-Caveat Lector-
CIA Error May Yield Budget Increase
By JOHN DIAMOND
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA may well see one of its biggest blunders turn into
a budget boost. Lawmakers are blaming the mistaken bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade on an intelligence apparatus stretched thin.
On Capitol Hill Tuesday, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the powerful
Senate Appropriations Committee, asked Defense Secretary William Cohen
whether the embassy bombing stemmed from overworked intelligence analysts
with underfunded information databases. Could more money for intelligence
have prevented ``this terrible accident?'' Stevens asked. Or could it prevent
a similar catastrophe in the future?
``It was an institutional failure. ... You could not associate that with
inadequate resources,'' Cohen said. He blamed ``a whole series of
omissions.''
Stevens' was one voice in a growing chorus of Republicans and Democrats who
reacted to the bombing error by talking about pumping more money into the $29
billion U.S. intelligence system.
``Over the last 13 years, we have gutted our intelligence and military
capabilities, and now the chickens have come home to roost,'' said Sen.
Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., the committee's vice chairman, said U.S. officials
have known since last summer that NATO might launch a bombing campaign
against Yugoslavia.
``But, due to staffing and resource constraints, the latest information was
not incorporated into our planning,'' Kerrey said. ``We have overtasked and
underfunded our intelligence agencies for too long.''
This trend in decision-making -- make a mistake, get a budget increase --
represents a break in the typical Washington pattern. Usually, when an
executive branch agency goofs, Congress, especially when controlled by the
opposite party, calls the agency to account. Sometimes major errors can
occasion demands to cut an agency's budget or eliminate the bureaucracy
entirely.
In national security matters, however, the new pattern has been seen recently
in the focus on Chinese espionage directed at U.S. nuclear weapons
laboratories. Amid embarrassing disclosures about nuclear secrets lost to
Beijing, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has urged Congress to increase the
budget for lab security -- and Congress appears willing to go along.
For the CIA, the admission that it used out-of-date maps that showed the
Chinese embassy in a different location in Belgrade, and that it used
educated guesses in pinpointing a purported military target that turned out
to be the embassy, could yield a similar budget increase.
The administration is seeking about $29 billion for intelligence programs in
the 2000 budget, an increase of about 9 percent.
Just two weeks ago, the House Intelligence Committee passed its version of
the intelligence budget, adding less than 1 percent to President Clinton's
request. At that time, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., the committee chairman,
appeared satisfied with the state of intelligence spending.
``We continue to see progress toward our goals of rebuilding and revitalizing
our national intelligence capabilities,'' Goss said. Last weekend, on the
other hand, Goss said the errant bombing represented ``the harvest of the
underinvestment in our intelligence capabilities.''
In a Pentagon briefing Monday, two U.S. intelligence officials speaking on
condition of anonymity said U.S. target planners did nothing during the Cold
War, when the CIA's budget was flush, that they aren't doing today.
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