JULY 3, 2010
Espionage Is Back On Front Burner
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
The roll-up of an alleged Russian spy ring and other recent cases serve as a reminder that despite warmer U.S. relations with erstwhile Cold War enemies and the heightened demands of fighting terrorism, counterintelligence remains indispensable to national security.
Apart from the arrest of 10 suspects, U.S. investigators believe Moscow still has multiple spies in the U.S., according to people familiar with the investigation. Indeed, current and former intelligence officials say spying by Russia, China and others has grown since the 2001 terror attacks in part because rivals saw U.S. attention diverted.
"This case is a wake up call to the public and the national-security leadership that old threats are still with us," said Michelle Van Cleave, who served as the national counterintelligence executive from 2003-06.
Ms. Van Cleave said that over the past five years, counterintelligence budgets and personnel have been cut and spy-chasing capabilities have been diminished within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies. Meanwhile, U.S. adversaries have expanded espionage operations against the U.S., she said.
The latest arrests show the U.S. still faces threats from sources other than terrorists and that spy services shouldn't focus on terrorism to the exclusion of traditional threats, said Margaret Henoch, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency officer who concentrated on Russian targets and counterintelligence.
Even countries the U.S. works closely with continue to invest considerable effort in spying on U.S. officials, she said. Likewise, though many resources have shifted to counter-terrorism, the U.S. does the same.
Some espionage funding appears to be bouncing back, however. Earlier this year, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress he was requesting a boost for counterintelligence because "the foreign intelligence threat to the U.S. continues to increase" in the struggle for economic, military and political preeminence.
In the late 1990s, the U.S. redoubled its spy-hunting efforts after discovering CIA mole Aldrich Ames, who was convicted in 1994 of spying for the Soviet Union and the Russians. The 2001 unmasking of FBI mole Robert Hanssen, who also spied for the Soviet Union and the Russians, further fueled efforts to bolster counterintelligence.
President Bill Clinton established a post in 2000 to merge counterintelligence efforts across the government, called the national counterintelligence executive. But in 2005, it was put under the new spy-chief office, the Director of National Intelligence. The decision to integrate them, current and former intelligence officials said, was done in a way that diminished the post's effectiveness.
Director of National Intelligence spokesman Michael Birmingham said his office places a high priority on spy-catching and it hasn't been crowded out by counter-terrorism. "Counterintelligence is integrated into everything," he said. "It's not an either-or proposition."
U.S. officials say spying on the U.S. from Russia, China, and others is now at Cold War highs--or higher.
"When the Soviet Union fell, and we were no longer the main enemy," one U.S. intelligence official said, "they just started calling us the main target."
The Chinese have also been "relentless," the official said, but have dispatched agents who make little effort to cover their tracks and often draw the attention of U.S. officials.
Russian Embassy spokesman Yevgeniy Khorishko declined to comment.
Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong said China never engages in activities that endanger other countries' security interests. "Allegations of China conducting spying activities against the U.S. are unfounded and out of ulterior motives," he said.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com