Is National Intelligence Organized Around The Home Agencies?

Is National Intelligence Organized Around The Home Agencies?

Is the national intelligence of the United States of America “organized around the collection disciplines of the home agencies, not the joint mission” as the 9/11 Commission report states? Based on the book by Jeffery T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, this essay will first address the question by examining examples of intelligence organizations that support this statement and secondly, instances that tend to disprove it. Finally, after weighing each side, a conclusion will be provided as to the accuracy of the above statement.

Intelligence Organizations Are Not Focused On The Joint Mission

The U.S Intelligence Community is composed of both civilian and military organizations that perform very specific and particular missions. Richelson describes these civilian organizations in chapter six and provides evidence as to where their allegiance falls. “Offices in the Departments of State, Energy, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, and Transportation collect and/or analyze intelligence on foreign political and military affairs, economic affairs, or narcotics trafficking. In some cases, the organizations, in addition to their primary responsibility to their department, also contribute to the national intelligence effort” (p.130). He is clear to point out their “primary responsibility” is to their respective departments, not to the intelligence community as a whole. Richelson also uses the words “in some cases”, leading the reader to understand that the contribution to the community is the exception, rather than the norm.

Perhaps most informing is the lack of description of the collaborative effort within the community. He describes the responsibilities of the FBI as “predominantly in the criminal law enforcement, domestic counterterrorism, and domestic counterintelligence area, with the last two responsibilities being performed by the bureau’s National Security Division (p. 141). Nowhere in Richelson’s discussion of the FBI is any mention made of organizational efforts within the bureau to share information and work with other agencies on the joint missions of the nation. In fact, he identifies a FBI blunder wherein an agent working undercover in Chile “turned out to be a DEA informant who had been terminated and blacklisted years earlier” (p. 142). Had the FBI been better connected to the community, it may have avoided this embarrassment.

Civilian intelligence organizations are not the only agencies that lack integration and support to the intelligence community and joint mission. Military intelligence organizations unabashedly proclaim that the needs of their agencies come first. Richelson quotes General Paul Gorman, former U.S. Southern Commander:

From time to time … I dispatched one or two of my intelligence analysts, familiar with my own hypotheses and my hunches, to interact with relatively low echelon Washington based analysts, and to examine the data from which they worked from day to day. That practice yielded valuable insights for my command. My analysts discovered and reported that unexploited information inside the Beltway Barrier was a veritable treasure trove. Basically, the folks up here looking at information simply did not recognize valuable nuggets for our purposes (p. 460).

The reason provided for the need to maintain autonomy is provided by Richelson; he quotes former DCI Woolsey, “agencies that are heavily involved in international matters … often have rather specialized intelligence needs that it is very helpful for them to be able to have their own people working on” (p. 459). He further cites Peter Tarnoff, “Department principals need and want an in-house intelligence bureau” (p.459). Richelson provides more evidence of command structures designed specifically to support a MAJCOM’s area of responsibility. He illustrates this by including an organizational chart of the Atlantic Intelligence Command (p.107). Within this chart, it is clear that the Intelligence Directorate is designed to support its parent organization through the Targeting, Expeditionary and Regional elements specific to its area of responsibility vice the joint mission.

Perhaps the reason these disparate intelligence organizations do not function as the 9/11 Commission suggests is due to the orders, directives and regulations placed upon them. Richelson empirically outlines these directives and then adds, for the reader’s benefit, his take on their effectiveness in creating a cooperative environment. “No matter how thorough the document and directives described above or the plans described below are in stating the responsibilities and subject for collection and analysis, they will, for several reasons, be insufficient as complete guides” (p. 384). The directives lack the completeness to instruct on every issue and therefore require entities to cooperate, yet do not provide the organizational structure required to do such.

A look into the HPSCI study to re-organize the U.S. Intelligence Community reveals evidence that agencies should be focused on the joint mission, implying that they are not currently doing so. Richelson discusses this and offers explanations to the resistance to change, “one … explanation for opposition is bureaucratic self protection. The conflict between the intelligence and armed services committees was labeled a “turf battle par excellence”” (p. 454). Richelson argues that centralization by division, as the HPSCI study suggests, is not the solution in all cases (p. 453). He refers to the Indian nuclear detonations in 1998, and the failure to provide tactical warning of those detonations. Richelson does not entirely blame the failure on the formation of NIMA. Rather, he says, “it does highlight the importance of national intelligence as well as the need for a key element in the production of that intelligence to be placed in an agency outside of the Defense Department, in an agency for whom support to military operations is not the key mission” (p. 456).

Intelligence Organizations Are Focused On The Joint Mission

Despite examples showing intelligence organizations not focusing on the joint mission of the Intelligence Community, Richelson clearly demonstrates that the community is taking steps to work together, becoming more efficient. In chapter five, Richelson outlines and describes the Unified Command and its subordinate intelligence organizations. He explains that the commands are comprised of service members from all each branch of the military. The responsibilities of the unified commands include “intelligence analysis-for both the command and higher authorities-as well as supervision of national reconnaissance and other sensitive collection operations conducted within the command’s theater” (p. 104). This program clearly works for the greater whole and required the consolidation of command analysis centers. The consolidation of analysis centers in the major commands provides a joint setting where various service members from different branches work together in an effort to eliminate “duplicative efforts but strengthen support to the CINC and components through improved efficiency” (p. 105-106). Richelson demonstrates its success, at least from a staffing perspective, “As of November 1997, there were approximately 4,000 individuals working in the various joint intelligence centers, at which time it was announced that there would be a 10 percent reduction in personnel” (p.106).

Although some civilian agencies and their departments appear to be focused strictly on their own mission, the Office of Intelligence Resources, an office within the Department of State, is distinctly operating for the good of the joint mission. “The OIR provides staff support, representation, and coordination for the department’s interests in the National Foreign Intelligence Program and budget. It works with other intelligence community agencies and other branches of the department and overseas missions in planning, tasking, and deploying, and evaluation technical collection activities” (p.133).

The existence of national level intelligence agencies is evidence to support that they are working on national joint missions of the Intelligence Community. In discussing the reorganization of the NSA, Richelson informs the reader, “it was concluded that it was no longer efficient to think in terms of geographical regions and that intelligence requirements fell into two groups-transnational and geopolitical” (p.33). The NSA has a worldwide prospective on the nature of intelligence collection and analysis. The major success with the organization of NSA is due to the advent of the Operations Center. It is designed to “oversee and direct the SIGINT coverage of any crisis event” (p. 35). This Op Center receives intelligence from each individual NSA facility and has direct lines to advise the Director of the NSA and ultimately to the National Security Council (p.35).

The apparent success of the NSA prompted the formation of other national level organizations. Richelson references a Senate Select Committee of Intelligence hearing regarding the appointment of John Deutch to the position of Director of Central Intelligence. Deutch informed the committee that, if confirmed he would, “move immediately to consolidate the management of all imagery collection, analysis, and distribution [and that] both effectiveness and economy can be improved by managing imagery in a manner similar to the National Security Agency’s organization for signals intelligence” (p. 42). The resulting agency, NIMA, serves the joint mission of intelligence by providing customers throughout the entire intelligence community with imagery and mapping data analysis.

Despite the unique nature of individual intelligence organizations, there exists a common thread that runs throughout. Each agency protects the nation by providing intelligence to national and theater commanders, but due to the complex and secretive nature of intelligence, communication within the agencies is difficult. Computer technology has increased the ability of analysts to share information and work toward the joint mission. “To facilitate the collection and availability of … information the intelligence community has established both management structures for the supervision of open source efforts as well as the Open Source Information System/ Intelink-U database” (p. 279). Richelson informs the reader that this unclassified database contains a plethora of information compiled from intelligence agencies across the board. The classified version of this system “allows intelligence analysts to access multimedia intelligence products, access databases, communicate with other analysts, and obtain training and educational services, all via their computers” (471).

The hybrid organization, Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center or DEFSMAC, is arguably the best connected and joint mission focused entity in the Intelligence Community. “According to a former deputy director of the NSA, DEFSMAC:

is a combination of the DIA with its military components and the NSA. It has all the inputs from all the assets and is a warning activity. They probably have a better feel for any worldwide threat to this country from missiles, aircraft or overt military activities, better and more timely, at instant fingertip availability than any group in the United States. So DEFSMAC is an input to NSA, but it also [is] an input to DIA and the CIA and the White House Situation Room and everybody else” (p.35).

It is evident that while some agencies have communication difficulties within the community, the DEFSMAC does not appear to fall within that category.

Another example of an organizational approach to working jointly is found in the National Drug Intelligence Center. It “include[s] agents and analysts on leave from eleven agencies, including the CIA, the Defense Department, the DEA, and the Internal Revenue Service” (p. 142). By combining personnel from different intelligence agencies, the NDIC seeks to eliminate the “turf battle” mentioned previously.

Conclusion

In summary, it is evident that the blanket statement “national intelligence is still organized around the collection disciplines of the home agencies, not the joint mission,” is too broad and wide reaching to be accurate. After reading Richelson’s The U.S. Intelligence Community, the reader will ascertain that each organization within that community is unique and serves dissimilar purposes. Some agencies were designed with the joint mission in mind (NSA, NIMA, DEFSMAC, NDIC), while others (military intelligence units, CIA, FBI) are still evolving to meet the current demands of the nation. Because the U.S. Intelligence Community is so large and encompasses so many entities, the 9/11 Commission statement is true in some instances while false in others. As a whole however, the community is becoming more integrated and focused on the joint mission while also seeking to ensure individual areas of interest are not overlooked.