Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge have settled a bitter dispute between their agencies, signing a truce that gives the FBI sole control over financial investigations related to terrorism. But many Homeland Security officials say the deal is a dangerous mistake. W. Ralph Basham, director of the Secret Service, which is now part of Homeland Security, wrote a memo to Ridge after the agreement was signed last week complaining that it “would severely jeopardize thousands of ongoing investigations and could compromise the federal government’s ability to effectively prevent future attacks against our financial and critical infrastructures.” A number of investigators and ranking officials at the former Customs Service, which also was folded into the new Department of Homeland Security, added that it is ill-advised to locate all expertise in the financial war on terrorism in a single agency, the FBI. Full Story
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