http://www.theage.com.au/world/how-us-spy-agencies-got-too-big-to-control-20100719-10htn.html
How US spy agencies got too big to control DANA PRIEST AND WILLIAM ARKIN, WASHINGTON July 20, 2010 THE top-secret world created by the US government in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has become so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the US safe is so massive its effectiveness is impossible to determine. The investigation's other findings include: ? A total of 1271 government organisations and 1931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence at 10,000 sites in the US. ? About 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, DC, hold top-secret security clearances. ? In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 buildings for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 US Capitol buildings. ? Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organisations and military commands, operating in 15 US cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks. ? Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored. These are not academic issues; lack of focus, not lack of resources, was at the heart of the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting in November that left 13 dead, as well as the Christmas Day bomb attempt thwarted not by the thousands of analysts employed to find lone terrorists but by an alert airline passenger who saw smoke coming from a fellow passenger. They are also issues that greatly concern some people in charge of US security. ''There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that - not just for the DNI (Director of National Intelligence), but for any individual, for the director of the CIA, for the secretary of defence - is a challenge,'' Defence Secretary Robert Gates said last week. In the Department of Defence, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials - or Super Users - have the ability to even know about all the department's activities. But as two of the Super Users indicated in interviews, there is no way they can keep up with the most sensitive work. ''I'm not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything,'' was how one Super User put it. The other recounted that for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn't take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, he said, until he yelled ''Stop'' in frustration. ''I wasn't remembering any of it,'' he said. Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired army Lieutenant-General John Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defence Department's most sensitive programs. General Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq was stunned by what he discovered. ''I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to co-ordinate all these inter-agency and commercial activities,'' he said. ''The complexity of this system defies description.'' The result, he added, was that it was impossible to tell whether the country was safer because of the spending and the activities. ''Because it lacks a synchronising process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste,'' he said. ''We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe.'' Mr Gates said he did not believe the system had become too big to manage but getting precise data was sometimes difficult. Singling out the growth of intelligence units in the Defence Department, he said he intended to review these programs for waste. ''Nine years after 9/11, it makes a lot of sense to sort of take a look at this and say, 'OK, we've built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?' '' he said. CIA director Leon Panetta said he had begun mapping out a five-year plan for his agency because the levels of spending since 9/11 were not sustainable. ''Particularly with these deficits, we're going to hit the wall. I want to be prepared for that,'' he said. ''Frankly, I think everyone in intelligence ought to be doing that.'' In an interview before he resigned as the director of national intelligence in May, retired Admiral Dennis Blair said he did not believe there was overlap and redundancy in the intelligence world. ''Much of what appears to be redundancy is, in fact, providing tailored intelligence for many different customers,'' he said. Admiral Blair also expressed confidence that subordinates told him what he needed to know. ''I have visibility on all the important intelligence programs across the community, and there are processes in place to ensure the different intelligence capabilities are working together where they need to,'' he said. Weeks later, he mused about The Washington Post's findings. ''After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we so often do in this country,'' he said. ''The attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing.'' WASHINGTON POST [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
