Spy Chief Says U.S. Hunting al Qaeda More Effectively

From Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- U.S. spy agencies are hunting al Qaeda and related groups more effectively because their understanding of Islamic extremists has improved significantly in recent years, the top U.S. spy chief said Tuesday as he released his first blueprint for U.S. intelligence.

Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, sought to move past the vitriolic debates over the value of harsh interrogation methods, saying that "what has really made all the nations safer has been the accumulation of knowledge about al Qaeda and its affiliate groups, which enables us to be more aggressive in expanding that knowledge and stopping things before they happen."

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My Comment: There is a lot of meat in this article, but the paragraph that caught my attention was the following ....

"This old distinction between military and nonmilitary intelligence is no longer relevant," Mr. Blair said. He described the spy world as a 200,000-person $75 billion enterprise, marking the first time the full size of the U.S. intelligence apparatus—including military and national spy agencies and contractors–was disclosed.

With a budget of $75 billion and a 200,000 person organization .... you better produce results.