Black Ops and a $40 Billion Untraceable Budget

I imagine over the next couple of weeks we will be getting more information about the so-called "Intelligence Reform" legislation that will likely go to Bush for signing this week. What we do know, is that there was (is?) a power struggle between supporters of a National Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon (which now has 80% of the black ops budget). We do know that the legislation would centralize intelligence operations, make a National Intelligence Director, and give that director budget authority over the other intelligence agencies.

I haven't been jumping up and down over the need for a new agency or for centralization. Personally, I have not been convinced that it was a failure of "intelligence" (meaning CIA, FBI, etc.) that led to the events September 11, 2001. I do think there was a failure of "intelligence" in other regards, or actually the practice of "intelligence" to promote a plan, but that discussion is for another day.

With the creation of a National Intelligence Agency, Bush will have gotten to create two governmental monsters (so far) - The Homeland Security Administration and this one. It is very interesting that a party that purportedly supports "small" government, and decentralized authority (state's rights) is bent on making the biggest, most centralized bureaucracies we have seen (outside the Pentagon perhaps).

I view the upcoming agency, and the legislation driving it (of which we don't know the specifics) with a fair amount of trepidation. So far "security" efforts have resulted in massive erosions of Constitutional protections, increasing government power and secrecy, and two active wars. Who knows what the new agency will bring?

Of course, one has to wonder who the new intelligence "czar" will be. Rumors had it as Porter Goss, but he is doing such a fine job creating chaos at the CIA that they may just keep him there. Whoever is put forward, we can be sure that this will be anything but an apolitical appointment.

The $40 Billion budget is just an estimate. The reality is that no one - not even Congress which has oversight responsibility - can know what the budget actually is. Therein lies the heart of secret operations problems.

We have seen this for decades with the CIA and its clandestine activities around the world. It is well known that a significant portion of the funding basis for the CIA lies with their friends in "low places" - drugs and organized crime. Another portion lies in cover businesses that serve to launder money and provide more difficult to trace service provision. Yes this does sound like the Mafia doesn't it? Untraceable, underground economies laundered through "legitimate" businesses, and then the banking and finance industries.

So now we will have a newer, bigger, more secret organization. I can hardly wait to see where this one leads. I wonder, if like the CIA, the NIA will find other agencies such as HUD convenient places to stash their hidden budget? But never fear. I am sure this will take care of our "intelligence" problems. There won't be any intelligence to be had - at least not for the public.