Sherrod talks frankly about DeWine, CIA funds & Patriot Act

[OzarkDem]

Pee Dee writes a fairly objective, detailed article about the nuances of security funding and the Patriot Act. They still have a ways to go, though....

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1153557820242390.xml&coll=2

Washington- After the Cold War ended, the intelligence community in Washington had to refocus. Making it harder were the embarrassments of the 1990s - erroneous targets hit by deadly missiles, billions of dollars unaccounted for, failure to warn of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

A minority in Congress, including Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, wondered if the CIA was accountable to anyone. So they voted to cut the intelligence budget.

"The whole point was that we knew there was a slush fund at the CIA, that they had a lot of money set aside," Brown recalled. "We knew they had a lot of problems at that agency, where they weren't doing their jobs, and we were sending them a message."

...

They also were concerned that the National Reconnaissance Office had nearly $4 billion in unspent funding, more than entire Cabinet department budgets. It was difficult to account for other money, too, because most members of Congress were not even allowed to see spy agencies' budgets.

"We felt frankly that they were fighting the last war, the Cold War, and not doing enough in terms of human intelligence," Frank said. "My impression was that by the end of the Cold War, we were disproportionately involved in equipment and spy satellites, very little of which is of use in fighting terrorism."

...

Yet even with the spending supported by DeWine, the United States turned out to be vulnerable. Lewis says that the country let its spy ranks dwindle through this period and that by 1998 "we had the smallest number of spies that we ever had since World War II. That was a mistake."

...

As for funding the wars, Brown said he and other Democrats "wanted to know the $87 billion wasn't going to Halliburton and these unbid contracts at the expense of body armor. The Republicans were putting $87 billion on the table, but they still weren't dealing with body armor. But they certainly helped their contractor friends."