STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Senators head into a hearing on FBI operations this morning armed with a new report that appears to support allegations of mismanagement within the agency. The review found almost 500 weapons and 184 laptop computers missing from FBI inventories. CNN's Kelli Arena has more.</s>KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another embarrassing admission for the FBI which is already undergoing several reviews. Four hundred forty-nine weapons, including machine guns, rifles and pistols, are missing. Also unaccounted for, 184 laptops. One of them contains classified information and at least three others may as well. Now, the totals span an 11-year period. An FBI official says the weapons were lost for a variety of reasons: everything from agents retiring and never turning in their weapon to guns being stolen out of agent's vehicles. Now as for the laptops, 13 were stolen, the rest are unaccounted for and may have been discarded because they were outdated. The problem is, paperwork was never properly filled out. Now this is not the first time inventory has been missing, but the new figures are the result of an extensive four-week search by the FBI in response to questions from Congress and others. Attorney General John Ashcroft has asked for a department wide review of inventory controls, which will cover, not only the FBI, but agencies such as the DEA and the Bureau of Prisons. (on camera): Now the missing inventory is likely to be a hot topic of discussion for the Senate Judiciary Committee. It had previously scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on FBI oversight. The members of Congress have grown increasingly concerned about what they call FBI mismanagement in the wake of the Robert Hanssen spy saga and the missing Timothy McVeigh documents fiasco. Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
Review Finds Nearly 500 Weapons, 184 Laptop Computers Missing From FBI