realignment

07/26/06

The FBI on Wednesday announced a broad internal restructuring aimed at better supporting our investigative and organizational priorities. The changes align key programs under five branches to reflect our shift since 9/11 into a more threat-based, intelligence-driven organization.

Key among the changes: the appointment of Joseph L. Ford to the new position of Associate Deputy Director. A special agent since 1981, the former head of the FBI’s finance division and San Francisco field office will oversee management of the Bureau’s personnel, budget, administration, and infrastructure. Director Robert S. Mueller likened Ford’s new position—number 3 at the FBI—to that of a large corporation’s chief operating officer.

“It cuts across all of our programs and is responsible for the business side of the house,” Director Mueller said during a press conference at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Ford’s appointment to focus on internal matters frees Mueller’s Deputy Director John Pistole to channel more of his efforts toward operations, intelligence, and communicating with other agencies—what Mueller described as “the programmatic side of the house.”

Another key piece of the restructuring realigns operations under specific branches, each headed by an Executive Assistant Director. The branches include: National Security (NSB), Criminal Investigations, Human Resources, Science and Technology, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO).

Under the realignment, our intelligence and counterterrorism arms report up the chain to the heads of the National Security Branch. New to the NSB is the WMD Directorate, a reflection, Mueller said, of “substantial concern” about weapons of mass destruction. Mueller named Vahid Majidi, who headed nuclear weapons research and counter-proliferation programs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, to head the new Directorate.

Mueller described the changes as a new phase in the realigning of the FBI since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The first phase was our immediate response, which included the investigation, establishment of new priorities, and the shift toward countering terrorism. In the second phase we developed enhanced intelligence capabilities, including the creation of the Directorate of Intelligence and a career service that doubled the number of our intelligence analysts. The third phase is designed to alter our command structure to meet the demands of our increased pace of operations and build the foundation for the future.

“We have grown as an organization significantly since 9/11,” Director Mueller said. “It made sense in my mind to evolve the organization to what you see today.” Bottom line, the Director said, “We’re better aligned to address our priorities.”

Links: Press Release