FBI Agents Still Lacking Arabic Skills

33 of 12,000 Have Some Proficiency

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A01

Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.

Counting agents who know only a handful of Arabic words -- including those who scored zero on a standard proficiency test -- just 1 percent of the FBI's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with the language, the statistics show.