WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) -- Data from the CIA indicate only 13 percent of the U.S. intelligence agency's employees speak a foreign language despite a call for bilingual workers.
USA Today said Monday that data regarding the CIA's unspecified number of employees did show the number of agency workers equipped with foreign language abilities had increased during the last five years by 70 percent.
Despite such an increase, only 18 percent of workers in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, which analyzes all gathered agency intelligence, currently speak more than one language.
That percentage increases to 28 when reviewing employees in the agency's National Clandestine Service, which coordinates all foreign spy operations.
USA Today said the low bilingual percentages come despite calls from the 9-11 Commission and CIA Director Leon Panetta for increased foreign language proficiency in the agency.
"Foreign languages are extremely important... to understanding that part of the world that we have to gather intelligence from," Panetta said at his confirmation this year.
