Intelligence report too secret to release

WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- A government report on the growing use of contractors by U.S. intelligence agencies is too secret to be released.

Ronald Sanders, chief human capital officer for the director of intelligence, told The New York Times that information in the report could be used to deduce how many people are on the payroll. But he did say that about 25 percent of the "Intelligence Community's" work is now done by contractors.

"I can't give you anything that would allow you to impute the size of the (independent contractor) civilian work force," Sanders said.

The CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other three-letter agencies involved in intelligence gathering have increased their use of contractors since 2001 because of the combination of budget cuts in the 1990s and increased demand for information following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The House and Senate Intelligence committees are concerned that contracting out work could be more expensive. They also fear that spies could be lured away from civil service positions to work for their agencies as contractors.