THE MILITARY'S portion of the black budget inhales about $14 billion annually. This figure overlaps to some degree with integrated intelligence activities, while billions more in black money support the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and other intelligence operations. According to several researchers, the total cost of black-budget programs today stands at about $30 billion.
"To a large extent the military, and certainly the intelligence community, is still running on Cold War momentum," Aftergood says. "A lot of projects that were initiated in the late 1980s are still under way, and it seems as if they're unstoppable, despite the fact that the mission which inspired them has vanished."
The remnants of the Cold War are not limited to the black budget and other motivational paradigms that linger within the halls of the Pentagon. The tensions between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union resulted in the idea that funding a multitude of hypersecret military programs was patriotic, an integral part of democracy itself. Indeed, there was a time when such intuitions perhaps made sense. The question is whether or not that time has passed. Because if it has, the fiscal and constitutional implications are immediate and overwhelming.
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The deficiencies of this arrangement are best exemplified by the A-12 Avenger, a Navy stealth attack fighter that ran recklessly over budget and was ultimately cancelled in 1991. Inquiries by the Navy and the Pentagon's inspector general determined that excessive secrecy disallowed routine oversight, and even the Secretary of Defense was not properly informed of the program's troubles. According to Aftergood, the Navy spent $2.68 billion--more than twice the annual amount dedicated to the National Park System--on the A-12 program. "Since the program was terminated before completion," he says, "no planes ever became operational, and all of the money was essentially wasted." He adds that a complex lawsuit filed by A-12 contractors for alleged improper termination may ultimately cost the government an additional $2 billion.
The very nature of the black budget suggests that if a similarly plagued secret program exists today, it will be years before Congress' General Accounting Office and other agencies can sift through the debris and trace the wasted billions.
Such a troubled program could exist in the form of a hypersonic Mach 6 (4,000 mph) spyplane that has been the focus of much speculation since a line item encoded "Aurora" took a budget leap from $8 million in 1986 to $2.3 billion the following year. Aurora then disappeared from the ledgers as it receded deeper into the black. Through much historical and technical sleuthing, Sweetman has placed himself at the vanguard of those who believe Aurora--also known as Omega--is today an active project with operational aircraft. And in his book Aurora: The Pentagon's Secret Hypersonic Spyplane, he concludes that "it is entirely possible that not all the news about Aurora is good. Secrecy has often been a cover for technical and financial problems ... Aurora may have overrun its projected costs or it may be designed and equipped in such a way that it is dedicated to an obsolete nuclear warfighting mission. Sooner or later, that story will come out."
Meanwhile, those privy to such stories are perhaps unprepared to deal with them. As quoted in the Secrecy & Government Bulletin published by the Federation of American Scientists, a senior Pentagon security official describes the congressional committee oversight as "perfunctory." He adds, "In my experience, it's usually staffers, not (committee) members, and it's a small cadre. ... Once a year or so, people will go up there and brief them on the particulars. Often it's several programs in one sitting. It's going through the motions." ... "
~ From 'Paint it Black' ~
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