PURELY POLITICAL
Is it wise or foolish to spend so much on intelligence, especially when most of it is faulty?
Does the U.S. Really Need So Many “Intelligence” Agencies?
As a modern economy and putative leader of Western Civilization, the U.S.A. needs a steady and reliable way of collecting intelligence from sources both domestic and international.
No one disputes that.
However, a realistic question to ask is: How much intelligence collecting is needed, how much is too much, and has that intelligence proven its worth?
In other words, what have the dozen-and-a-half full-blown intelligence agencies (18 and counting) done for us lately?
Ah, let’s see: colluded with mass media and social media en masse to prevent the circulation of the New York Post’s absolutely accurate reportage of the discovery and contents of presidential contender and 50-year-political hack Joe Biden’s drug-addled son Hunter’s abandoned laptop computer.
Oh, and let’s not forget the “51 intelligence professionals” who warned one and all that the 100% factually accurate New York Post/Miranda Devine Hunter laptop story “had all the earmarks” of Russian disinformation.
Not to mention the intelligence community’s failure to predict or prevent 9/11, or its inability to have accurately assessed the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction purportedly hoarded and developed by Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Or, more recently, the failure to predict and possibly prevent Russia’s incursions into Crimea and then Ukraine.
But, hey, we all make mistakes.
The very first officially recognized intelligence agency created by the United States (unofficial intelligence gathering has always been a governmental occupation) was authorized nearly 100 years after the 1788 ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In 1882, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was created as a response to the needs of the U.S. Navy to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of other navies. This was extremely helpful a decade later in preparing for the pending conflict with Spain and its possessions.
Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI) followed in 1915 in response to threats to U.S. shipping and U.S. ports in the advent of The Great War or what became better known as World War I.
The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was created in 1945 as World War II was ending and new (and possibly unknown) dangers lurked in a post-war world. Its mission was to supply all-source civilian intelligence to the U.S. State Department in support of its diplomatic missions around the world. Up until then, all intelligence agencies had been under military supervision.
Following close behind INR came the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), an off-shoot of the war-time intelligence gatherers at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), in 1947. The CIA was formed to act independently from INR and its State Department overseers.
In 1948, the Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) (16AF) was launched to handle defense intelligence.
The National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Security Service (CSS), under control of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), was created in 1952 as the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union heated up.
In 1961, the Department of Defense launched the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), in response to the Soviet successes in its satellite and space programs. During that same year, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was also approved. Both came under the command of DOD (Department of Defense).
In 1977, the U.S. Army decided it needed its own Military Intelligence Corps (MIC), though it too came under the auspices of DOD.
Also in 1977, the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI) under the command of the Department of Energy (DOE) appeared.
Not to be outdone or left out, Marine Corps Intelligence (MCI) was authorized the following year (1978).
In 1996, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) was created, under the DOD.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury discovered a need for its own intelligence agency and in 2004 the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) was funded for the U.S. Treasury.
In the wake of 9/11/2001, the FBI got its own intelligence agency, overseen by the Department of Justice (DOJ) called the Intelligence Branch (IB).
The Office of National Security Intelligence (ONSI), under the auspices of the Drug Enforcement Administration, also overseen by DOJ, was created in 2006.
In 2007, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved the creation of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A).
And most recently, in 2020, the newly created (by the Trump Administration) U.S. Space Force got its own National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC).
What does all this intelligence gathering cost?
Well, if you believe governmental figures (and who doesn’t?), the approved budget for U.S. Intelligence amounted to $65.7 billion in budget year 2022. That is in addition to whatever the Defense Department allocates to Military Intelligence gathering.
The overall intelligence-gathering figure is probably closing in on $100 billion per year.
No one really knows where the money goes because to detail that spending “could harm national security,” says Mike McConnell, a former Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The money is spent on everything from salaries (100,000-plus personnel), satellite programs, aircraft, various weapons, electronic sensors, analysis, spies, counter-spies, travel, computers, software, and, well, lots of stuff, including access to billions in actual cash (such as the pallets of U.S. dollars, euros, Swiss francs, and British pounds (approximately $1.4 billion) loaded onto private aircraft and shipped off to Iran in the cover of darkness to solidify the Obama-era Nuclear Initiative).
In case you are worried there is no “oversight” with the way that money is spent and whether it is being spent judiciously or not, you should know that the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the Joint Intelligence Community Council, the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Management and Budget are assigned the oversight tasks. Congressional Oversight is performed by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House and by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the Senate. Oh, and the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee keep watch on the intelligence agencies run by the Department of Defense.
Naturally, many of the budgetary allocations are shrouded in secrecy even from those “oversight” committees, for “national security concerns.”
And there you have it.
Whew!
Good thing, right?
Feel safer now?
I don’t, but hey, that’s just me!
Hey Jim, the U.S. Army has been in the intelligence gathering business since its founding in 1776. See Wikipedia's Military Intelligence Corps (United States Army). Also, from personal experience, I was a Special Agent for Military Intelligence from 1965-1968, long before 1977. Assigned to the 502nd Military Intelligence (MI) Battalion in Korea and the 113th MI Group in St. Louis. I was trained as an investigative agent at Ft. Holabird, Maryland. Counter espionage and counter sabotage was my assigned specialty.
Sorry Jim, but you missed a BIG one along with its web of Health partners, the CDC. The Pandemic proved that Government could control almost all people. As you know, I owned Mission Villa for 26 years. Being a “no vax” individual, one of 3 Health Departments had the power to revoke my RCFE license, shutting me down. Currently I’m traveling, now in Florence Italy. Today I took a Historical Tour conducted by a local teacher. Her statement shocked me when she reported that all workforce employees in Italy were required to take the initial vaccination(s) but also 3 boosters to keep their jobs.
Mandate, collect intelligence, control the people!
Dana