WASHINGTON - THE CIA will spend millions of dollars over the next five years to improve intelligence gathering, upgrade technologies and enable analysts to work more closely with spies in the field, under a plan laid out on Monday.
The plan renews the agency's year-old goal to increase the number of analysts and overseas operatives fluent in other languages, the lack of which has been a problem that has plagued military and civilian intelligence officers throughout much of the last decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said the changes will help the agency battle emerging national security dangers better, including terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and cyberthreats. US intelligence agencies have come under fire in recent months for perceived lapses that let a suicide bomber infiltrate a CIA base in Afghanistan and an alleged would-be bomber to board a US-bound flight on Christmas.
The exact numbers and specific languages are classified, but agency officials have said that they are lacking in key languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Pushto, Urdu and Persian.
Mr Panetta also said he will get more advanced technologies and software to help gather and sift through the vast amounts of intelligence coming in.
Exact spending totals were unavailable. The CIA budget is classified. -- AP
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