Intelligence agencies use extra funds for hiring

After September 11 revealed glaring intelligence failures, Congress approved an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion in new funding for America's top two spy shops, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, and for the FBI, which is responsible for counterintelligence and for stopping terrorism inside the nation's borders.

Analysts argue that these supplemental funds-added to the combined $13 billion the three agencies had already received for this fiscal year-were badly needed to hire more translators, analysts, and field agents, to buy better computer systems, to fund clandestine programs, and to improve a wide range of operations.

A House Intelligence Committee report in July criticized all three agencies for lacking resources in such vital categories as language specialists. The report also noted that the CIA has been hobbled by internal guidelines-issued in 1995 but apparently now rescinded-that curbed the agency's hiring of operatives with "dirty" backgrounds, people who might have been able to penetrate terrorist groups.

Post-9/11, the CIA's 2002 budget of $4 billion "has been greatly enhanced," said an agency official, and new money is being spent almost as quickly as it pours in. The first supplemental appropriation of about $1 billion that the agency reportedly received last fall was used for missions in Afghanistan and for beefing up the agency's counter-terrorism center, which now has twice the personnel it had on September 11. Moreover, the agency boasts three times as many Arab speakers as it did three years ago, according to the official. "We're not where we want to be, but we're a lot closer," the official said.

The CIA also shared in a second supplemental appropriation of about $1.7 billion for a variety of intelligence functions in the government. The agency is rebuilding in a number of areas that had lost about a quarter of their personnel from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. The CIA's school for clandestine operations, for instance, expects this year to produce its largest class of graduates since the Vietnam War. And a new agency program that started this year offers specialized training for analysts.

The FBI, which began the fiscal year with a budget of about $4 billion, has received an additional $745 million since September 11 to enhance its anti-terrorism work, now the bureau's top mission. The FBI is hiring 103 new analysts, 30 new linguists, and 266 new field agents, a spokesman said. Further, the agency has signed up 253 new contract linguists, with skills in 28 languages, including more than 100 who can translate Arabic. Overall, the bureau has indicated it will hire about 900 new agents by September 2002, including computer experts to help revamp the FBI's famously troubled computer system.

Analysts say it is harder to measure change at the super-secret National Security Agency, which is charged with protecting U.S. government information and unearthing foreign secrets. Knowledgeable sources put the NSA's budget-which is hidden from public view-at about $5 billion. An NSA spokesman said that the agency has aggressively recruited language specialists, computer scientists, engineers, and intelligence analysts. Last year, the NSA received some 32,000 resumes and hired 600 people, he said. This year, the agency's goal is to bring on at least 1,000 new employees.

Some veteran intelligence officers caution that even with the added funds, all three agencies face daunting challenges. "They're throwing money at problems that money won't entirely cure, because they're more systemic," observes Robert Baer, a 21-year CIA veteran of Middle East operations. Experience, he said, is something "you can't buy with money."