Intel funding

Pentagon black intel funding dropped in FY19

The Pentagon’s secret intelligence fund dropped in fiscal year 2019, the first time in three years that the black budget did not increase year over year.

The total Military Intelligence Program, or MIP, budget for fiscal 2019, including the base budget and Overseas Contingency Operations appropriations, was $21.5 billion, the Pentagon revealed Thursday.

MIP funding went as high as $27 billion in FY10, but by FY15 hit the low point for the decade at $16.6 billion, according to numbers maintained by the analytics group Avascent. But starting in FY16, the MIP had four straight years of growth, going from $17.7 billion in FY16, to $18.5 billion in FY17 and $22.1 billion in FY18.

According to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report, MIP funds “defense intelligence activities intended to support operational and tactical level intelligence priorities supporting defense operations." Among other uses, these dollars can be spent to facilitate the dissemination of information that relates to a foreign country or political group, and covert or clandestine activities against political and military groups or individuals.