Slight decline in funding for US intelligence

Funding for US intelligence agencies came to $78.6 billion in 2011, a slight drop in spending compared to last year, the US government said. Congress approved $54.6 billion for national intelligence programs and $24 billion for military intelligence programs in fiscal year 2011, a drop of $1.8 billion from the previous year, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Pentagon. Spending for military intelligence dropped by three billion dollars, apparently reflecting the US troop withdrawal out of Iraq. Intelligence budgets have steadily grown in the decade since the September 11 attacks, and the modest drop in spending signals a new era of limits. James Clapper, the director of intelligence, said in a recent speech at a conference in San Antonio, Texas that the intelligence community faced major cuts after ten years of expansion. The reductions would be in the "double digits" and much of the cuts will likley focus on information technology activities, with major savings to come from cloud computing, Clapper was quoted as saying.