Federal Intelligence Budget for 2007-2009 Disclosed

Military intelligence budget figures that were disclosed recently document the steady rise of the total U.S. intelligence budget from $63.5 billion in FY2007 up to last year’s total of $80.1 billion. These findings were reported by Steven Aftergood in Secrecy News.

The total intelligence budget is composed of two separate budget constructs: the National Intelligence Program and the Military Intelligence Program. Last October, the DNI revealed that the FY2010 budget for the National Intelligence Program (NIP) was $53.1 billion. And the Secretary of Defense revealed that the FY2010 budget for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) was $27.0 billion, the first time the MIP budget had been disclosed, for an aggregate total intelligence budget of $80.1 billion for FY 2010. But prior year aggregate figures were unavailable.

Previous year budget figures for the NIP had been released since 2007. ($43.5 billion in FY2007, $47.5 billion in FY 2008, $49.8 billion in FY2009). But those numbers provided an incomplete picture, intelligence officials admitted.

Last week, the Pentagon disclosed the budget figures for the Military Intelligence Program for FY 2007 to 2009 ($20.0 billion in FY2007, $22.9 billion in FY2008, $49.8 billion in FY 2009).

The latest disclosure finally makes it possible to report the total U.S. budget (NIP plus MIP) for the last four years: $63.5 billion in FY2007, $70.4 billion in FY2008, $76.2 billion in FY2009, and $80.1 billion in FY2010.

Collectively, these figures — for the NIP, the MIP and the total — represent the most sustained and detailed disclosure of U.S. intelligence spending that has been achieved to date.

Public release of the FY2007-2009 MIP budget figures was requested by the Federation of American Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act on October 2, 2009.