Intelligence Community

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Office of Strategic Services’ (OSS) successor, began to be assembled during the Second World War, on orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a tool to be used in the war against Italy, Germany and Japan.

Officially, however, it began to function in 1947, with the passage of National Security Act 153 by Congress and the advent of the Cold War.

Employing some 16,000 people, its main headquarters is in Langley, Virginia (near the Potomac) covering an area of 104 hectares. The CIA was charged with gathering and analyzing information on foreign enemies of the United States to allow the president, the Pentagon and Congress to respond to present and potential dangers.

Though the law establishes that intelligence supplied by the CIA must be “timely, objective, independent of political considerations and based on all sources of available intelligence,” it would be naive to think that U.S. intelligence strategies are apolitical in practice.

Since its creation, the CIA has been stepping over legal restrictions and coordinating clandestine operations that seek to steer internal policies of other countries according to U.S. interests and in order to protect the United States.

The U.S. “Intelligence Community” is composed of the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence (ODCI) —which controls the Office of the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence— the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Department, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the central images office and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which gathers specialized intelligence data.

The intelligence sectors of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Treasury, Energy and State Departments also belong to the intelligence community.

The extent of NSA’s capacity and resources make it one of the world’s most powerful agencies; employing from 35,000 to 50,000 people and with a budget larger than the CIA’s, the NSA specializes in gathering intelligence from electromagnetic signals (SIGINT).

This work includes: COMINT, communications intelligence; TELINT, telemetry intelligence; ELINT, electronic (non-communicational) intelligence gathered through radar and other devices; and IMINT, intelligence via aerial photos and images and satellite systems. This work is coupled with the analysis of encrypted data and communication security efforts. If there is one agency that can gather and analyze intelligence from all over the world, it is doubtless the NSA. The NSA contains a sub-agency, the Central Security Service, which is the link between it and the armed forces.

The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) is appointed by the U.S. president, with the consent of and following recommendations from the Senate; s/he assumes the leadership of the intelligence community, becoming the head of the CIA and the president’s chief advisor on matters of intelligence and national security.

The NIC, which is within the ODCI’s jurisdiction, is made up of senior intelligence community analysts and by specialists belonging to the public and private sectors who —bound by security provisions that protect the sources of and methods used to gather the intelligence— steer government policies.

At a different level, the DCI prepares an annual budget for the National Foreign Intelligence Program and submits it to the president. The budget must be approved by Congress. In total, 15 agencies and civilian or military departments make up the intelligence community, with the Department of Defense or Pentagon controlling 80 percent of the 40 billion dollars allocated it each year.

The appointment of multimillionaire Porter J. Goss as CIA Director aroused skepticism among politicians and analysts, who expected a radical change in the direction of this agency. According to critics, Goss’ term as president of the Intelligence Commission of the Chamber of Representatives, beginning 1996, was characterized by his close ties to ex-CIA Director George Tenet.

The retiring Admiral Stansfield Turner, who was the CIA director during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, considers Goss’ appointment as “the worst in the history of that position”; similarly, Mel Goodman, an ex-CIA analyst and current analyst for the Center for International Policy, asserts that Goss has “all the wrong credentials” for the position, having been a covert CIA operative and Director of Operations in Latin America and Europe for nine years in the 1960’s, among others.

Ray McGovern, who was a CIA operative for 25 years, states that Goss has shown that he is under the spell of Vice-President Dick Cheney —one of the hawks of the Bush administration— and will therefore answer primarily to him and Karl Rove, White House political advisor.” In this connection, David McMicheal, an ex-CIA analyst, affirms that Goss was a staunch defender of the agency and no one has associated him with any demand for change. His appointment, therefore, may be interpreted as more of the same.

Source:www.voltairenet.org