$52.6b ‘black budget’: US spies see Pakistan as ‘intractable target’

Classified document reveals Bin Laden raid was guided from space by a fleet of satellites.

WASHINGTON:

Pakistan is described in detail as an ‘intractable target’ in a 178-page budget summary for the US National Intelligence Programme, The Washington Post disclosed on Friday.

Claiming to have obtained what it described as the $52.6 billion ‘black budget’ for fiscal 2013 from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the newspaper said the document details the successes, failures and objectives of the 16 spy agencies that make up the US intelligence community.

The newspaper, however, said that it was withholding some information after consultation with US officials who it said expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods.

“Sensitive details are so persuasive in the documents that the Post is publishing only summary tables and chart outlines,” the newspaper added.



Quoting the document, the newspaper said there is no specific entry for the CIA’s fleet of armed drones, but a broad line item hints at the dimensions of the agency’s expanded paramilitary role, providing more than $2.6 billion for ‘covert action programmmes’ that would include drone operations in Pakistan and Yemen, payments to militias in Afghanistan and Africa, and attempts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme.

According to the document, questions about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear components when they are being transported have, however, continued to remain ‘blank spots’.

It also describes expanded efforts to “collect on Russian chemical warfare counter-measures” and assess “the security of biological and chemical laboratories in Pakistan”.

The agency’s ability to monitor the communications of al Qaeda operatives is described in the documents as “often the best and the only means to compromise seemingly intractable targets.”



The documents claim that the CIA has deployed new biometric sensors to confirm the identities and locations of al Qaeda operatives. The system is claimed to have been used in the CIA’s drone campaign.

The documents said the US commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden was guided from space by a fleet of satellites, which aimed dozens of receivers over Pakistan to collect a torrent of electronic and signals intelligence as the mission unfolded.

“Analysts from CIA pinpointed the geographic location of one of the phones and linked it to the compound in Pakistan where other evidence suggested Bin Laden was hiding,” the documents as quoted by Washington Post revealed.

Also playing a role in the search for Bin Laden was an arm of the National Security Agency (NSA) known as the Tailored Access Operations group.

Among other functions the group specialises in surreptitiously installing spyware and tracking devices on targeted computers and mobile-phone networks.

In addition to satellites, the government flew an advanced stealth drone, the RQ-170, over Pakistan to eavesdrop on electronic transmissions.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2013.