Intelligence Agencies Face Austerity

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 28, 2008
Courtesy Of The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The steep buildup in government spending on intelligence programs continued over the past year, according to figures made public on Tuesday, but American intelligence agencies are also bracing for a new era of austerity.

Spending on intelligence operations increased by some 9 percent last year, to $47.5 billion, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said Tuesday. That figure includes most intelligence spending, including the budget for the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the operation of spy satellites, but it does not include several billions that the military services spend annually on intelligence operations.

When the military spending is included, the new figure confirms that the American intelligence budget has doubled over the past decade, primarily to meet the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a worldwide campaign against Al Qaeda. In 1998, the last time the intelligence budget was publicly disclosed before a 2007 law made it mandatory, it stood at $26.7 billion, and there were more F.B.I. agents working in New York City than C.I.A. officers operating around the world.

The size of the 2009 budget, under which the intelligence agencies are currently operating, remains classified.

Yet current and former intelligence officials said that some belt-tightening had already begun because of the economic crisis, and that further large increases in the budget were unlikely, no matter who became the next president. They said discussions under way to determine the 2010 budget reflected White House demands for greater spending restraint.

“Everyone senses we’re reaching the end of growth for the intelligence budget,” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former top C.I.A. official and Congressional intelligence staff member.

Mr. Lowenthal said the intelligence budget might be vulnerable to cuts in future years, and could be more politically vulnerable than the budget for domestic security, which contains dozens of pork-barrel projects that lawmakers are loath to part with.

The Bush administration for years refused to disclose the amount that the United States spent annually to run C.I.A. stations overseas, operate satellites and conduct other intelligence activities, saying that revealing the budget would give too much information to America’s enemies. But members of Congress, acting on a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission, passed a law in 2007 requiring that the director of national intelligence disclose the intelligence budget within 30 days of the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Besides the C.I.A.’s hugely expensive operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, where in Baghdad the agency is operating its largest overseas outpost since the Vietnam War, the C.I.A. is also trying to follow through on a presidential order to expand the ranks of its analysts and its clandestine service by 50 percent each.

The C.I.A. expects to meet the goal for analysts this year, but expanding the clandestine branch requires recruiting and training new officers and building up the C.I.A.’s infrastructure abroad. So the agency, intelligence officials said, was still several years from meeting the second goal set by the White House.