NYT: Republicans See Signs That Pentagon Is Evading Oversight (on intel)

[DeepModem Mom]

Republicans See Signs That Pentagon Is Evading Oversight
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 29, 2005


WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - Republican members of Congress say there are signs that the Defense Department may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress and the new director of national intelligence.

The warnings are an unusually public signal of some Republican lawmakers' concern about overreaching by the Pentagon, where top officials have been jockeying with the new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, for primacy in intelligence operations. The lawmakers said they believed that some intelligence activities, involving possible propaganda efforts and highly technological initiatives, might be masked as so-called special access programs, the details of which are highly classified.

"We see indications that the D.O.D. is trying to create parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else," Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.

Mr. Hoekstra said he believed that the purpose might be to obscure the extent of Pentagon intelligence activities and to keep them outside Mr. Negroponte's designated orbit.

Even under the new structure headed by Mr. Negroponte, the Pentagon's activities are widely understood to make up about 80 percent of an annual intelligence budget whose details remain classified but that is widely understood to total about $80 billion a year. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon is understood to have carried out a major expansion of its intelligence programs, including human spying efforts by Special Operations Forces and an arm of the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose missions have expanded into areas traditionally the purview of the Central Intelligence Agency....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/politics/29intel.html

[skooooo]

1. Wow, Republicans are seeing "signs".....

I bet they see the one Marie Laveau (the Voodoo Queen) is sending them right about now!

Gris Gris Gumbo yaya!

[bemildred]

2. Gee, are we thinking about covering out butts? nt

[rodeodance]

3. all of sudden the Repugs are getting fisty--separating from the WH (some)

"We see indications that the D.O.D. is trying to create parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else," Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.

[rodeodance]

4. They cheered when Jr appointed Negroponte---and they knew his

background!!!!!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. No, say it's not so!

Oh, be still my heart.

I have been seeing thses "signs" since these assholes took over.

[MADem]

6. They've evaded oversight for years--look what the former IG just did

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Schmitz-Pentagon-IG-Quits31aug05.htm

Joseph E. Schmitz, who has served as the Inspector General since March 2002, is quitting to accept a job in the private sector, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. The spokesman said Schmitz's final day would be Sept. 9.

Schmitz is going to be the chief operating officer and general counsel for the Prince Group, according to another defense official who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity. One of Prince Group's subsidiaries is Blackwater USA, which is under Defense Department contract to provide security services in Iraq.

[antonialee839]

7. Negroponte's history should have been their first freaking clue.

Assholes!

[OKthatsIT]

8. Paraguay