U.S. national intelligence budget is $60 billion

[Douglas Caddy]

June 03, 2007

Exclusive: Office of Nation's Top Spy Inadvertently Reveals Key to Classified National Intel Budget

by Dr. R. J. Hill house

http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_w...sive_offic.html

In a holdover from the Cold War when the number really did matter to national security, the size of the US national intelligence budget remains one of the government's most closely guarded secrets. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the highest intelligence agency in the country that oversees all federal intelligence agencies, appears to have inadvertently released the keys to that number in an unclassified PowerPoint presentation now posted on the website of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). By reverse engineering the numbers in an underlying data element embedded in the presentation, it seems that the total budget of the 16 US intelligence agencies in fiscal year 2005 was $60 billion, almost 25% higher than previously believed.

In the presentation originally made to a DIA conference in Colorado on May 14, Terri Everett, an Office of the Director of National Intelligence senior procurement executive, revealed that 70% of the total Intelligence Community budget is spent on contractors. (This was reported by Tim Shorrock on Salon.com.) Everett also included a slide depicting the trend of award dollars to contractors by the Intelligence Community from fiscal year 95 through a partial year of fiscal year 06 (i.e. through August 31st of FY06.) Because these figures are classified, a scale of the total number of award dollars was omitted from the Y-axis of the bar chart. The PowerPoint presentation was first obtained by Shorrock for Salon.com and it was later posted on the DIA's website where I downloaded it. Although it would not have been visible to the conference attendees, the data underlying the bar graph--the total amount of Intelligence Community funds spent on contractors--is readily available in the actual presentation. By double clicking on the bar chart, a small spreadsheet with the raw classified data appears:

http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_w...sive_offic.html

(To view this spreadsheet in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's actual PowerPoint presentation, make sure you are opening the presentation in the PowerPoint program and not a web browser, view slide #11 and, depending upon your version of PowerPoint, making sure you're not on the 9/11 image object double-click on the chart or right click on it and choose Chart Object/Open.)

Here are the dollar amounts in tens of millions spent by the US Intelligence Community on contractors, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as embedded in the spreadsheet data underlying the bar graph (pictured above):

http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_w...sive_offic.html

Note: FY06 data as of 31 August. (The numbers are in tens of millions of dollars, although this is not noted, but it is previously known that the amount spent on contracts is a double-digit billion plus dollar figure.)

This 70% of the Intelligence Community budget spent on contractors most likely includes all Intelligence Community direct acquisitions from contractors, including satellites and other very expensive hardware programs as well as more mundane supplies in addition to contracted services--(e.g. "green badgers" or staff contracted to the CIA.) The remaining 30% of the Intelligence Community budget most likely includes both personnel (i.e., civilian federal employee) and as well as intergovernmental operations and maintenance and supplies (e.g. payments by some Intelligence Community elements to GSA to lease office space and acquire government pens and office supplies.) By taking the 70% of the intelligence community budget that now goes to contractors in conjunction with the actual dollars spent on contractors, it is possible to reverse-engineer the budget using simple algebra.

This top line $60 billion figure is 25% above the estimated $48 billion budget for FY 08. It is quite probable that this total figure was not even known by the government until recently. Greater control and oversight of the Intelligence Community budget was a hallmark of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 that created the position of the Director of National Intelligence and gave it the mandate to get an overview of the entire amount spent on intelligence government-wide. To this end, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has recently gathered all parts of the previously fragmented Intelligence Community budget together for the first time as part of its Intelligence Resource Information System (IRIS). In the report from the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence released last Thursday, the committee praised the Office of the Director of Intelligence for creating a "single budget system called the Intelligence Resource Information System." It also recognizes their efforts in helping create what "will be used for further inquiry by the Committee’s budget and audit staffs and will be a baseline that allows the Congress and DNI to derive trend data from future reports."

Earlier, lower estimates were most likely only included what fell directly under the Director of Central Intelligence and which would have omitted parts of NSA, NRO. A total Intelligence Community number, with the Intelligence Community as defined by 50 U.S.C. 401a(4), would also now include the various military intelligence services (e.g. Army Intel, Navy Intel, etc.), each with its respective weapon technology intelligence exploitation shop. A total budget would also include a large portion of the budget of the Department of Homeland Security which was previously fragment across multiple government agencies. A $60 billion government-wide Intelligence Community budget is not at all out of line with the post 9/11 organizational reality. It seems that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is just now getting a clear picture of the fragmented intelligence community budget.

The overall Intelligence Community budget has long been a well kept secret and this classification did once have relevance when a large shift in the budget could have indicated to the Soviets an addition or cancellation of a major defense program. Now that our greatest adversaries are stateless entities that run on a shoestring budget and strike soft targets, signals of changes in high-dollar defense systems hardly seem worth hiding. Nonetheless, the federal government has frequently gone to court to keep the amount of the national intelligence budget secret. Only the budgets for 1963, 1997 and 1998 have been officially revealed, largely in response to FOIA lawsuits. And in 2005 a US News reporter picked up an apparent slip of the tongue by an official of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence at a conference when it was stated the national intel budget was $44 billion, but it was not clear which fiscal year this was in reference to and the DNI refused to confirm if the figure was accurate or the release accidental. At this time, they would not have had total dollar figures through the new IRIS system. But with such a staggering budget, it does seem that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would be well advised to find some room in the Intelligence Community budget for a staff training on PowerPoint and OPSEC.

[John Geraghty]

I just wanted to give this topic a bump, as it has received only 9 views to date. This disclosure is very important, in fact I'm surprised that a lot more fuss was not made of it on the forum. This $60 billion accounts for the funding received via the tax payer, but this figure is likely to grow by a huge amount when the drug trade is taken into account.

Is this figure included in the military budget or is it undisclosed as a seperate matter? I would assume that military intelligence and the CIA draw cash from different pots.

Edited June 12, 2007 by John Geraghty

[William Kelly]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for bringing this out.

I remember when we were soliciting support for the JFK Act and other issues, breaking into teams of three people and hitting different Congressional office buildings, going from office to office, few actual members of Congress bothered to actually talk with us.

Ralph Thompson, the Tennesse Republican movie actor now running for President, let us in, listened to our spiel and then asked if we could get Oliver Stone to audition him for his next movie.

Another who actually invited us in and listened to us was Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, who we didn't know at the time but have since become very close to.

When you walked into her office there was a big chart on the wall that gave a breakdown on the amount of money awarded to two government departments/agencies - the Department of Defense and Health, Educaiton and Welfare.

One was small, the other off the chart.

So there was no missunderstanding where Cynthia McKinney stood when it comes to allocations of the federal budget.

That's one of the reasons why the National Democratic Party traitors supported her primary opponent with hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ensured she would lose her vote on the defense appropriations committee, but also didn't have the opportunity to question the Secretary of Defense when he testified before her.

Just as the WWII era War Department became the Orwellian Department of Defense, McKinney supported the creation of a Peace Department within the federal government, which would be devoted to solving political disputes without the use of force, something th DOD could not comprehend, or afford, as it would be out of a job.

BK

Edited June 12, 2007 by William Kelly

[Michael Hogan]

......This $60 billion [intel budget] accounts for the funding received via the tax payer, but this figure is likely to grow by a huge amount when the drug trade is taken into account.

Is this figure included in the military budget or is it undisclosed as a seperate matter? I would assume that military intelligence and the CIA draw cash from different pots.

Sterling Seagrave makes a compelling case that many of the intelligence agencies made use of enormous stockpiles of gold that were plundered post-WWII for their blackest ops.

[Guest David Guyatt]

......This $60 billion [intel budget] accounts for the funding received via the tax payer, but this figure is likely to grow by a huge amount when the drug trade is taken into account.

Is this figure included in the military budget or is it undisclosed as a seperate matter? I would assume that military intelligence and the CIA draw cash from different pots.

Sterling Seagrave makes a compelling case that many of the intelligence agencies made use of enormous stockpiles of gold that were plundered post-WWII for their blackest ops.

Besides the WWII plunder, intell agencies have access to enormous black funds via all sorts of illegal trade and other manipulations, including (but not limited to) revenue from the global drugs trade, arms sales (stolen from US domestic stockpiles warehoused in national armouries) vast stock and financial market manipulations, blood diamond transactions. In fact anything that can turn a quick and bountiful buck will do -- and often does.

David

[Douglas Caddy]

......This $60 billion [intel budget] accounts for the funding received via the tax payer, but this figure is likely to grow by a huge amount when the drug trade is taken into account.

Is this figure included in the military budget or is it undisclosed as a seperate matter? I would assume that military intelligence and the CIA draw cash from different pots.

Sterling Seagrave makes a compelling case that many of the intelligence agencies made use of enormous stockpiles of gold that were plundered post-WWII for their blackest ops.

Besides the WWII plunder, intell agencies have access to enormous black funds via all sorts of illegal trade and other manipulations, including (but not limited to) revenue from the global drugs trade, arms sales (stolen from US domestic stockpiles warehoused in national armouries) vast stock and financial market manipulations, blood diamond transactions. In fact anything that can turn a quick and bountiful buck will do -- and often does.

David

June 12, 2007

The Biggest Scam in the World

Closing Down the Tax Haven Racket

By RALPH NADER

www.counterpunch.org

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader06122007.html

Lucy Komisar of the Tax Justice Network-USA (taxjustice-usa.org) spoke at the Conference on Taming the Giant Corporation last week about "Closing Down the Tax Haven Racket." Her words were so compelling that the rest of this column is devoted to excerpts from her presentation:

"The tax haven racket is the biggest scam in the world. It's run by the international banks with the cooperation of the world's financial powers for the benefit of corporations and the mega-rich. [M]ost Americans, including progressive activist Americans, don't know what I'm going to tell you. And that's part of the problem.

"Tax havens, also known as offshore financial centers, are places that operate secret bank accounts and shell companies that hide the names of real owners from tax authorities and law enforcement. They use nominees, front men. Sometimes offshore incorporation companies set up the shells. Sometimes the banks do it. Often someone will use a shell company in one jurisdiction that owns a shell in another jurisdiction that owns a bank account in a third. That's called layering. No one can follow the paper trial.

"Offshore is where most of the world's drug money is laundered, estimated at up to $500 billion a year, more than the total income of the world's poorest 20 percent. Perhaps another $500 billion comes from fraud and corruption.

"Those figures fit with [international Monetary Fund] numbers that as much as $1.5 trillion of illicit money is laundered annually, equal to two to five percent of global economic output.

"Wall Street wants this money. The markets would hurt, even shrivel without that cash. That's why Robert Rubin as Treasury Secretary had a policy, as Joseph Stiglitz told me, not to do anything that would stop the free flow of money into the US. He was not interested in stopping money laundering because the laundered funds ended up in Wall [street], maybe in Goldman Sachs where he had worked, or Citibank, where he would work.

"Attempts to find laundered funds are usually dismal failures. According to Interpol, $3 billion in dirty money has been seized in 20 years of struggle against money laundering -- about the amount laundered in three days.

"The other major purpose of offshore is for tax evasion, estimated to reach another $500 billion a year.

"That's how corporations and the rich have opted out of the tax system.

"They have sophisticated mechanisms. There's transfer pricing. A company sets up a trading company offshore, sells its widgets there for under market price, the trading company sells it for market price, the profits are offshore, not where they really were generated.

"Two American professors, using customs data, examined the impact of over-invoiced imports and under-invoiced exports for 2001. Would you buy plastic buckets from the Czech Republic for $973 each, tissues from China at $1874 a pound, a cotton dishtowel from Pakistan for $154, and tweezers from Japan at $4,896 each!

"U.S. companies, at least on paper, were getting very little for their exported products. If you were in business, would you sell bus and truck tires to Britain for $11.74 each, color video monitors to Pakistan for $21.90, and prefabricated buildings to Trinidad for $1.20 a unit.

"Comparing all claimed export and import prices to real world prices, the professors figured the 2001 U.S. tax loss at $53.1 billion.

"Or a company sets up subsidiaries in tax havens  to "own" logos or intellectual property. Like Microsoft does in Ireland, transferring software that was made in America, that benefited by work done by Americans, to Ireland so Microsoft can pay taxes there (at 11%) instead of here (at 35%). Why is Ireland getting the benefit of American-created software? It's legal. We need to change the law.

"When logos are offshore, the company pays royalties to use the logo and deducts the amount as expenses. But the payments are not taxed or are taxed minimally offshore where they are moved. When Cheney ran Halliburton, it increased its offshore subsidiaries from 9 to at least 44.

"Half of world trade is between various parts of the same corporations. Experts believe that as much as half the world's capital flows through offshore centers. The totals held offshore include 31 percent of the net profits of U.S. multinationals.

"The whole collection of tax scams is why between 1989 and 1995, of US and multi-national corporations operating in the United States, with assets of at least $250 million or sales of at least $50 million, nearly two-thirds paid no U.S. income tax.

"In 1996-2000, Goodyear's profits were $442 million, but it paid no taxes and got a $23-million rebate. Colgate-Palmolive made $1.6 billion and got back $21 million. Other companies that got rebates in 1998 included Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Pfizer, J.P. Morgan, MCI Worldcom, General Motors, Phillips Petroleum and Northrop Grumman. Microsoft reported $12.3 billion U.S income in 1999 and paid zero federal taxes. (In two recent years, Microsoft paid only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion pretax U.S. profits.)

"During the 1950s, U.S. corporations accounted for 28 percent of federal revenues. Now, corporations represent just 11 percent.

"Those unpaid taxes can buy a lot of politicians and power. When Nixon needed money to pay the Watergate burglars, he got it from some corporate offshore bank accounts.

"The system has given the big banks and corporations and the super-rich mountains of hidden cash they use to control our political systems.

"The offshore system must be dismantled.

"So why isn't the progressive movement doing something about this? This is a case where some people in Congress are ahead of the activists. There are a handful of Democrats like Senators Levin (MI), Dorgan (ND) and Conrad (ND), like Rep. Doggett (TX), who are speaking out and introducing legislation. But there is no movement behind them. And while Obama has signed onto the Levin Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, Clinton, Biden and Dodd have not."

Ms. Komisar spreads out the proposed strategies at taxjustice-usa.org. One or more are structured so that you can play a part in furthering them toward adoption.

As she concluded: "Let's get the country to tell the corporations that the taxes they are dodging is our money."

[Guest David Guyatt]

I met Lucy Komisar a few years ago in London at her request and was surprised when she arrived in the company of an American "professor" - the rugged military sort who wore a trenchcoat. There appeared to be now real point to her meeting and after taking a snapshot of me, she was off at the urging of her stocky companion. Very puzzling, I thought.

Then later I was told that Lucy was a media asset who worked for the CIA and was involved, in all things, of devious moves with Ernest Backes of "Revelation$" fame in a German BND operation (Ernest, who I also know btw, has admited working for BND) centred around Yukos oil. Ditto, it seems the Clearstream story which Ernest originated and which led to the removal of the Chairman of Cedel/Clearstream, allowing a German takeover by Deutsche Bank. And Deutsche Bank being very pally with the investment bank Alex Brown, where CIA "consiglieri" Buzzy Krongard worked for DCI George Tenet (Krongard engineered the merger between Alex Brown and Bankers Trust that was later bought out by Deutsche Bank - confusing isn't it).

I have quite a lot of background material on this and I also know that the charges against Lucy Komisar and Ernest Backes about their intelligence involvement were published in a German newspaper series: "Von Clearstream bis Yukos" in the SAAR - ECHO.