In mid-May, under a front-page headline proclaiming, "Congress Movesto Lift Intelligence Spending," The Washington Post reported that the total budget for the CIA and Pentagon spy agencies had reached almost $35 billion. Among Beltway epistemologists this created quite a buzz. How did the Post know this figure? The government's total intelligence spending is supposed to be classified. Apparently, it's an open secret. As Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists tells us, the budget -- while "definitely still secret" -- is "also relatively obvious."
In fact, despite the best efforts of this most secretive administration, theclassified part of the budget is hard to conceal. For one thing, you can reach afairly accurate total by "reverse-engineering" the Pentagon budget: Just add upthe enumerated unclassified expenditures and subtract that sum from the overallofficial budget.
So why this fiction of secrecy? Indeed, in 1997 and 1998, the dollar amount ofthe total intelligence budget was declassified. In 1999, however, it wasreclassified again, and remains so to this day. Presumably this keeps our enemiesfrom sizing up our secret ops, so long as they can't add or subtract.
But there may be other rationales for secrecy that we've only begun to plumb.Aftergood says that his organization "is currently suing over the 1947intelligence budget total -- which the CIA says would damage national security ifit were disclosed."
No wonder the CIA is under fire for failing to put two and two together in themonths before 9-11. It was busy protecting us from Josef Stalin.
