Trust Us, We’re Spies (continued)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


previous

Tenet’s statement went on to say: “The difference between the appropriation for one year and the administration’s budget request for the next provides a measure of the administration’s unique, critical assessment of its own intelligence programs. A requested budget decrease reflects a decision that existing intelligence programs are more than adequate to meet the national security needs of the United States. A requested budget increase reflects a decision that the existing intelligence programs are insufficient to meet our national security needs. A budget request with no change in spending reflects a decision that existing programs are just adequate to meet our needs.”

Hogwash, says Aftergood. “Because the intelligence budget request and appropriation are aggregates of many hundreds of individual programs, the total budget figures do not reflect an overall assessment of U.S. intelligence at all,” he wrote in a rebuttal to Tenet’s declaration. “The single budget figures can conceal massive turmoil or natural growth or anything in between.”

Martin adds that, “If you examine the reasoning of [Tenet] in his declaration, it’s illogical on its face.” In fact, Aftergood notes, Tenet’s own declaration would seem to indicate he himself is guilty of damaging national security because he allowed the release of the budget totals in 1997 and 1998.

The CIA did not even address that central point in its final appeal, according to Martin and Aftergood. “It nowhere explains why, if it was not harmful to release the budget number for ’97 and ’98, it’s now harmful to release it for ’99. They have no answer to that,” Martin said.

What the CIA did offer is an almost sneering indictment of the plaintiffs’ argument, asserting that Aftergood used “tortured logic and vague references to government ‘bad faith’ in his attempt to persuade this Court that it should substitute plaintiff’s judgment about risks to national security for the well-reasoned judgment of … Tenet.”

next

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate