The 2006 intelligence authorization bill passed by the House reduces or eliminates funding for a small number of hugely expensive satellite programs, which critics charge have been set on a “disastrous path” of delays and overspending by mismanagement and “sloppy performance.”
The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, told United Press International that the programs in question have been monitored closely for several years, but that, despite repeated requests by lawmakers, not enough had been done to get the programs’ management and cost under control.
“It’s not just saying, ’We’re concerned.’ We’ve been saying that for three and a half years,” he said.
Mr. Hoekstra added that the sprawling and fractious collection of agencies sometimes dubbed the intelligence community had repeatedly failed to come up with an overall plan for so-called technical collection — spying using satellites and other technology — on which billions of dollars are secretly spent every year.
As a result, he said, “Money hasn’t been spent as effectively as it could have been.”
Mr. Hoekstra said the bill’s spending cuts were meant to gain accountability in spending on intelligence programs.
“We are making a call,” he said. “We’re going to hold the people on this program accountable for sloppy performance, and we’re going to hold the community responsible by canceling some programs for the unwillingness to put together a coherent strategic plan.
’When you put a marker down that says, ’The House does not authorize any more money to be put into this program,’ or ’X amount of dollars are going to fenced off until certain things happen’ that is a marker in the sand that somebody has to respond to.”
He said that at least one of the programs was so poorly managed, late and overbudget that it could not be allowed to continue.
“The current path we’re on is a disastrous path; we’re not going to going to go down it any more.”
He added that the move had “got the attention of the vendor” and of the newly minted Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and his deputy Gen. Michael Hayden.
“They got the message,” he added. “This is a mess. I believe that [Gen. Hayden and Mr. Negroponte] agree.
“It was high time that happened on some of these programs,” he said, adding that “a couple” of them were affected in this way by the bill.
The bill was voted out of committee with Democratic support and then passed overwhelmingly by the whole House. The Senate has not yet taken up the its version of the bill, and the two will have to be reconciled in a bicameral conference, probably in the fall.
Democrats on the House intelligence committee say they share Mr. Hoekstra’s concern about the need to complete programs on time and on budget, but worry about the impact of canceling them.
“I want to be sure that we are not, in some rigid way, throwing out capabilities and people that we’re going to need,” said the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of California.
Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, California Democrat,said that simply stopping the programs would damage the intellectual and industrial capability that the intelligence community had built up through its relationship with teams of contractors, who might disband or go out of business altogether.
“Once that industrial base is dispersed, you can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,” she said.
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