FBI Agent Who Blew Whistle on Pre-Sept. 11 Actions Retires

A career FBI agent who rocked official Washington with a blistering memo to the boss alleging bureau bungling before the Sept. 11 attacks has retired from the agency.

Coleen Rowley, who was named one of Time magazine’s people of the year in 2002 for her whistle-blowing efforts, worked for the FBI for 24 years.

Rowley, 50, said she had no immediate plans, but wanted to be considered for appointment to a new federal board that would ensure counter-terrorism investigations and arrests did not infringe on people’s rights.

Rowley was hailed by colleagues in Minneapolis in 2002 when she wrote a letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III accusing bureau headquarters of blowing a chance to unravel the Sept. 11 hijacking plot.

She charged that FBI supervisors in Washington blundered when they blocked requests from Minneapolis agents for a special warrant to search the possessions of terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, who had been learning to fly a 747 jumbo jet at a Minnesota flight school.

Moussaoui is now the only figure facing U.S. trial in connection with the attacks.

“We have a culture in the FBI that there’s a certain pecking order and it’s pretty strong, and it’s very rare that somebody picks up the phone and calls a rank or two above themselves,” she said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in June 2002.

In early 2003, however, Rowley angered agents by making public a letter she wrote urging Mueller to oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Rowley argued that a war in Iraq could result in a “flood of terrorism” on a scale the bureau was not prepared to handle.