Pentagon expanding spy network to rival CIA in size

— The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.

The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.

When the expansion is complete, the Defense Intelligence Agency is expected to have as many as 1,600 “collectors” in positions around the world, an unprecedented total for an agency whose presence abroad numbered in the triple digits in recent years.

The total includes military attaches and others who do not work undercover. But U.S. officials said the growth will be driven over a five-year period by the deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives. They will be trained by the CIA and often work with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command,but they will get their spying assignments from the Department of Defense.

Among the Pentagon’s top intelligence priorities, officials said, are Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization under way in China.

“This is not a marginal adjustment for DIA,” the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, said at a recent conference, during which he outlined the changes but did not describe them in detail. “This is a major adjustment for national security.”

The sharp increase in Defense Intelligence Agency undercover operatives is part of a far-reaching trend: a convergence of the military and intelligence agencies that has blurred their once-distinct missions, capabilities and even their leadership ranks.

Through its drone program, the CIA now accounts for a majority of lethal U.S. operations outside the Afghan war zone. At the same time, the Pentagon’s plan to create what it calls the Defense Clandestine Service reflects the military’s latest and largest foray into secret intelligence work.

The Defense Intelligence Agency overhaul - combined with the growth of the CIA since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - will create a spy network of unprecedented size. The plan reflects the affinity of President Barack Obama’s administration for espionage and covert action over conventional force. It also fits in with the administration’s efforts to codify its counterterrorism policies for a sustained conflict and assemble the pieces abroad necessary to carry it out.

Unlike the CIA, the Pentagon’s spy agency is not authorized to conduct covert operations that go beyond intelligence gathering, such as drone strikes, political sabotage or arming militants.

But the Defense Intelligence Agency has long played a major role in assessing and identifying targets for U.S. forces, which in recent years have assembled a constellation of drone bases stretching from Afghanistan to East Africa.

The expansion of the agency’s clandestine role is likely to heighten concerns that it will be accompanied by an escalation in lethal strikes and other operations outside public view. Because of differences in legal authorities, the military isn’t subject to the same congressional notification requirements as the CIA,leading to potential oversight gaps.

U.S. officials said the Defense Intelligence Agency’s realignment won’t hamper congressional scrutiny. “We have to keep congressional staffs and members in the loop,” Flynn said in October, adding that he thinks the changes will help the United States anticipate threats and avoid being drawn more directly into what he predicted will be an “era of persistent conflict.”

The Pentagon announced the Defense Clandestine Service plan in April but details have been kept secret. Former senior Defense Department officials said the Defense Intelligence Agency now has about 500 “case officers,” the term for clandestine Pentagon and CIA operatives, and the number is expected to reach between 800 and 1,000 by 2018.

The plan still faces some hurdles, including the challenge of creating “cover” arrangements for hundreds of additional spies. U.S. embassies typically have a set number of slots for intelligence operatives posing as diplomats, most of which are taken by the CIA.

The project has also encountered opposition from policymakers on Capitol Hill,who see the terms of the new arrangement as overly generous to the CIA.

The Defense Intelligence Agency operatives “for the most part are going to be working for CIA station chiefs,” needing their approval to enter a particular country and clearance on which informants they intend to recruit, said a senior congressional official briefed on the plan. “If CIA needs more people working for them, they should be footing the bill.”

Pentagon officials said sending more Defense Intelligence Agency operatives overseas will shore up intelligence on subjects the CIA is not able or willing to pursue. “We are in a position to contribute to defense priorities that frankly CIA is not,” the senior Defense Department official said.

Most officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the program.

The project was triggered by a classified study by the director of national intelligence last year that concluded key Pentagon intelligence priorities were falling into gaps created by the Defense Intelligence Agency’s heavy focus on battlefield issues and CIA’s extensive workload. U.S. officials said the Defense Intelligence Agency needed to be repositioned as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan give way to what many expect will be a period of sporadic conflicts and simmering threats requiring close-in intelligence work.

The CIA is increasingly overstretched. Obama administration officials have said they expect the agency’s drone campaign against al-Qaida to continue for at least a decade more, even as the agency faces pressure to stay abreast of issues including turmoil across the Middle East. Meanwhile, the CIA hasn’t met ambitious goals set by former President George W. Bush to expand its own clandestine service.

Defense officials stressed that the Defense Intelligence Agency has not been given any new authorities or permission to expand its total payroll. Instead, the new spy slots will be created by cutting or converting other positions across the agency work force, which has doubled in the past decade - largely through absorption of other military intelligence entities - to about 16,500.

Vickers has given the Defense Intelligence Agency an infusion of about $100 million to kick-start the program, officials said, but the agency’s total budget is expected to remain stagnant or decline amid mounting financial pressures across the government.

The Defense Intelligence Agency’s overseas presence already includes hundreds of diplomatic posts - mainly defense attaches, who represent the military at U.S. embassies and openly gather information from foreign counterparts. Their roles won’t change, officials said. The attaches are part of the 1,600 target for the agency, but such “overt” positions will represent a declining share amid the increase in undercover slots, officials said.

The senior Defense official said the Defense Intelligence Agency has begun filling the first of the new posts.

U.S. officials said Defense Intelligence Agency operatives, because of their military backgrounds, are often better equipped to recruit sources who can answer narrow military questions such as specifications of China’s fifth generation fighter aircraft and its work on a nuclear aircraft carrier.

“The CIA would like to give up that kind of work,” the former officer said.

The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have agreed to share resources overseas, including technical gear, logistics support, vehicles and space in facilities.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/03/2012

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