Effort to Slash Intelligence Budget Rebuffed in House : Defense: White House backed full funding for spy agencies. But critics argued that the money would be better spent on domestic needs.
WASHINGTON — The House Tuesday defeated an effort to make substantial cuts in the budget for U.S. intelligence agencies, whose multibillion-dollar costs have come under increasing scrutiny with the end of the Cold War.
Instead, the congressmen went along with pleas from President Clinton and other Administration officials to preserve the budget for the CIA and other spying agencies at roughly the same levels as this year. While the intelligence budget is still officially classified, statements from members of Congress Tuesday put the overall spending figure at nearly $28 billion.
A motion by Reps. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) and Major R. Owens (D-N.Y.) to slash the intelligence budget for next year by 10% lost by an overwhelming margin, 323 to 104. Virtually all Republican congressmen and almost two-thirds of the Democrats voted against the motion.
Supporters had argued that at a time when domestic programs have priority and when Congress has made reductions in defense spending, the intelligence agencies should be trimmed back too.
“Our constituents are much more concerned about getting shot at on the way to the grocery store than they are about having a missile fired at them,†said Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.). Another intelligence critic, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) said: “With the money we are (proposing to cut from intelligence), we could put 56,000 deputy sheriffs on the road, fully armed.â€
But defenders of the CIA on Capitol Hill relied heavily on a letter Clinton sent last week to members of the House, opposing any further reductions. “I am opposed to further erosion in the intelligence capabilities needed to protect our nation’s security,†wrote the President.
Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that cutting the budget “would be an unnecessary kick in the pants†to the President and would undermine his efforts to conduct foreign policy in places such as the Balkans and Somalia.
Clinton and CIA Director R. James Woolsey initially proposed slight increases for intelligence spending next year. However, the House Intelligence Committee cut back on the Administration’s request by about $1 billion, or about 3.7% of the total, according to members of Congress.
The main point of contention in Tuesday’s congressional debate was whether the breakup of the Soviet Union has reduced the need for intelligence spending.
Glickman and other congressmen were persuaded by the arguments of Woolsey and his predecessor, former CIA Director Robert M. Gates, that with the end of the Cold War, the United States faces new threats from countries such as North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya, which are seeking to develop nuclear weapons, missiles, and chemical and biological weapons.
“In the old days, all we had to worry about was the Russians and maybe the Chinese,†said Glickman. “Now, we have to worry about 25 countries. . . . Americans are actually more threatened today than they have been in the past.â€
Sanders, however, claimed that the real threats to America’s security are domestic in origin.
Congressional cutbacks in intelligence spending would have the most direct impact on programs to launch spy satellites, since these are by far the most expensive items in the budget. Some members of Congress voiced concern about the prospect of job layoffs in the high-tech companies that have been producing these satellites.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) said he is worried that, if programs for spy satellites were cut, the United States would lose permanently the personnel and know-how that would enable it to produce these satellites in the future. “We are running a risk of really weakening the industrial base of this country,†Dicks said.
Many of the intelligence satellites are built or launched in California. One member of Congress, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Marina del Rey), who opposed cutbacks in intelligence spending, told the House Tuesday: “My district has made a major contribution to tactical intelligence systems.â€
The full Senate has not yet acted on the intelligence budget.
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