TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Intelligence Funding and the War on Terror

  The overall intelligence budget may be a bit less “black” than supposed.

• Averting Casualty Aversion

  Operation Anaconda has seen the heaviest ground fighting in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. As such, it poses perhaps the first real test of American perseverance in the face of mounting U.S. casualties. This is a test that must be passed. For in war the ability to sustain casualties is as important as the ability to inflict them.

• National Public Radio's "The Connection" Interviews CDI President Bruce G. Blair

  In a wide-ranging interview on U.S. nuclear policy and the Bush administration's new Nuclear Posture Review, CDI President Bruce G. Blair argues the time may be coming to move more aggressively toward a nuclear free world.

• The Current Status of Missile Defense Programs

  Briefing by CDI Senior Advisor Philip E. Coyle, former Director of Operational Test & Evaluation at the Pentagon.

• In the Spotlight: Laskar Jihad

  Indonesian Islamic militant group Laskar Jihad, already notorious for unrelenting attacks on Christians on the islands of Moluccas and Sulawesi, is now being scrutinized for possible links to other international terrorist organizations -- including al Qaeda.

• CDI's "Briefing Room"

  News updates on security issues from around the world.

• This Week on America’s Defense Monitor: "Ridding the World of Landmines"

Intelligence Funding and the War on Terror
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org

Enron and the costs of the Afghanistan military campaign notwithstanding, the big money story so far this year is the increased money flowing to the Department of Defense and the myriad agencies (including defense) that have tied programs to homeland security.

Counting the defense nuclear activities of the Department of Energy, President Bush’s defense request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 comes out at $396 billion, an overall 14 percent jump from 2002 and 12 percent after inflation adjustments.

Homeland Security saw its FY2003 request almost double over the 2002 request, going from $19.5 billion to $37.7 billion. Even counting monies from the Emergency Response Fund targeted to homeland security ($9.8 billion) for FY2002 still leaves a gap of 29.3 percent between the two years.

Meanwhile, the increases for the thirteen agencies and offices that comprise the U.S. intelligence community have gone largely unnoticed – perhaps because, unlike defense and homeland security, they are secret. Only in 1997 and 1998 was the veil lifted. In those years, the Director of Central Intelligence (and head of the Central Intelligence Agency) publicly informed Congress that total U.S. intelligence spending for those years was $26.6 and $26.7 billion, respectively.

Despite the re-imposition of secrecy about the intelligence budget, analysts and reporters have been able to estimate its inexorable rise.[1] In 1998, Tim Weiner, a reporter for the New York Times, noted that intelligence would receive "the largest spending increase…in 15 years." Conservative estimates placed the community’s budget request at $27-$28 billion, not including classification costs.[2]

Over the next few years, estimated increases were modest (see chart). There was much talk of reform, of strengthening the DCI’s oversight of the community, even of putting Pentagon agencies -- the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), and the National Security Agency (NSA) -- under the DCI. But lapses in the agencies -- the CIA's Aldrich Ames, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade attributed to outdated information, congressional displeasure with the pace of modernization at NSA and NIMA, and the FBI’s Robert Hannsen -- seemed somehow to scuttle major systemic reforms. More puzzling was the perception (if not the fact) that no one was held accountable for these missteps. And funds were never cut as an incentive to improve performance.

Even September 11 had a mixed effect. More money -- $1.5 billion -- was immediately poured into intelligence and "situational awareness." Under the "U.S. Patriot Act" passed in October, 2001, the FBI was directed to reorient its activities from law enforcement to domestic anti-terrorist intelligence activities. The CIA was given broad powers to act overseas, while at home its reach was expanded to include involvement in FBI surveillance operations and in the tracking of terrorist financial activities by the Treasury Department[3] -- this for an agency that, until his retirement at the end of the 106th Congress in 2000, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan advocated closing completely.

In the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2002, the conference committee highlighted four priorities: (1) revitalizing the National Security Agency (NSA); (2) correcting deficiencies in human intelligence; (3) addressing the imbalance between intelligence collection and analysis; and (4) rebuilding a robust research and development program.[4]

Some analysts believe $41 billion for the FY2003 request is too high. However, when it comes to the intelligence budget, Congress is less a watchdog and more of an advocate. (Most often it bears down on the intelligence community when there is an abuse of power or violations of law.) Moreover, in addition to Rep. Jerry Lewis' (R-CA) comment on the percent increase in the intelligence proposal from FY2002 to FY2003[5], conferees made three observations in the FY2002 bill that point to their receptivity to a large increase in FY2003.

• a requirement to design and procure "the appropriate capabilities for technical collection to replace our aging systems";

• the "substantial increase" in the FY2002 budget for funds for National Foreign Intelligence programs, adding: "This authorization bill further enhances that investment"; and

• the belief of the conferees "that this authorization is only the beginning of what must be a substantial investment if the nation is to have the intelligence capabilities required to protect national security and to provide the first line of defense against terrorism and other transnational issues."[6]

• 1998 – Richard Stubbing, "Improving the Output of Intelligence," in Craig Eisendrath (ed.), National Insecurity: U.S. Intelligence After the Cold War. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000 (pp. 174 and 188). (A Project of The Center for International Policy.)
• 1999 – "Secret Budget Figures Estimated," Defense Week, Jun. 18, 2001 (p. 3); Tom Raum, "CIA Budget Disclosure Considered," Associated Press, Nov. 2, 1999.
• 2000 – Glenn Zorpette, "Making Intelligence Smarter," IEEE Spectrum, Jan. 2002 (pp. 38-43); "Secret Budget Figures Estimated," Defense Week, Jun. 18, 2001 (p. 3); "Senate Boosts Fnding for Intelligence," Washington Post, Nov. 20, 1999 (p. A10).
• 2001 – Glenn Zorpette, "Making Intelligence Smarter," IEEE Spectrum, Jan. 2002 (pp. 38-43); "Secret Budget Figures Estimated," Defense Week, Jun. 18, 2001 (p. 3).
• 2002 – "CIA Gets Increase For War on Terror," The Washington Times (AP), Feb. 6, 2002 (p. 8);
• 2003 – Tony Capaccio, "Pentagon Wants to Add $6 Bln For Intelligence Over Five Years," Bloomberg.com, Jan. 18, 2002; "CIA Gets Increase For War on Terror," The Washington Times (AP), Feb. 6, 2002 (p. 8); "Rep. Lewis remains cautious on Air Force tanker lease," Aerospace Daily, Feb.11, 2002 (p. 5).

CIA – Central Intelligence Agency
DIA – Defense Intelligence Agency
NIMA – National Imagery and Mapping Agency
DARO – Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office
NRO – National Reconnaissance Office
NSA – National Security Agency
TIARA – Tactical Intelligence And Related Activities

ENDNOTES

1. Some specific dollar amounts are routinely revealed. For FY2001 and FY2002, Congress set aside $27 million and $44 million, respectively, for the National Drug Intelligence Center in the Department of Justice. In the same years, $216 million and $212 million were allocated for the CIA’s Retirement and Disability Fund (Congressional Record, October 2, 2000 (p. S9578) and Conference Report 107-328). “Community Management” received $145 million in FY2002 in the Intelligence Appropriations Act for FY2002 (Public Law 107-108).

The FBI’s budget is public information, and the request is the subject of congressional hearings as part of the Commerce, State, and Justice appropriations act (for FY2002, Public Law 107-77).

Occasionally, funding for special projects becomes known. In the DoD Appropriations Act for FY2002, the House provided the Director of Central Intelligence with $451 million to create a Counter-Terrorism and Operational Response Transfer Fund. In the final bill this line disappeared but was apparently subsumed in Chapter 3, Sec. 303 dealing with transfers of funds for intelligence purposes from the $1.5 billion allocation for the Defense Emergency Response Fund. (Public Law 107-117).

A few specific dollar additions to intelligence budgets have been reported: $484 million for NRO, $245 million for “special Navy activities” (communications intercept programs), and $51 million to begin development of a replacement for the USAF’s “Cobra Judy” seaborne missile trajectory tracking system. In Tony Capaccio, “Pentagon Wants to Add $6 Bln For Intelligence Over Five Years,” Bloomberg.com, Jan. 18, 2002.

2. Craig Eisendrath, “U.S. Intelligence After the Cold War: A Program for Reform,” The Center for International Policy.

3. Jim McGee, “An Intelligence Giant in the Making,” The Washington Post, Nov. 4, 2001 (p. A4).

4. House Conference Report 107-328 on the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2002 (H.R. 2883), December 6, 2001. Rebuilding the NSA was the top priority in the FY2001 budget. The conferees singled out the CIA to correct deficiencies in human intelligence collection by re-evaluating its agent recruitment guidelines so that “a new balance [can] be struck between potential gain and risk, a balance that recognizes concerns about egregious human rights behavior and law breaking.” Conferees lamented the 1990s decline in budgets for analytical tasks, and decried the use of research funds as “bill-payers” for other requirements.

5. Tony Capaccio, “Pentagon Wants to Add $6 Bln For Intelligence Over Five Years,” Bloomberg.com, Jan. 18, 2002. Representative Lewis chairs the Subcommittee on Defense of the House Appropriations Committee.

6. House Conference Report 107-328.

7. The FY1998-2002 dollar totals are found in the sources indicated for each year. The FY2003 dollar total is derived from the percentage increase over the FY2002 total.

8. Capaccio notes that "analysts estimate the Defense Department will allocate $12 billion to $15 billion" for military intelligence, which makes sense only in the context of those agencies directly supporting military intelligence: service intelligence organizations, (mostly in the TIARA program), DIA, and perhaps NIMA.

9. The 1998 figure is for counterintelligence only. Other years reflect the entire FBI budget.

10. If the $1.5 billion added in for intelligence and “situational awareness” as a result of Sept. 11 is considered a one-time addition, the base total for FY2002 would fall from $33 billion to $31.5 billion, which would produce the lower figure for FY2003. This would accord with a Defense News report by Frank Tiboni, “Intel Budget Likely to Stay Flat Despite Needs,” Oct. 15-21, 2001 (p.38).

Averting Casualty Aversion
Mark Burgess, Research Assistant, mburgess@cdi.org

It is small comfort to the loved ones of those who have fallen during the ongoing military campaign and in no way diminishes their loss, however, to date, U.S. casualties in Afghanistan have been mercifully low. Partly, this is what makes the Operation Anaconda - the heaviest ground fighting of the war to date -- so noteworthy. As numerous news reports have noted, it serves as a reminder that there is indeed a war on, and that al Quaeda and its Taliban cohorts in Afghanistan are not yet totally defeated.

Of course, for weeks Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others, have been saying just that. Furthermore, allied casualties suffered during Anaconda may have implications far beyond this operation and the current phase of the war against terrorism.

This is especially true with regard to casualty aversion -- a phenomenon the United States has been accused of being preoccupied with to a dangerous degree. America’s experience in the Vietnam War is often cited as causing this fear. It also appeared to grow significantly after the end of the Cold War, with the increasing demands for humanitarian interventions that marked much of the following decade clashing with the growing phobia of military casualties apparent in many countries.

Some see this trend as inherent in advanced high-income/ low birth rate societies. According to a 1999 article [http://www.iiss.org/pub/sursum99.asp#99-1] by Ed Luttwak, a corollary of such casualty aversion is that a country’s "theoretical combat potential [...] is no longer a useful measure of their actual military strength, except in the improbable eventuality of defensive war against invasion." Such logic is persuasive given such examples as America’s swift about-face in Somalia almost 10 years ago after suffering relatively few casualties.

However it would be a mistake to draw too many analogies between events in Mogadishu in 1993 and those at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon almost eight years later. The attacks on Sept. 11, while not an invasion in the sense of a foreign enemy seizing U.S. territory, were invasive of American society at a fundamental level. The current war against terrorism is also defensive in that it is a reaction to these attacks. Given this, even if casualty aversion could be definitively detected in American societal attitudes towards previous military endeavors, it does not follow that the current conflict will share this characteristic. As the al Quaeda fugitives currently surrounded in the Shahi Kot mountains of Afghanistan’s Paktia province are finding out, the Sept. 11 attacks provoked a sense of anger and determination among Americans that will surely far outweigh any tendency toward casualty aversion on the part of U.S. society as a whole.

Moreover, another recent American study, carried out by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies [http://www.poli.duke.edu/civmil/index.html] suggests that the fear of casualties is greatest, not among the U.S. public, politicians or the armed forces generally, but among military chiefs seeking a "zero defect" level of error in operations. This mentality could prove as serious as adverse public opinion, particularly if those commanding such operations allow themselves to be influenced by the sometimes alarmist media reports of what are regrettable but inevitable casualties. Given that they have risen through the ranks of a demanding meritocracy it would be understandable if some military chiefs felt themselves under strong pressure for the units under their command not to suffer casualties. Indeed, along with other factors such as domestic political constraints, technological advances in weaponry, and the ever-improving training and capabilities of the U.S. armed forces, any casualty aversion on the part of their commanders has no doubt played a part in lowering the number of Americans killed in combat over the years. These falling numbers are shown in the following table:

Source: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96summer/eiken.htm

The usefulness of comparing the casualty figures of such vastly different operations may appear questionable. However, these declining casualty rates are arguably illustrative of the correspondingly lowering casualty threshold facing successive generations of U.S. military leaders.

To date, those tasked with commanding America’s armed forces in the current war against terrorism have tolerated the casualties inflicted upon their charges with the necessary fortitude. The Bush administration seems equally committed, with the president himself saying that such casualties only strengthened the U.S. determination to persevere. Also, a recent poll points to the America public’s continuing acceptance that more U.S. casualties will be inevitable. Operation Anaconda is the first real (if relatively small) test of such resolve.

Moreover, given the nature and scale of the acts perpetrated against America six months ago, it appears likely that any future U.S. deaths will bolster the determination and resolution of the country’s military and political leaders as well as American public opinion. If the United States is to prevail in the current war such a reaction is needed. Only then will any fear of sustaining military casualties be put into context. For, while such concerns are healthy and necessary, they must be tempered with the determination to fulfill the task at hand, and the sober realization that this will most likely cost much more in blood and treasure. For the fact remains that in war a willingness and ability to suffer casualties is as critical as the willingness and ability to inflict them.

CDI’s "Briefing Room"

Existing Law Could Thwart Development of "Mini-nukes" -- According to Congressional Quarterly’s Daily Monitor (March 14, 2002), a 1993 law may block plans by the Bush Administration to develop a new generation of smaller "bunker buster" nuclear weapons intended to defeat underground hardened military facilities. Provisions of the 1994 Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 103-160) prohibit the Defense Department from researching or developing "low-yield" nuclear weapons – defined as those producing a blast less than or equal to 5,000 tons of TNT (five kilotons).

First Armed UAV Squadron Formed -- The Air Force has "stood up" its first squadron of armed Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The squadron, designated the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron, is the third Predator squadron overall, and will be the first permanently equipped with aircraft capable of firing the laser-guided Hellfire air to ground missile. Individual armed Predators have already engaged ground targets in Afghanistan. The new squadron will have five Predator systems, each consisting of a ground control station, a satellite link communications suite, and four air vehicles.

Pentagon Looking At V-22 Alternatives -- The Pentagon is looking at alternatives in case the Navy’s troubled V-22 tiltrotor aircraft program is terminated, according to E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, the undersecretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Mr. Aldridge said that possible alternatives include three Sikorsky helicopters, the UH-60, S-92 and an upgraded CH-53, as well as the European-made AugustaWestland EH-101.

Defense Industry Consolidation Has Saved Money -- The spat of mergers and acquisitions that occurred within the U.S. defense industry during the mid- to late 1990s is saving the Pentagon money, according to the Defense Department. According to Suzanne Patrick, deputy undersecretary for industrial policy, recent mergers, which reduced the number of top defense companies from 51 to four, have generated cost savings of $6.4 billion through the end of 2001.

Quotation of the Week -- "In the heat of debate, some [members of Congress] went so far as to insinuate that any questioning of a wartime president is divisive and unpatriotic. What dangerous nonsense this is…To question is not to accuse or to condemn. To question is to seek the truth," Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), New York Times op-ed, March 12, 2002.

This Week on America’s Defense Monitor: "Ridding the World of Landmines"

Forty countries have ratified the Ottawa Treaty to ban antipersonnel land mines so the treaty will be law in early 1999. The United States, so far has refused to even sign the treaty, let alone make it law. Paradoxically, the U.S. reserves the right to lay mines anywhere, even as it supports mine removal and humanitarian relief for the victims of mine warfare.

Airs in Washington, DC on Sunday, March 10 at 10:30 a.m, on Channel 32.
Airs in NYC on Saturday, March 16 at 7:00 a.m. on Channel 13.

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