ODNI Response Suggests Even Higher Intel Spending

Last week the Office of the Director of National Intelligence responded to The Spy Who Billed Me's calculation of government-wide expenditures on intelligence, based on data presented by the office in an unclassified PowerPoint presentation.  The official response raises more questions than it answers.  The response was curiously delayed--over two weeks after the story broke and over one week after the last press article on it.

Let's take a close look at the response which leaves plenty of room for future waffling:

The slides and accompanying presentation were designed to illustrate general trends in Intelligence Community contracting for conference participants. They concerned overall procurement award trends; they did not address the issue of Intelligence Community contractors (personnel under contract), or the size of the Intelligence Community budget, in relative or actual terms.

Read:  we didn't expect anyone outside of the private intelligence industry to be at a conference and to see the PowerPoint presentation.  The slides were designed to give industry insiders a good idea of the amount of money that's available for contracting--it's just that no one should use it to figure out the amount of money that's going to contractors.

The second sentence raises several questions.  “Intelligence Community contractors (personnel under contract)."  What, exactly, does this mean?  Does it mean that independent contractors (i.e., people who have direct personal services contracts with IC agencies and get 1099s for tax purposes) are not ’t included?  Or does it mean that employees of body shop industrial contractors like Abraxas, who essentially provide personal services to fill in where professional and clerical staff is needed but not authorized, are not included, as well?  If the latter, did someone go through and glean out the body shop contracts from other industrial contracts, like those for satellites?  Very unlikely.  Actual dollar figures of personnel under contract, as in body shop industrial contractors, is a hot political topic, but no one has claimed that the figures in the presentation give us amounts spent on these personal service contracts.  But if this is the case that these groups were not included in the embedded table giving the dollar figures spent on contracts, then government-wide expenditures on intelligence would be even greater than previously believed.      

Let's read on:

As explained during the presentation, the specific bar graphs on the slides and their underlying data were based
on a small, anecdotal sample of a portion of Intelligence Community contracting activities. As a result, this
data cannot be used to derive either the overall Intelligence Community budget, or a breakdown of any portion
of the budget.

As a refresher, pictured above is the slide that's being referenced.  It's clearly labeled as "IC Award Actions Trend Data"  (as opposed to "IC Award Actions Trend Anecdotes").  It is very puzzling that if the ODNI were presenting an "an anecdotal sample," then why did they comment in the little box on the side that "FY06 data as of August 31"?  Such attention to accuracy is hardly necessary when one is dealing in anecdotal samples. 

Pictured at the bottom of the PowerPoint slide is the embedded table that would not have been visible to conference participants, but could be accessed through a mouse click from the presentation itself which was posted on the DIA website.  This is the table that breaks down the award dollars to contractors by the Intelligence Community for each fiscal year from FY95 to FY06.  FY05 is the last year of complete data when the award dollars were $42 billion.  If the statement of the ODNI is true that, "their underlying data were based on a small, anecdotal sample of a portion of Intelligence Community contracting activities," then the overall Intelligence Community spending would be above $42 billion.  Moreover, taken in conjunction with the other key statistic from the presentation--that 70% of the IC spending goes to contractors-- the ODNI statement implies that government-wide expenditures on intelligence are even greater than $60 billion.

What the statement doesn't refute is:

• that 70% of the Intelligence Community budget goes to contractors as the presentation claims.  (This figure needed to use these numbers to reverse-engineer the budget.) 
• that the IRIS system is doing what it's designed to do and is picking up additional pots of Intelligence Community funds that are not under the official control of the ODNI; (this system is key to understanding why the $60 billion budget is higher than previous estimates;)

The ODNI is tasked with getting a grip on government-wide intel spending.  As DNI McConnell told a group of federal officials in April, "I'm responsible for basically two things ... the budget for the 16 (U.S. intelligence agencies) and ensuring that no one breaks the law."  Congress has praised IRIS and the office is most likely proud of this success.  They clearly used real data to create the bar graphs, thinking the information was secure because there was no key on the Y axis to show how many dollars were spend.  They did not understanding that the underlying data would be accessible in the unclassified PowerPoint.

Even the closing statement raises additional questions:

The overall Intelligence Community budget and its components are classified to protect the national security
interests of the United States.”

Okay, we know may in Congress don't feel this way, but if the ODNI does, wouldn't national security best be protected by having disinformation out there, giving misleading budget amounts so that real budget remains unknown?  So if $60 billion is wrong, why issue the statement to discount it?  And why is that unclassified PowerPoint presentation that contains only "anecdotal samples" of the IC budget still taken off the government website?

The statement simply raises more questions than it answers, and implies, to boot, the $60 billion is too low.  Perhaps they should start green badging public affairs, because it looks like below market salaries may be taking their toll there like everywhere else in the Intelligence Community.

 

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Comments

[Retired]

Given the high level of waffling in the ODNI statement, are we absolutely certain that the Belgians haven't taken over the IC?

[Retired]

Just thought of a better one. Since the Russian branch at CIA started calling itself "The Russia House" shortly after the Sean Connery movie of the same name came out, can we now expect the ODNI to start calling itself "The Waffle House"?