KEY POINTS:
WASHINGTON - The Bush Administration said it had spent US$43.5 billion ($57 billion) on spying in the 2007 financial year, as it bowed yesterday to a law ordering disclosure of a figure the Government has kept secret for most of the past 60 years.
"Disclosure of the amount of the budget is a good first step towards accountability," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which has campaigned for publication of the annual intelligence budget.
The figure, which was roughly equal to the entire economy of Croatia or Qatar, dwarfed the estimated intelligence budgets of any other country, including the closest US ally, Britain, which spent about 10 per cent of the amount, he said.
The figure is about 1.6 per cent of the total US budget for 2007.
Congress authorised the disclosure in a law passed in August to implement recommendations of a commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 attacks. Intelligence agencies had long resisted disclosing their budgets on the grounds that enemies could learn from the information.
The US$43.5 billion was about what outside experts had expected, Aftergood said, and was about 50 per cent more than the Government was believed to have spent in 2001. He said the figure did not include an estimated US$10 billion or more in military intelligence spending.
The CIA, which previously oversaw all US intelligence gathering, released a budget total of US$26.6 billion in 1997, including for military intelligence, in response to a suit by the federation. There are 16 US agencies that are considered to be involved in intelligence gathering.
In 1998 the CIA also released its budget but the agency fought against disclosing its 1999 budget and won. Subsequent efforts to force a budget disclosure also failed.
- Reuters
