Washington Post:
Spy Satellites Are Under Scrutiny
Negroponte to Advise Congress on Funding New Systems
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Page A02
Bush administration intelligence chief John D. Negroponte is reviewing two multibillion-dollar spy satellite programs, according to congressional and administration sources, and will make recommendations on their future to House and Senate intelligence committees next month.
Although Negroponte has made some decisions on reprogramming funding in the current fiscal 2005 budget, his recommendations on the satellite programs -- which have been controversial on Capitol Hill -- will be the first major budgetary changes he will propose for next year's spending, sources said. Those reviews come as Negroponte begins to exercise new authority under the intelligence restructuring passed last year by Congress, which created Negroponte's position, director of national intelligence (DNI), and gave that person control over funds spent by the 15 agencies that make up the intelligence community....
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One of the systems under scrutiny by Negroponte is a classified program to build the next generation of stealth satellites, whose estimated costs have nearly doubled to $9.5 billion in recent years, according to sources.
The program has been severely criticized in closed session by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who have objected to the rising costs and who argue that it is ineffective against modern adversaries such as terrorist networks. The Senate panel has tried to kill the program in the past, sources said, but it has been supported by House and Senate appropriations committees and the House intelligence panel....
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The other futuristic spy satellite program that Negroponte has focused on is the new generation of non-stealth space vehicles -- using optical, radar, listening and infrared-red capabilities -- known collectively as the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA). Development of these satellites, which has been going on since the late 1990s, has also had major cost increases, now estimated at more than $25 billion over the next decade. As a result, the House intelligence panel voted sharp reductions in its version of the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/15/AR2005081501096.html
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