Table of Contents
Foreword
Executive
Summary
and Key Judgments
Findings
of the Commission
1.
Introduction
1.1
Commission Creation
1.2
Specific Commission Tasks
1.3
Makeup of the Commission
1.4
Commission Methodology
1.5
A Review of Previous Studies of NIMA
1.6
Support to the Commission
2.
NIMA from the Beginning
3.
NIMA in Context
3.1
The National Security Context
3.2
The Collection Context-FIA
3.3
Commercial Imagery
4.
Two-and-a-Half Roles for NIMA
4.1
NIMA as an Intelligence Producer
4.2
NIMA as a GIS Provider
4.3
The Role of Acquisition in NIMA
5.
The Promise of NIMA
5.1
Convergence of Imagery and Geospatial Processes
5.2
What Did the Geographer Know ... and When Did He Know It?
5.3
What Did the Imagery Analyst Know... and When Did She Know It?
5.4
Convergent Systems and Convergent Products
5.5
A Tale of Two Cities
5.6
"Magic Maps"-Another Kind Of Convergence
6.
NIMA and Its Stakeholders
7.
NIMA and Its "Customers"
7.1
Kudos from Users
7.2
Support to CIA and DIA
7.3
Customer Readiness for Change-The Paper Chase
7.4
Turning Consumers Into Customers
7.5
NIMA "Commercialization" Strategy
7.6
The Short Attention Span of Most Consumers
7.7
Tension Between "National" and "Tactical" Users
8.
Is There a "National Versus Tactical" Problem?
8.1
A Characterization of the Problem
8.2
The Need to Turn Down the Heat
8.3
Identifying Some Component Problems
8.4
Strategies for Relief and Mitigation
8.5
Some Longer-Term Concerns
9.
NIMA and Its Peers and Partners
9.1
How NIMA Is Viewed by Industry
9.2
NIMA and the Other INTs
9.3
NIMA and Foreign Government Activities
10.
NIMA and Its Suppliers
10.1
NRO and FIA
10.2
DARO, Where Are You When We Need You?
10.3
NIMA's Changing Role in a World of Commercial Suppliers
10.4
Commercial Imagery Providers
10.4.1
NIMA's Commercial Imagery Strategy
10.5
Commercial Value-Added (GIS) Product Suppliers
10.5.1
NIMA's Buying Habits-Actions Speak Louder Than Words
10.5.2
A Strained Relationship with Industry
11.
NIMA Management Challenges
11.1
The Role of the DCI Versus SECDEF
11.2
The Tenure of the Director of NIMA
11.3
The Job of Director, NIMA
11.4
Authorities of the Director of NIMA
11.5
D/NIMA Span of Control
11.6
NIMA Culture(s)
11.7
WorkForce-21
11.8
SES/SIS Billets
11.9
Workforce Expertise
11.9.1
Imagery Analysts
11.9.2
Imagery Scientists
11.9.3
Engineering/Acquisition Expertise
11.10
NIMA Management
11.11
NIMA Resources
12.
NIMA's Information Systems-TPED At Last!
12.1
Defining "TPED"
12.1.1
Tasking
12.1.2
Processing
12.1.3
Exploitation
12.1.4
Dissemination
12.2
If That's TPED, What is USIGS?
12.3
The Scope of TPED-Why Does It Cost So Much?
12.4
Managing TPED "Operations"
12.5
TPED Acquisition Management
12.6
The Role of Commercial Technology
12.7
The IDEX Replacement, IEC, Is a Case in Point
12.8
Making Commercial TPED Acquisition Work
12.8.1
Does It Scale?
12.8.2
Is the Design Too Tightly Integrated? Too Complex?
12.8.3
Choosing the Right Architects
12.8.4
Planning a Smooth Transition-Prototyping and Evolution
12.9
The Current State of TPED
12.10
The Need for an Extraordinary Program Office
12.10.1
To Establish the Baseline Architecture
12.10.2
To Migrate Toward a Data-Centric, Web-Centric Design
12.10.3
To Integrate Airborne and Commercial Imagery with NTM
12.10.4
To Integrate Libraries and Communications
12.10.5
To Support Multi-INT TPED
12.10.6
To Address TPED Implications of JCS-Identified FIA Shortcomings
12.11
Creating the EPO
12.12
Technical Advisory Board
13.
NIMA Research and Development: A Road Less Traveled
14.
NIMA and Its Information Architecture-A Clean Sheet
14.1
The Importance of Architecture
14.2
Toward a New Architecture
14.3
A Database to Support the TPED Process
14.4
Tasking, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination as Transactions
14.5
Vector-Raster Integration
14.6
Product, Application, and Client Independence
14.7
Location Independence
14.8
Annotation
14.9
The Need for a Rigorous Data Model
14.10
Ways to Absorb Data from Third Parties
14.11
Methods to Deal with Logical Inconsistencies
14.12
Methods to Separate Public from Restricted Information
14.13
New Data Types
14.14
Precision and Persistence
14.15
Toward Multi-INT integration
14.16
Conclusions of the "Clean Sheet" Exercise
15.
Recommendations
15.1
DOD and DCI Policy and Planning
15.1.1
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (C/JCS) should commission a study
of the demands and constraints that military doctrine places on imagery
intelligence and geospatial information. The study should be available
for congressional review within 18 months.
15.1.2
The Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (USD/AT&L)
should include the cost of information as part of the total cost of
ownership (TCO) of each new system; the programmed availability of
that information should be the equivalent of a Key Performance Parameter
(KPP). New, more emphatic guidelines should be promulgated to the
Department of Defense, and available to Congress within one year.
15.1.3
D/NIMA should provide positive mechanisms that inform every consumer
as to the 'true cost' of NTM imagery in order to promote conservation
of this scarce resource, as well as to support rational economic decisions
about the use of commercial imagery.
15.2
Long-Term (Strategic) Versus Operational (Short-Term)-nee "National
Tactical"
15.2.1
The DCI, operating through the ADCI/C in conjunction with the ADCI/AP,
should provide a suitable mechanism for high-level, collaborative
resolution of lingering imagery contentions.
15.3
Resources
15.3.1
ASD(C3I) and DDCI/CM should work with NIMA leadership to aggressively
seek the sources and means-dollars, competent management, and skilled
personnel-needed to make NIMA's mission whole and its infrastructure
functional.
15.3.2
The DCI and SECDEF should, at the earliest opportunity, provide additional
SES/SIS billets for NIMA. Congress should act favorably on the request
with similar alacrity.
15.3.3
The Director of NIMA should request through the DCI, and Congress
duly authorize and appropriate, an increment to the NIMA Program for
advanced research and development (R&D); the position of Chief
Technology Officer should be created and a top-notch individual found
to encumber it.
15.4
Commercial Imagery
15.4.1
The Director of NIMA, in concert with the Director of NRO, should
develop, within 120 days, a new commercial imagery strategy-i.e.,
prepare an integration plan for commercial imagery-consistent with
current market conditions.
15.4.2
The Office of the Secretary of Defense should establish a fund against
which defense elements wishing to make direct use of commercial imagery
can charge their purchase.
15.5
Outsourcing
15.5.1
D/NIMA should commission an independent 180-day study to determine
the maximum extent to which outsourcing could be extended, to include
operation of all infrastructure, production of all legacy MC&G
products, and much science-based imagery analysis. Results of the
study should be provided to the DCI and the SECDEF within 30 days
of completion, together with D/NIMA implementation(s).
15.6
Commercial Technology
15.6.1
D/NIMA should periodically review all "NIMA Standards" which, if divergent
from industry, should be revised (or revalidated); and, move NIMA
toward a level 3 organizational rating for Software and System Acquisition.
15.7
TPED
15.7.1
DCI and SECDEF, with the full support of Congress, should form an
"Extraordinary Program Office" (EPO) within 120 days in order to ensure
the prompt and efficient acquisition of required TPED functionality
and equipment.
15.7.2
D/NIMA should produce a proposed revision to the current plan for
IEC acquisition and deployment, to include new cost and schedule data,
for aggressively replacing all IDEX terminals with a fully capable
commercial alternative; DDCI/CM and ASD(C3I) shall find the means
to allow D/NIMA to execute this accelerated plan.
15.7.3
The SECDEF shall direct the ASD(C3I) and Chairman, JCS, to support
the Director of NIMA and the Director of NRO in the preparation of
a plan which clearly indicates the role and integration of airborne
and commercial imagery into TPED and which integrates geospatial and
imagery analysis.
15.7.4
Director, NIMA, should get out in front of any potential FIA upgrade;
in particular, he should study the implications for TPED for the five
FIA shortfalls identified by the JCS, each of which could have major
TPED implications and none of which has been considered fully in the
current architecture.
15.8
Imagery Dissemination
15.8.1
ASD(C3I) should ensure that the communications architecture for imagery
dissemination for Defense and its intersection with Intelligence subtends
both the designs of NIMA (more generally, of the "national" systems)
and the last tactical mile designed by the respective services and
secure sufficient DOD funding for execution.
15.8.2
The ASD(C3I) shall coordinate the efforts of NIMA, DISA, and the NRO
to ensure that both the communications links and acquisition strategy
for communications systems are sufficient to support TPED in the FIA
era. Director, DISA, shall certify his ability, within the current
POM/IPOM, to satisfy NIMA communications needs for dissemination or
report to the SECDEF and Congress on the reasons for his inability
to do so.
15.9
Multi-INT TPED
15.9.1
The DDCI/CM and ASD(C3I) shall jointly determine the extent and pace
of convergence toward a multi-INT TPED. Consistent with their findings,
the Director of NSA and Director of NIMA, inter alia, shall conduct
the necessary architecture study.
15.10
Management-Director of NIMA
15.10.1
The Director of NIMA should establish a Technical Advisory Board
15.10.2
The Secretary of Defense, with DCI endorsement and congressional support,
should fix the nominal tour length for the Director of NIMA at five
years.
15.10.3
D/NIMA, along with other intelligence organizations, should work with
the JCS to establish the need for, and CONOPS for, advising US commanders
of the likely adversary insights into US operations-the OPFOR J2 role-given
the loss of US imagery exclusivity.
15.10.4
D/NIMA should consider appointing an "Archive Manager" to maximize
the value of the imagery archive, to be the advocate for archive use,
and to create a "spec-deck" for tasking "to inventory" otherwise unused
imaging capacity.
15.11
Culture and Convergence
15.11.1
Director of NIMA should regularize and extrapolate to the organization
more broadly his experiments with teams consisting of both Imagery
and GIS analysts to work specific, high-priority issues.
16.
APPENDIX A: Terms Of Reference For The Independent Commission National
Imagery And Mapping Agency (NIMA)
16.1
OBJECTIVE:
16.2
BACKGROUND:
16.3
GENERAL:
16.4
SPECIFIC COMMISSION TASKS:
16.5
KEY EVENTS:
16.6
ORGANIZATION/MANAGEMENT OF COMMISSION:
17.
APPENDIX B: List of Appearances and Interviews
17.1
Office of the Director for Central Intelligence
17.2
Community Management Staff
17.3
Central Intelligence Agency
17.4
U.S. Congress
17.5
Defense Intelligence Agency
17.6
Department of Defense
17.7
Federal Government
17.8
National Imagery And Mapping Agency
17.9
National Reconnaisance Office
17.10
U.S. Commands
17.11
Industry
17.12
OTHER
18.
Glossary of Terms
Foreword
| Executive Summary and Key Judgments
| Introduction | NIMA
from the Beginning
NIMA in Context | Two-and-a-Half
Roles for NIMA | The Promise of NIMA
NIMA and Its Stakeholders |
NIMA and Its "Customers" | Is There a "National
vs Tactical" Problem?
NIMA and Its Peers and Partners | NIMA
and Its Suppliers | NIMA Management Challenges
NIMA's Information Systems | NIMA
Research and Development
NIMA and Its Information Architecture | Recommendations
| Appendix A
Appendix B | Glossary
of Terms
Table
of Contents | Home | PDF
|
