House Bill Beefs Up Spy Funding for ‘Humint’

The House unanimously passed an intelligence bill Wednesday that will place new emphasis on traditional human spy networks that have served as a key in the war on terrorism.

“The events of Sept. 11 are a sad reminder of what happens when we let our intelligence guard down,” said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), a former CIA officer who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “Intelligence is our first line of defense and it must be treated as such, particularly in this war against terrorism.”

The bill would increase spending by 8%--more than the 7% President Bush sought. Besides focusing new attention and funding on “humint”--human intelligence--over technology, it aims to increase the portion of data that is analyzed and turned into useful information.

The voice vote was on final passage of a conference bill worked out by House and Senate negotiators. The Senate still must pass the compromise bill before it can be sent to Bush for his signature.

It comes as the intelligence community is getting a lot of good attention for its work in assisting the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Goss said none of the progress in that war seen in TV reports and at Pentagon briefings would have been possible without intelligence, noting that the first combat casualty was an intelligence officer, Johnny “Mike” Spann.

“The fact that the first casualty was a CIA officer speaks to the fact that intelligence is in fact in the lead in this war,” he said. “There is no argument about that.”

At the same time, few have forgotten that the war began with what many consider an intelligence failure--the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that came with no warning.

However, the final bill dropped a House proposal for an outside panel to assess why the intelligence community failed to uncover those attack plans. Instead, the Senate and House intelligence committees will study that as they determine reforms needed to enhance intelligence capabilities.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the House committee’s top Democrat who had pressed for the outside panel, said she had misgivings about the plan: “I am concerned that an independent review would have the credibility with the American people that a congressional review, no matter how professionally done, will not.”

Intelligence spending is generally kept secret. But after being sued by the Federation of American Scientists, the CIA revealed that spending totaled $26.6 billion in 1997 and $26.7 billion in 1998, the federation’s Steven Aftergood said.