1.25.2005
Reports on Pentagon's New Spy Units Set Off Questions in Congress (NYTimes.com)
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: January 25, 2005
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - Senior members of Congress said Monday that they would seek to determine whether the Pentagon had overstepped its bounds by creating new secret battlefield intelligence units within the Defense Intelligence Agency.
A senior military officer and a senior Defense Department official confirmed at a hastily called Pentagon briefing on Monday, after news reports had disclosed the existence of the expanded intelligence operations, that small teams of civilian intelligence specialists were being created to work with Special Operations forces and other troops worldwide on secret missions, including counterterrorism operations.
The officials said the teams had been formally established in the fiscal year 2005 defense budget using existing authority to replace ad hoc defense intelligence units that had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for more than two years.
In interviews, however, members of Congress from both parties questioned whether the secret missions being carried out by the units might amount to covert actions - a legal definition for missions in which the United States government denies any role and that can be undertaken only by presidential directive and with formal Congressional notification.
Some members also said the House and Senate intelligence committees had not been fully informed about the new approach, even though they oversee the Defense Intelligence Agency.
"To cut out Congress and set up an under-the-radar capability which Congress doesn't know about is not O.K.," Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in an interview.
(More ... The New York Times > Washington > Reports on Pentagon's New Spy Units Set Off Questions in Congress) ¶ 20:32
Published: January 25, 2005
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - Senior members of Congress said Monday that they would seek to determine whether the Pentagon had overstepped its bounds by creating new secret battlefield intelligence units within the Defense Intelligence Agency.
A senior military officer and a senior Defense Department official confirmed at a hastily called Pentagon briefing on Monday, after news reports had disclosed the existence of the expanded intelligence operations, that small teams of civilian intelligence specialists were being created to work with Special Operations forces and other troops worldwide on secret missions, including counterterrorism operations.
The officials said the teams had been formally established in the fiscal year 2005 defense budget using existing authority to replace ad hoc defense intelligence units that had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for more than two years.
In interviews, however, members of Congress from both parties questioned whether the secret missions being carried out by the units might amount to covert actions - a legal definition for missions in which the United States government denies any role and that can be undertaken only by presidential directive and with formal Congressional notification.
Some members also said the House and Senate intelligence committees had not been fully informed about the new approach, even though they oversee the Defense Intelligence Agency.
"To cut out Congress and set up an under-the-radar capability which Congress doesn't know about is not O.K.," Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in an interview.
(More ... The New York Times > Washington > Reports on Pentagon's New Spy Units Set Off Questions in Congress) ¶ 20:32
