Title:  SPY AGENCY FINDS SPARE BILLIONS
Subtitle:  Extras may be used for Bosnia deployment
Type:  Newspaper article
Publication:  Las Vegas Sun
Date:  January 30, 1996
Page:  3B

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government's spy satellite agency had more than $2 
billion in unspent money last year and now it is helping pay for the 
Bosnia troop deployment and other defense programs, auditors have 
discovered.

The audit by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of 
Defense found a larger pool of unspent funds than had been previously 
reported from the accounts of the secret National Reconnaissance Office, 
a congressional staffer familiar with the inquiry said today.

The NRO runs the government's spy satellite and electronic eavesdropping 
operations. The New York Times reported on the overrun in today's 
editions.

NRO officials told auditors they were unaware of the extent of the 
unspent money, but said they typically get extra funds because even a 
single satellite launch failure can put the agency over its.

Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., the chairman and 
vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said $820 million of 
the unspent money will pay for U.S. military operations in Bosnia.

Early last year the amount of the NRO overrun was reported at about $1 
billion. Later the figure escalated to $1.5 billion.

"Apparently no funds were lost to the government and no funds were spent 
on items different than those either the Congress or the administration 
intended," Specter and Kerrey said in a Joint statement. "But as long as 
all this spending authority sat in NRO's accounts, it couldn't be used 
by other agencies of the government or to reduce the debt."

Specter and Kerrey said Pentagon and CIA auditors worked for months to 
determine the amount of unspent money.

"In the course of this work, it became apparent that the NRO's top 
managers themselves had no idea of the extent of the forward funding," 
the two lawmakers said.

###