INS Assailed as Wasteful, Poorly Run, Failure-Prone : Immigration: Besides the GAO report, memos are revealed that criticize the management skills of agency chief McNary.

Plagued by a decade of “weak management systems” and “inconsistent leadership,” the Immigration and Naturalization Service has degenerated into a group of separate programs that waste resources, duplicate efforts and fail to solve problems, congressional auditors have concluded.

The highly critical findings by the General Accounting Office were circulated Wednesday on Capitol Hill in a draft audit report that says the beleaguered agency’s efforts to restructure its operations have failed to address many of its problems.

In a separate development, lawmakers were given copies of an extraordinary set of computer memos in which INS Commissioner Gene McNary’s handpicked general counsel criticized McNary’s management skills.

The memos were sent over a three-month period by William P. Cook to Deputy Atty. Gen. William P. Barr, who was attempting to “get a handle” on problems at INS, one Justice Department source said.

In the memos, Cook depicted McNary as obsessed with stopping illegal immigration from Mexico at the cost of other INS functions, “meeting with every two-bit House member” and stripping his Latino deputy, Ric Inzunza, of the No. 2 official’s traditional duties “to the point of embarrassment.”

In one memo, alerting Barr to issues that McNary was expected to raise in a meeting with him the next day, Cook characterized the agency’s attempted reorganization as “a disaster.”

“It is personality-oriented and will bring the President major grief unless the deputy commissioner nonsense is resolved,” Cook wrote.

In another, Cook indicated that Barr and Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh had instructed him “to keep the lid on INS” and said that McNary was being advised by virtually “the same people who brought INS to financial disaster two years ago when it ran up a $50-million deficit.”

Cook advised Barr that McNary’s coordination with the Justice Department “has been terrible” and was “predicated on his oft-expressed belief that the AG (Thornburgh) is mortally wounded, politically, and will soon be leaving.”

The memos were sent in the form of electronic mail by Cook to Barr’s office, a source said. Printed copies were distributed to at least one Capitol Hill office in a plain brown envelope.

Barr declined to discuss the memos, and their significance was discounted by Associate Deputy Atty. Gen. Rex Ford, who oversees INS for Barr.

“While we will heed any constructive criticism, we do not find gossip about internal bickering within INS either useful or relevant to this process,” Ford said. He did not explain why Barr had failed to stop the memos from Cook if he found them not useful.

McNary, through a spokesman, said he “would not dignify” the memos with a comment. The spokesman said McNary is not considering resigning. “He feels he’s had a close working relationship with the (Justice) department, and he’s very supportive of the attorney general and the President,” the spokesman said.

Cook, who one department source said will “not be able to function as McNary’s general counsel” after disclosure of the memos, was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

McNary recruited Cook to join him at the agency after Cook, as a member of the Justice Department office of legislative affairs, advised him during McNary’s Senate confirmation hearings.