WASHINGTON/ Conservative Monitor -- The failure of the FBI to turn over documents to terrorist Timothy McVeigh's defense reveals the inability of large bureaucracies to function efficiently.

The FBI is not huge by the usual standards of the Federal Government, yet according to its website at www.fbi.gov, the organization has, besides its headquarters in Washington, "56 field offices, approximately 400 satellite offices known as resident agencies, four specialized field installations, and more than 40 foreign liaison posts."

"The FBI has approximately 11,400 Special Agents and over 16,400 other employees." While the FBI performs essential tasks within the government its unwieldy size has created problems. In the Timothy McVeigh case, FBI Director Louis Freeh has been forced to admit his inability to control his own bureau.

According to an AP wire story, Director Freeh said that field offices were told in 1995 and 1996 at least 11 times to send the documents pertaining to the case. Later it appeared that not all materials had been sent. He then sent all field offices a priority teletype requiring the documents be sent promptly.

Even after explicit and repeated instructions "there were still many offices that...failed to comply fully or precisely," Freeh said. "As a consequence, the items now at issue were apparently never turned over to the prosecutors during the discovery period."

During a hearing on the McVeigh fiasco in the House of Representatives, Freeh was asked by subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Va "why the FBI did not do a check by hand for relevant documents — in addition to an electronic search?"

Freeh's answer highlighted the bureaucratic conundrum. "That is one of the questions we'll have to answer." In effect, the organization was so large that he could not put his finger directly on the problem and in any case such a search was likely impossible.

Explaining the details of the FBI breakdown Freeh said that many FBI offices failed to locate the specified documents, "misinterpreted...instructions to send the documents or sent the documents, only to have them unaccounted for on the other end."

Director Freeh put forth the further excuse that at the time the documents were to be sent to the Oklahoma City office for uploading to a computer system, the FBI was converting to a new computer system. He added that there were also difficulties in the coordinating the gathering of evidence.

Similar problems have been endemic to the FBI structure for decades as exhibited by such incidents as the communication breakdown that resulted in the shootout at Ruby Ridge and the withholding of damning evidence in the case of the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., that killed four little girls.

Freeh is working on specific solutions to prevent similar bureaucratic failures in the future. First, he has set up an internal committee with "a world-class records expert, a senior official who will be dedicated to this issue and this issue alone." Second, he is setting up a separate office of records management.

Commenting on Freeh's assurances of improvements at the FBI, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated, "I don't think you can blindly have confidence in anything." He continued, "(This incident) does cause us all to be concerned about some of the goings on, (especially) the lack of efficiency and lack of judgment at the FBI."