Budget Boosts Intelligence Spending in Espionage - Interesting News

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Budget Boosts Intelligence Spending

More Spies, Overhaul Of Equipment Are Expected For CIA and NSA
May 15, 2002
The new money reflects the growing confidence Congress and President Bush have placed in CIA Director George J. Tenet.

— Congress is moving to dramatically increase spending on intelligence in response to last year’s terrorist attacks, with new money slated for hiring additional CIA spies and analysts, modernizing the National Security Agency and enhancing research and development of satellite equipment that can detect factories making chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

THE INTELLIGENCE budget is not publicly released. But the Senate intelligence committee last week approved President Bush’s budget request for fiscal 2003, which will increase the total amount spent by the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies to nearly $35 billion, congressional and administration sources said.
That represents an increase of $2 billion to $3 billion over this year, and comes on top of $1 billion in additional money requested by Bush — and approved by Congress — shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The new money illustrates the reversal of fortunes for the intelligence agencies over the last eight months, as the country seeks to detect and destroy terrorist networks and to prevent new attacks. The largest part of the budget remains under the control of the Defense Department, but the new money also suggests the growing confidence Congress and Bush have placed in CIA Director George J. Tenet.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department has informed Congress that the war in Afghanistan has cost $17 billion since it began in October. About $3.7 billion was spent on classified surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence, and another $1.76 billion paid for precision guided munitions such as laser-guided bombs, Joint Defense Attack Munitions and cruise missiles.
But the largest amount of the money went for the basics: $4.7 billion for sending troops and equipment overseas, and maintaining ships and aircraft used in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, said Defense Department Comptroller Dov S. Zakheim.

OUTSIDE REVIEW NEEDED
CIA watchdogs say that without a thorough outside review, more money for intelligence will not fix the shortcomings of the system that were exposed on Sept. 11. Congress has yet to complete its investigation of the intelligence agencies’ monitoring of al Qaeda leading up to the attacks. “What we’ve gotten so far is perfunctory and largely redundant,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy and a longtime CIA observer.
Although the exact sizes of the funding increase and the overall intelligence budget remain classified, the Senate intelligence committee, in a report accompanying its spending authorization bill, “compliments the administration for requesting high levels of resources . . . for fiscal year 2003 and beyond.”
The House intelligence committee has yet to produce its intelligence authorization bill.

The National Security Agency, which intercepts electronic communications, received one of the major increases under the Senate bill — nearly $1 billion to continue modernizing its computerized analytical systems. Another boost of nearly $500 million went to the CIA to continue expanding its “human intelligence,” or spy training and operations.
The bill also put a priority on developing and buying satellite and analytical equipment to detect the development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The National Reconnaissance Office, the National Intelligence Mapping Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency would share this responsibility.

These so-called MASINT capabilities — for measurements and signatures intelligence — involves being able to detect traces of chemicals or pollution emitted from smokestacks, for example, that would indicate the presence of substances used in the production of weapons of mass destruction, said John Pike, a specialist in satellites associated with Globalstrategy.com, a Virginia research organization.
The Senate panel’s report suggests that aspects of the intelligence system may change as a result of the new terrorism threat. For instance, the legal division between foreign and domestic intelligence-sharing and surveillance may continue to narrow as the CIA and domestic law enforcement agencies seek ways to better track terrorist networks. The report instructs the CIA director to “develop and provide” to federal, state and local officials “a list of known or suspected international terrorists” and terrorist organizations.
The CIA director will retain the authority to decide what information should be passed to domestic agencies, intelligence officials said, adding that one obstacle to more information-sharing is that most local law enforcement personnel do not have security clearances.
The bill envisions the possibility that spy satellites may be used to look down on suspected terrorist activities in the United States — which currently requires a special waiver.

INFORMATION SHARING
Several measures in the bill also seek to make it easier to circulate information and analysis among intelligence agencies. A newly formed Terrorist Identification Classification System, which is operated by the CIA, would catalogue and store information on known or suspect terrorist groups or individuals and be easily retrieveable by appropriate agencies.
The bill also envisions the possibility that spy satellites may be used to look down on suspected terrorist activities in the United States — which currently requires a special waiver. It requires the CIA director to detail the changes being considered to lift or streamline the prohibitions on domestic satellite spying.
The bill would also give the CIA primary jurisdiction over the newly created Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center, which is currently under the Treasury Department.
It would require new reporting on foreign companies involved in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that raise money in U.S. capital markets. While much of the reporting requirement would remain classified, the committee asked that an unclassified report be made public.
In what could be the first indication of a move to give the director of central intelligence more control over intelligence operations, the panel asked the director to set “common standards and qualifications for individuals performing intelligence functions throughout the [intelligence] community.”
The committee, the report noted, is interested “in ensuring that the director vigorously exercise his authorities and prerogatives as head of the intelligence community.” Currently the Pentagon has predominant control over many intelligence operations.

By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, THE WASHINGTON POST
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