Spy Agencies Absorb Criticism Before Budget Hearing

U.S. spy agencies have stumbled badly in their efforts to get information out of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a setback symbolic of broader breakdowns in the intelligence community, according to a new report from the House Intelligence Committee.

In a sharply worded critique attached to an intelligence funding bill scheduled for debate today, the committee criticizes leaders at the CIA and other agencies for allowing an array of problems to persist, and in some cases worsen, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among the problems cited in the report are questionable spending decisions, inadequate efforts in recruiting linguists and analysts, and resistance among various agencies to sharing critical information.

As a result, the report says, the United States remains vulnerable to “further surprise in national security areas,” and the intelligence community “gives little indication” that it is mobilizing quickly enough to confront looming threats.

The pointed criticism provides a glimpse of the mood of key lawmakers as the intelligence community faces considerable scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

The House and Senate intelligence committees are in the midst of a broad investigation of intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11. And a House subcommittee last week released a report criticizing the CIA and other agencies for failing to devote adequate resources to tracking Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations before last September’s deadly attacks.

The authorization bill scheduled for debate today echoes that complaint, saying top intelligence officials “did not take into account sufficiently the complexity and importance of the growing threat from terrorism associated with Islamic fundamentalism.”

The criticism comes at a time when lawmakers appear inclined to lavish the nation’s spy agencies with billions of dollars in additional funding but are showing growing impatience with the pace at which the CIA and other agencies are responding to calls for reform.

“There really is going to need to be major progress soon,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), a member of the House committee. She said members are particularly concerned that shortcomings identified repeatedly in recent years, including the shortage of analysts and linguists, haven’t been adequately addressed.

“It’s frustrating,” she said. “We’re using [the authorization bill] as leverage to send some messages. I don’t think when next year comes around there’s going to be any interest in starting over [addressing] the linguist problem.”

Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, was not available for comment.

The authorization bill is the first intelligence spending bill to be drafted since September’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The bill is essentially a spending plan for spy agencies for the coming fiscal year.

The White House has requested a substantial increase in funding for intelligence agencies next year, according to the report.

Actual budget figures are classified, but spending on the nation’s 13 spy agencies is believed to hover in the range of $30 billion to $35 billion.

While noting that it supports the White House’s funding request, the committee made clear in its attached report that it has significant concerns about the way the money might be spent.

The spy community has shown little indication, the report says, “of being prepared to produce intelligence capabilities that can address the national security demands of the future.”

Indeed, the report finds serious flaws with ongoing operations in the war on terrorism. Committee members who made several trips to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where Al Qaeda prisoners are being interrogated by the CIA and the FBI, found “problems that have plagued the intelligence community writ large over a number of years.”

In particular, they pointed to shortages of linguists, interrogators and intelligence officers. Interagency cooperation has also “been an issue,” the report says.

Lawmakers were left with the impression, the report says, that the operation was considered a “low priority” for leaders of the intelligence community, even though the prisoners at Guantanamo are said to be among the highest-ranking Al Qaeda operatives captured in the war in Afghanistan.

Harman said there is some evidence that the operation at Guantanamo has improved since committee members visited the facility in the spring and that it is “contributing now in a substantial way” to counterterrorism efforts.

The report singles out the National Security Agency, responsible for intercepting electronic communication around the globe, for wasting money trying to develop technology already available from industry. The NSA has faced mounting criticism in recent years for falling behind technologically.

The report criticizes Pentagon management of a program to develop unmanned airplanes.

More broadly, the House committee complains that the CIA and other agencies have not done enough to shore up their analytical capabilities, meaning the amount of information collected vastly outstrips the agencies’ ability to make sense of it.

The bill makes recommendations to address these problems. One calls for an “Intelligence Community Language University” to provide advanced training.