Space surveillance budget reviewed

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/politics/15intel.html

Shift in Spying Money to Agents From Satellites Is Sought

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: June 15, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 14 - Arguing that satellites are consuming too much of
the intelligence budget, the House Intelligence Committee is proposing a
major shift of financing away from costly space-based spying to bolster
the ranks of agents and analysts.

While details and dollar amounts of the cuts to satellite programs are
classified, the committee said in a report that the spending
recommendations it is sending to the House floor would "significantly
reposition funding from technical programs to human intelligence and
analysis."

The report, attached to the intelligence reauthorization bill, said the
administration's budget request is "weighted far too heavily toward
expensive technical systems." The committee called for eliminating
"redundant or unjustified technical collection systems" while increasing
investment in human intelligence.

The committee said it was proposing more spending on training and
infrastructure to support spies, as well as increasing efforts to recruit
and train linguists skilled in Arabic, Chinese, Pashto, Urdu and other
languages.

"We're out of balance," Representative Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan
Republican and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said in an
interview. "Technical intelligence is very expensive and it can be very,
very helpful. But we felt we had overlapping and duplicative technical
programs, and we believe we're coming up short on humint," or human
intelligence.

In a speech on Tuesday, Mr. Hoekstra said some of the programs the
committee has marked for "termination" have been plagued with problems
for years. Officials from the National Reconnaissance Office, which
develops and launches spy satellites, have admitted that the programs
have been poorly managed, with flaws in contracting and engineering, he
said, but they have told him, " 'Don't worry, Pete, when we get it up in
space, it's going to work.' Are you kidding me?"

The scale and pace of the proposed cuts to satellite programs drew a
muted protest from the Democratic minority on the Intelligence Committee,
led by Representative Jane Harman of California.

"We support the efforts to confront hard choices in technical programs,"
said a dissenting report signed by eight of the committee's nine
Democrats. "However, we think it is unwise to make sudden, drastic cuts
to programs absent a more thorough technical review."

Moving too quickly, the Democrats said, could "cause a gap in our
capabilities and diminish the industrial base so critical to fielding the
technology against current and future threats."

John Pike, an intelligence analyst and the director of
GlobalSecurity.org, a private research group, said the reference to
"industrial base" was a reminder of the huge stakes in the budget debate
for the companies that build satellites and their payloads. "It means
they're trying to save some contractor's program from getting cut," Mr.
Pike said.

Ms. Harman said her Southern California district is "the intelligence
satellite capital of the universe." She said the government has an
interest in ensuring the survival of the three companies that make such
satellites - the Boeing Company, the Northrop Grumman Corporation and the
Lockheed Martin Corporation - because competition among them produces
innovation and lower prices.

The Intelligence Committee's proposal appears to reflect the thinking of
the presidential commission on intelligence regarding unconventional
weapons, which said in its March 31 report that "cost overruns in
satellite systems tend to suck resources from the rest of the
intelligence budget."

The presidential commission, headed by Charles S. Robb, a former
Democratic governor and senator, and Laurence H. Silberman, a senior
federal judge, said that "increasingly, there are air-breathing
alternatives to satellite surveillance."

The commission listed "tough choices" on satellite systems, which cost
billions of dollars and must be planned years in advance of deployment,
as one of the major strategic decisions facing the director of national
intelligence, John D. Negroponte, who took office in April. It said Mr.
Negroponte should tackle the issue "early in his tenure."

The debate over the proper balance between satellites, which can take
pictures or eavesdrop on communications, and traditional human spying
dates to the 1960's. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many
intelligence experts have argued that recruiting agents to infiltrate
terrorist organizations is of greater value in preventing attacks than
anything satellites can do.

"I think there's been a real imbalance," said John F. Lehman, a former
Navy secretary and a member of the commission on the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Certainly leading up to 9/11 and to a certain extent afterward, there
have been the forces of contractors and jobs behind the big technical
collection systems."

He said the growth of satellite systems was also driven by the revelation
during the 1970's and 80's of abuses and other unsavory actions on the
part of Central Intelligence Agency case officers. "There was a feeling
that satellites allowed us to get out of the dirty, messy business of
spying," Mr. Lehman said.

Jeffrey T. Richelson, who has written several books on intelligence
collection, said the committee's report was too vague to determine what
programs could face reductions. He said several programs, including one
called "Future Imagery Architecture," as well as programs using
space-based radar and infrared, were possibilities.

Dr. Richelson said that while spies and satellites are often discussed as
alternatives, they work best together. In assessing nuclear programs in
Iran and North Korea, he said, a satellite picture can raise suspicions
of illicit activity and then help guide an agent on the ground to have a
closer look.

"We're out of balance," Representative Peter Hoekstra,
a Michigan Republican and chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, said in an interview.

[snip]

The scale and pace of the proposed cuts to satellite
programs drew a muted protest from the Democratic
minority on the Intelligence Committee, led by
Representative Jane Harman of California.


A somewhat interesting role-reversal there. Good for Rep.
Hoekstra.