FBI to bring Saudi intel to work in U.S.

WASHINGTON, June 23 (UPI) -- The FBI needs to work with other nations' security agencies and aims to bring officials from Saudi Arabia to the United States, the FBI director said Tuesday.

Robert S. Mueller III told the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., "We need to bring people from other countries to work with us here jointly, whether it be from Indonesia or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or elsewhere."

All three countries have internal security agencies that are alleged to use torture and detention without trial, according to human rights groups.

Mueller said that in the future, "U.S. law enforcement will have to be aligned with our counterparts overseas, much like our military forces are aligned with their counterparts (in allied nations) overseas."

The bureau has long run exchange programs with foreign law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies and since the 1990s has developed a global network of legal attachés at U.S. embassies overseas.

But the operational involvement of personnel from foreign agencies in U.S.-based counter-terrorism or other programs would mark a sharp departure from previous practice.

Mueller stressed that the bureau must "preserve the best" of the FBI's role and "continue to serve as guardians of civil liberties, operating with full adherence to the Constitution."