Pentagon scales down its plans for new spy agency

The Pentagon has scaled back its plan to assemble an overseas spy service that could have rivalled the CIA in size, backing away from a project that faced opposition from lawmakers who questioned its purpose and cost, current and former US officials said.

Under the revised blueprint, the Defence Intelligence Agency will train and deploy up to 500 undercover officers, roughly half the size of the espionage network envisioned two years ago when the formation of the Defence Clandestine Service was announced.

The previous plan called for moving as many as 1,000 undercover case officers overseas to work alongside the CIA and the US military's Joint Special Operations Command on counterterrorism missions and other targets of national security concern.

Instead, the training schedule has been cut back, and most of those involved will be given assignments that are more narrowly focused on DIA's traditional mission of gathering intelligence for the Defence Department.

The revised aim was to "stay small but be highly effective", said a former senior US intelligence official.

The Pentagon would still be placing dozens of undercover officers "in very difficult places around the world", including parts of Africa and the Middle East, where al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have significant footholds, the former official said. But their espionage efforts would "focus on defence needs".

The shift represents a retreat by Pentagon officials who had sought to transform a spy service seen as second string to the CIA, repositioning it for an era of more dispersed threats after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.