ANOTHER COST OF THE IRAQ WAR

In addition to stretching our ground forces thin, the Iraq War is also hurting our efforts in other areas.


China's Spying Overwhelms U.S. Counterintelligence (Update2)
By Jeff Bliss
April 2 (Bloomberg)


For every person caught and accused of passing U.S. military and trade secrets to China, they say, scores of others go undetected. Taking advantage of an outmanned counterintelligence effort drained and distracted by the wars in Iraq and against al-Qaeda, current and former officials say, China has systematically managed to gain sensitive information on U.S. nuclear bombs and ship and missile designs.

``Iraq and the struggle with terrorism are sucking resources across the board,'' says Joel Brenner, the top counterintelligence official in the office of Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Meanwhile, ``the Chinese are really making a run at us.''

While the Federal Bureau of Investigation tripled the size of its China unit in 2001, plans for further expansion were scotched when the Iraq war began, says Rudy Guerin, a China expert who retired from the bureau last year.