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17 December 2004

Mission of U.S. Intelligence Community Is Diverse

15 agencies share intelligence responsibilities

The post of national intelligence director established by the new intelligence reform law will oversee a federation of executive branch agencies and organizations working separately and together. Following is a fact sheet on those organizations and their operations, as prepared by the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs.

(begin fact sheet)

The law to revise the U.S. Intelligence Community creates a national intelligence director with broad budget power to oversee the work of the current 15 intelligence agencies.

In the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, the director has strategic authority to determine a unified direction for intelligence gathering and operations for the whole intelligence community, and is accountable for all operations. He also has the authority to develop and determine the annual, classified intelligence budget.

Previously, the director of central intelligence (DCI), who was also director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had some authority to coordinate the work of the other intelligence community members, but no budgetary and personnel control. The DCI position will no longer have that coordination authority.

The law also establishes a National Counterterrorism Center with authority to plan intelligence missions and counterterrorism operations.

However, the current intelligence community structure -- a federation of executive branch agencies and organizations working separately and together -- remains intact as created by the 1947 National Security Act to conduct intelligence activities.

Those activities include:

-- Collection of information needed by the president, the National Security Council, the secretaries of state and defense, and other executive branch officials for the performance of their duties and responsibilities;

-- Production and dissemination of intelligence and analysis to policy-makers;

-- Collection of information concerning, and the conduct of activities to protect against, intelligence activities directed against the United States, international terrorist and international narcotics activities, and other hostile activities directed against the United States by foreign powers, organizations, persons, and their agents;

-- Administrative and support activities within the U.S. and abroad necessary for the performance of authorized activities; and

-- Such other intelligence activities as the president may direct.

The following is a list that profiles the current 15 member agencies of the intelligence community:

-- Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps intelligence organizations -- each collects and processes intelligence relevant to the particular armed service's needs.

-- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) -- provides accurate, comprehensive, and timely foreign intelligence on national security topics to national policy and decision makers.

-- Coast Guard Intelligence -- deals with information related to U.S. maritime borders and Homeland Security.

-- Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) -- provides timely and objective military intelligence to regional combatant commanders, policy-makers, and force planners.

-- Department of Energy -- performs analyses of foreign nuclear weapons, nuclear non-proliferation, and energy security-related intelligence issues.

-- Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- prevents terrorist attacks within the United States, reduces America's vulnerability to terrorism, and minimizes the damage and recovers from attacks that may occur.

-- Department of State -- analyzes information affecting U.S. foreign policy.

-- Department of Treasury -- collects and processes information that may affect U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, and terrorist financing.

-- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) -- deals with counterterrorism, both domestic and international, counterespionage, and data about international criminal cases.

-- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) -- provides timely, relevant, and accurate geographic intelligence in support of national security.

-- National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) -- coordinates collection and analysis of information from airplane and satellite reconnaissance by the military services and the CIA.

-- National Security Agency (NSA) -- collects and processes foreign signals intelligence information for national leaders and combatant commanders, and protects critical U.S. information security systems from compromise.

All the responsibilities of the CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, and NGA are concerned with intelligence. Therefore, each of these organizations in its entirety is considered to be a member of the intelligence community.

The other organizations are concerned primarily with missions and business other than intelligence, but do have intelligence responsibilities. In these cases, only the part of the organization with the intelligence responsibility is considered to be a part of the community.

(end fact sheet)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=December&x=20041217151205dmslahrellek8.051699e-02&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html