Agence France Presse January 30, 2003
US gets new intelligence agency to "merge and analyze" data
By Patrick Anidjar
A new agency charged with coordinating and analyzing counterterrorist intelligence gathered by the FBI and the CIA will soon bolster US security efforts, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said Thursday.
In a speech in Miami, Florida, Ridge said efforts already underway "to protect this country's critical resources will be strengthened by intelligence analysis for the nation's first unified Terrorist Threat Integration Center."
He said his department will have two responsibilities vis-a-vis the new integration center. "It's our responsibility to supply our share of intelligence from the agencies and people within our department that generate that information," Ridge said.
"And it's our job also to use this information and other information we get from the integration center to help map and then reduce our vulnerabilities."
Announced by President George W. Bush Tuesday in his State of the Union address, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center is another in a string of reforms created by US officials in a bid to thwart another surprise attack like the September 11, 2001 strikes that killed some 3,000 people.
In short, the new agency's mandate is "to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location," Bush said.
"Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens," the president added.
US authorities hope to bridge the gaps created by a lack of coordination among the various US intelligence agencies.
Such gaps prior to the September 11 attacks brought harsh criticism for the FBI and the CIA -- both of which have since launched sweeping reforms in a bid to better protect the country from terrorist threats.
A senior US administration official told reporters the new agency will function primarily as an "analysis center."
It will merge and analyze "terrorist-related information" collected both domestically and abroad, the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the project is the president's "highest priority."
Agents will analyze everything from satellite photos of clandestine arms laboratories and recordings of jailed terrorists to reports from foreign intelligence services and accounts from informants within the United States and abroad.
Once information has been dealt with by the integration center, it will "go back out to the agencies that might need to take action about that to make an arrest, to make a disruption if it's overseas (and) to put a protective layer up for us," the senior official said, noting that "there's a bit of work yet to be done" before the center is fully up and running.
The center's activities will be led by Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, in close collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the brand-new Department of Homeland Security.
For his part, Patrick Garrett of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank specializing in defense and antiterror issues, warned that the integration center risks getting "overwhelmed."
The problem, Garrett told AFP, "is that they are going to get inundated with tons of information."
"That's a problem the other agencies have; they've got so much intelligence signals coming in to them that they can't hope to process it all in a timely fashion.
"And that is a problem this new center is gonna have, as well."
But he said the biggest risk is that authorities "will get a missing link for a clear warning on a specific day, but there will be a pretty good chance they won't be able to read it until the day after."
Copyright © 2003, Agence France Presse
