U.S. intelligence tab: $43.5 billion in 2007

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government spent $43.5 billion on intelligence in fiscal 2007, according to the first official disclosure of such spending under a new law implementing recommendations of the Sept. 11 Commission.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell released the newly declassified figure yesterday. In a statement, he said there would be no disclosures of classified budget information beyond the overall spending figure because "such disclosures could harm national security."

How the money is divided among the 16 intelligence agencies and exactly what it is spent on are classified.

The amount includes salaries for about 100,000 people, and secret multibillion-dollar satellite programs, aircraft, weapons, electronic sensors, intelligence analysts, spies, computers and software.

Much of the intelligence budget - about 70 percent - goes to contractors for the procurement of technology and services, according to a May 2007 chart from the intelligence office.

In 1997 and 1998, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the CIA disclosed that the intelligence budgets amounted to $26.6 billion and $26.7 billion.

The FOIA request came from Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

Aftergood said he was somewhat surprised that the 2007 budget was not higher. He had conservatively estimated it at $45 billion. The national intelligence budget does not include at least $10 billion spent by military intelligence operations.

The intelligence budget increased sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to heavily censored U.S. government charts.

For comparison, intelligence spending in 2007 was about half the $91 billion President Bush is proposing to spend in the coming year on the Agriculture Department, and more than the $35 billion budget of the Homeland Security Department.

Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said he would attempt to get the intelligence budgets for the last 20 years released.

According to a law President Bush signed in August, overall intelligence spending must be disclosed 30 days after the close of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The government also must disclose the figure for 2008.

The requirement was a provision of a broad measure carrying out recommendations made in 2004 by the Sept. 11 Commission.

The panel argued that overclassification did not contribute to good government, and that the release of overall-spending figures for intelligence activities would help Congress in its oversight duties.

National-security analysts outside the government usually estimate the annual budget at about 10 percent of the total U.S. defense budget, which in fiscal 2007 was about $430 billion plus nearly $200 billion in war spending.