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New
Delhi, 19 June 2005
The Washington Times reported that
the US Navy had bought a diesel submarine from
Sweden and a highly classified intelligence report
produced for the new director of national
intelligence concluded that U.S. spy agencies failed
to recognise several key military developments in
China in the past decade.
According to officials familiar
with the report, it was created by several current
and former intelligence officials and concluded that
U.S. agencies had missed more than a dozen Chinese
military developments.
The report blamed excessive secrecy
on China's part for the failures, but critics said
intelligence specialists were to blame for playing
down or dismissing evidence of growing Chinese
military capabilities. The report comes as the Bush
administration appears to have become more critical
of China's military buildup.
Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld said recently in Singapore that China had
hidden its defense spending and was expanding its
missile forces despite facing no threats. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice also expressed worries
this week about China's expanding military
capabilities.
Among the failures highlighted in
the study are:
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China's development of a new long-range cruise
missile
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The deployment of a new warship equipped with a
stolen Chinese version of the U.S. Aegis battle
management technology
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Deployment of a new attack submarine known as the
Yuan class that was missed by U.S. intelligence
until photos of the submarine appeared on the
Internet
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Development of precision-guided munitions,
including new air-to-ground missiles and new,
more accurate warheads
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China's development of surface-to-surface
missiles for targeting U.S. aircraft carrier
battle groups
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The import of advanced weaponry, including
Russian submarines, warships and fighter-bombers
According to officials familiar
with the intelligence report, the word
"surprise" is used more than a dozen times
to describe U.S. failures to anticipate or discover
Chinese arms development. Many of the missed
military developments will be contained in the
Pentagon's annual report to Congress on the Chinese
military, which was due out March 1 but delayed by
interagency disputes over its contents.
Critics of the study say the report
unfairly blames intelligence collectors for not
gathering solid information on the Chinese military
and for failing to plant agents in the communist
government. Instead,
these officials said, the report looks like a bid to
exonerate analysts within the close-knit fraternity
of government China specialists, who for the past 10
years dismissed or played down intelligence showing
that Beijing was engaged in a major military build
up.
“This report conceals the efforts
of dissenting analysts [in the intelligence
community] who argued that China was a threat,"
one official said, adding that covering up the
failure of intelligence analysts on China would
prevent a major reorganization of the system.
A former U.S. official said the
report should help expose a "self-selected
group" of specialists who fooled the U.S.
government on China for 10 years. "This group's
desire to have good relations with China has
prevented them from highlighting how little they
know and suppressed evidence that China viewed the
United States as its main enemy."
The report has been sent to Thomas
Fingar, a longtime intelligence analyst on China who
was recently appointed by John D. Negroponte, the
new director of national intelligence, as his
office's top intelligence analyst. Mr. Negroponte
had ordered a series of top-to-bottom reviews of
U.S. intelligence capabilities in the aftermath of
the critical report by the presidential commission
headed by Judge Laurence Silberman and former
Senator Charles Robb, a Virginia Democrat. According
to the officials the study was produced by a team of
analysts for the intelligence contractor Centra
Technologies.
Spokesmen for the CIA and Mr.
Negroponte declined to comment.
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