Washington ? A top-to-bottom breakdown at the FBI was behind last year’s embarrassing failure to turn over documents in the Timothy McVeigh case, according to a report issued Tuesday, and agents at all levels were at fault for the misstep that forced the government to postpone McVeigh’s execution by a month.

The report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the agency’s in-house watchdog, found that field agents did not turn over the documents despite numerous requests, that investigators did a bad job of tracking the papers, and that when the problem surfaced, FBI leaders sent out confusing instructions that made matters worse.

“Headquarters was too quick to assign blame without sufficient facts, and it did not adequately communicate with its field managers, many of whom found out about the issue and that they were being blamed for the problem from press reports,” Inspector General Glenn Fine wrote.

Perhaps the only good news for the FBI was the finding that the bureau did not willfully try to hide the documents and that the bureau was plagued by incompetence rather than malice. But the problems laid bare in the report suggested a records-management system in shambles, a weak FBI leadership and a less-than-disciplined workforce.

“The failures to disclose documents were widespread, and not confined to a single FBI field office or a few individuals,” Fine said.

The investigation was prompted by the FBI’s announcement in May that it had failed to turn over more than 1,000 documents to McVeigh’s defense team as it was required to do. The revelation came just five days before McVeigh was scheduled to be die, and although most of the documents appeared inconsequential, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was forced to call an news conference and announce the execution’s postponement.

The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, was at the time the worst terrorist assault on U.S. soil, and its investigation was the biggest in FBI history. Both have been surpassed by the Sept. 11 attacks, and the inspector general’s findings may not bode well for the FBI’s ability to handle the complex investigations that will be part of its new anti-terrorism mission.