He said that in later promotions Middle East and terrorism experience was helpful but not mandatory, noting the FBI also must deal with terrorism from domestic sources and the Irish Republican Army.
"It could be a benefit. When you look for managers, you're looking for people that can lead people, manage people, knows how to conduct an investigation, knows how to collect certain intelligence or information, you know," he testified.
When asked if he had any formal terrorism training that justified his appointment as the No. 3 FBI official, Bald said, "It would have been on-the-job in the counterterrorism division."
Bald entered the counterterrorism division in 2003 after leading the FBI's Baltimore office during the Washington sniper case.
"It's a tremendous learning experience, the seat that I'm sitting in. You learn every single day about this," Deputy Assistant Director John Lewis testified.
When asked whether he, as the FBI's former counterterrorism chief, could describe the differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Watson answered, "Not technically, no."
He also said that his assertion a few years ago that Osama bin Laden had been killed -- a declaration that conflicted with CIA assessments and fresh video evidence -- wasn't based on fact.
"It's my gut instinct," he said.
Youssef, the agent suing the bureau, was credited with improving relations with Saudi Arabia during the late 1990s as bin Laden's threat grew and the bureau struggled to solve the case of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. He received a special award from the intelligence community for meritorious work and was singled out by his managers for "continuous creativity and perseverance" in terrorism cases. Saudi officials said they regarded Youssef as the most-skilled US agent in conducting lie detector tests on Arabic-speaking suspects.
But after Sept. 11, Youssef repeatedly was passed over for top-level headquarters jobs in terrorism, instead offered same-rank positions in budgeting or exploiting intelligence from terrorism documents.
Former director Freeh, who left that job three months before the terror attacks, testified that he believed Youssef should have gotten an important terror-fighting job in the post-Sept. 11 era.
"I think, you know, given his experience, certainly his language, you know, domestically he would probably have a much more required role and be of greater help back at headquarters," Freeh said.
Another FBI supervisor, just-retired agent Paul Vick, testified Youssef had the "many skills that were badly needed" after Sept. 11 and the FBI's failure to utilize him was "inappropriate and a waste of a very important human resource."
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