The administration is still debating the commission's call for making public the total amount of money the government spends on intelligence activities, one official said.
Correction: September 1, 2004, Wednesday An article on July 29 about the Sept. 11 commission's recommendation that the White House disclose the amount the government spends on intelligence misstated the name of one of 15 agencies covered by that budget.
The £800m will be spent on intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance.
Spending on intelligence operations increased by some 9percentt last year, to $47.5 billion, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said Tuesday.
"There's more being spent on intelligence, reconnaissance and electronic gizmos," says Chalmers, "and less on big platforms" – the industry euphemism for machines that kill people.
Why, with $30 billion a year spent on intelligence, couldn't our F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. prevent this well-coordinated, two-city attack?
It is criminally naïve, given the billions spent on intelligence, that Blair and W. muffed the postwar planning because they never perceived what Blair now acknowledges as "the true threat": outside interference by Al Qaeda and Iran.
Of the 40 main recommendations spelled out in the Sept. 11 report, one of the few that the White House could carry out immediately would be to lift the veil of secrecy on how much the government spends on intelligence.
A14 Agencies Resist Public Budget The White House, debating whether to disclose the amount of money spent on intelligence, is contending with agencies that have warned that making the budget public could aid America's enemies.
