So,
someone let it slip that the intelligence budget is about $44 billion. Now, that seems a bit low, considering that the Department of Defense Budget (which I believe is separate) is some $400 billion. Now, let's look to how that budget is used.
Not much has been made in the blogosphere about the fact John Negroponte, intelligence czar, is called to testify in Congress this week about why he performs so pathetically at his job. Well, those are my words. The real reason is "to answer concerns about whether his new office is meeting the goals Congress envisioned in a 2004 intelligence overhaul".
Short answer to that inquiry: hell no.
Tomorrow's closed door meeting can be expected to be a contentious one, with staffers on both sides of the aisle already alluding to great frustration with Negroponte:
"We're just ... a little bit unconvinced that we have the kind of [Director of National Intelligence] with the focus that we had hoped to get. So, we are very concerned," committee staffer John Stopher said at the symposium, sponsored by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.
He said House intelligence staffers were surprised and disappointed by the unclassified intelligence strategy that Negroponte announced last week. The strategy establishes the promotion of democracy as a top priority, behind fighting terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
"I thought: somebody was paid for that," said Stopher, Republican staff director for a House panel subcommittee that oversees technical and tactical intelligence issues.
"We all sort of sat back and said, 'What is the DNI going to do? What is it that is going to make us safer?'"
The article also described the concerns committee staffers have over the secrecy involved in DNI decisions. If you recall, the discretion of the DNI was a huge concern back when the position was first established, particularly with respect to setting and spending the budget. A Republican staffer is quoted in the article comparing the secret closed-door decisions of the DNI to "watching for the selection of the pope."
Negroponte will get a lot of heat for putting the spreading of democracy as a top priority on his to-do list. Why a Director of National Intelligence should prioritize Freedom's Marchtm when you already have the President, the DOD, and countless other agencies working on that is beyond me. I thought the role of the DNI was to ensure that failures like Curveball, Al Libi, Chalabi and 9/11 terrorists chillin' in the US before the attacks never happen again, NOT using the $40 million budget to democratize countries.
Indeed, Negroponte will also be called out for siding with CIA Director Goss on his failure to discipline those involved in the pre-war intelligence failures.
On a side note, Negroponte has refused to join in the Bush/Cheney call for exempting intelligence agencies from a torture ban. "It's above my pay grade," he said in an artful dodge.
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