If you had a rat senator or congressit present at this hearing, send them a copy of this and ask them why they have been so silent on these severe budget cuts to the Counter-Terrorist Center in the CIA.
Here are some items re the funding cuts revealed at this meeting:
My name is Cofer Black. I'm a case officer of the director of operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. I served as the director of the counterterrorism center from the 29th of July 1999 until May 2002.
Everything we do in this global war and the very real risks that we take have only one objective and that's to defend America and to defend innocents. In this long fight my CIA colleagues, operating with me in Khartoum, Sudan in 1995 preempted preparations of the Osama bin Laden's thugs to kill me.
Six years later, Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida are the killers of 9/11. You need to appreciate fully three factors. There were choices made for us. These choices were made for the Central Intelligence Agency and they were made for the counterterrorism Center. These involve the numbers of people, money and operational flexibility.
I'd like to talk about people for a minute. Before 9/11 the CIA counterterrorism Center has as many people as maybe three Army infantry companies. Three infantry companies can be expected to cover a front of a few kilometers. Our counterterrorism Center is responsible for the entire world and all the terrorist threats. It was not only Al Qaida that we engaged, until 9/11 Hizbollah had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group, Hizbollah is also our responsibility as are all the others. We work through the director of operations, which is deployed overseas.
The head of operations directed will tell you, Mr. Chairman, that at the end of the 1990s, he had 25 percent less covert operations officers than he had at the beginning.
The director of central intelligence, George Tenet did all that he could to help us out. We, of all his interests, had the highest priority. Prior to my arrival there had been a substantial increase in our personnel. We still struggled. While all the other operating components were being cut, the counterterrorism Center received what small increases were available.
My second point, cash, this is what we use to pay for operations. At the beginning of each of my three fiscal years as chief the counterterrorism Center had enough money to purchase about two modern jet fighter aircraft. When I became the chief in 1999, I had a fiscal reality. We had less money to support operations than we had the year before. As a result, I cut all of my subordinate units except for one, more than 30 percent. We survived because the director of Central Intelligence support and the supplemental fundings that we received.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | Arizona | 225.00 |
7 |
32.14 |
|
|
145.50 |
12 |
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