The Central Intelligence Agancy (CIA) - Assignment Example

?INTRODUCTION The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the leading independent intelligence agency of US government which is responsible to provide the national security concerns to US government. It was formed under National Security Act of 1947. The agency controls sensitive nature of work and therefore directly reports the security concerns to the senior policymakers of US government. Senate and President of United States decide the appointment for director of Central Intelligence agency, who is responsible for all the operating, budgeting and human resource matter of the Agency. The Director of CIA works as a National Human Source Intelligence Manager (HUMINT) (FAS, 2009, 1). The history of intelligence activities in United States started in the period of George Washington but since World War II these activities are properly coordinated and directed by government. For this purpose, a New York lawyer “William J. Donovan” was appointed as the first coordinator of information. He then became the head of the Office of strategic Services (OSS) in 1942 when US entered in World War II. The responsibilities of OSS were to collect and analyze information. However, it was dissolved after World War II along with other agencies and the functions of OSS were transferred to state and War departments (DNI, 2011, 7). After some time, President Truman (The US President of that time) felt the need of Intelligence organization and decided to create a separate intelligence agency of United State. Truman, under National Security Act 1947, established Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The primary responsibilities of CIA under the National Security Act were evaluating and disseminate secret information which influence on security risk of United States (DNI, 2011, 7). After a long time, President George W. Bush took the major steps on December 2004. He signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. These new Acts helped in restructuring the intelligence community and thus dissolved the position of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI). The positions of Director of CIA (D/CIA) and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) were established under new Act (DNI, 2011, 7). The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) deals with the several staff which directly report to him. These staff includes the human resources, protocol, public affairs, legal issues, information management, and mission innovation (FIA, 2009, 1). VISION The Agency has a vision to secure the world from threats. The vision statement of CIA is “One Agency. One Community. An Agency unmatched in its core capabilities, functioning as one team, fully integrated into the Intelligence Community” (CIA Website) The statement clearly reveals the future direction of CIA. The agency wants to be the unmatched intelligence agency in the world. It wants to create secure and peaceful environment in United States. It wants second to be none. MISSION & GOALS OF CIA “We are the nation’s first line of defense. We accomplish what others cannot accomplish and go where others cannot go. We carry out our mission by: Collecting information that reveals the plans, intentions and capabilities of our adversaries and provides the basis for decision and action. Producing timely analysis that provides insight, warning and opportunity to the President and decision makers charged with protecting and advancing America’s interests. Conducting covert action at the direction of the President to preempt threats or achieve US policy objectives. ” (CIA Website) The mission of CIA reflects the true picture of intelligence. The agency is number one in providing intelligence services. Its primary purpose is to collect the information which is against the peaceful environment and interest of America. The agency also analyze the information in order know the hidden threats and then convey it to the US official decision makers. Finally the agency implements the action plans according to the direction of decision maker which are in favor of America’s interest. The information collection process is quite careful process because CIA needs to identify the issue using the information. The information is very crucial for the national security concern of United States. Therefore CIA collects information through many sources such as foreign print and electronic media which is the open source to collect information about foreign policies and threats arising in these countries. Similarly, satellites images are captured which are also beneficial for CIA. The analysts analyze the pictures to identify the suspect activities in the foreign countries. Moreover, signal analysts also tried to decrypt coded messages which are sent and received by foreign countries. Information is also collected by the executive operation officers who are sent to foreign countries to work and live over there and provide CIA the suspect information about these countries. However CIA does not violate the policies and orders of policymakers for obtaining information. In some situation, CIA is ordered to work on the specific issues such as intelligence of Al-Qaida and Taliban activities in Afghanistan or intelligence of transfer of uranium between two countries (DNI, 2011, 10). The second step starts when information is available to intelligence analysts. The analysts combine the relevant information and analyze what important things which are hidden in the information. They always assess the information by keeping US interest in front. The analysts provide accurate, biased free and timely assessment to the US President and Policymakers. The assessment is provided in the form of written reports and briefings. President’s Daily briefing report is one the written reports which is provided to US President and other policymakers daily (DNI, 2011, 10). One of the important things about CIA is that it can only give analysis and suggestions to policy makers and the policy making is in the hands of other agencies such as Department of Defense. The policymakers decide using the information provided by the CIA that what necessary steps should be taken in response to these assessments. Moreover, CIA is also not responsible to implement and enforce the law in the country. CIA can work on covert actions which are directed by the policymakers according to the laws. Therefore the three key responsibilities of CIA are collection, analysis, and disseminate of relevant intelligence to US Policymakers (DNI, 2011, 10). CORE VALUES The agency has strong core values which consist of services, integrity and excellence (CIA website). Services The agency keeps strong views regarding its services and therefore it put the interest of the country first and then agency itself. The people of the agency are patriotic and can sacrifice for the sake of the country. They are sincere and passionate in their mission and striving to maintain their position as the top intelligence agency. They feel pride in providing extraordinary services to their nation. Integrity The uprightness and honesty of the agency makes it unique than other intelligence agency in the world. The people of the agency abide all the rules and regulations applicable on them. They work under greater standard of conduct and always ensure the sincerity and discipline in their work and environment. They always speak truth with their colleagues and customers. They abide all the orders directed by their seniors and never regret them in front of policymakers. They also respect to their colleagues with whom they work daily as well as those people who provides assistance to agency. Excellence The excellence is the pride of agency. The people of the agency always seek to bring excellence in their work and among themselves. They have maintained highest standard in the agency by holding their hands with each other. They evaluate their performances and believe in personal accountability. They learn from their mistakes and always strive to improve their performance level. PROGRAM AND POLICIES To achieve the mission, CIA is divided into four distinct categories. These four categories are linked with each other in order to achieve the intelligence cycle which is the process of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating the secret information to concerned US government officials. The four categories are discussed below. i. The National Clandestine Service (NCS) The first category of intelligence process involves the collection of secret foreign information in order to know the future threats exist in information. The National Clandestine service acts as a national coordination authority, de-confliction, and assessment of secret National Human Source Intelligence Manager (HUMINT) operation in the intelligence community. However they work under the mentioned laws, orders and agreements. The NCS is also the source of secret intelligence regarding the international penetration of terrorist, explosive weapons and political issues. For this purpose, NCS’s main intelligence officers work and live in foreign countries to collect the information regarding various activities in these countries (DNI, 2011, 15-34). ii. The Directorate of Intelligence (DI) The Directorate of intelligence (DI) is responsible for analyzing all the secret information which has been collected by the National Clandestine service (NCS). After analyzing the information, the department presents reports and briefings regarding the foreign intelligence issues. The information is sent to Directorate of Intelligence through various ways including foreign media, satellite photos, and NCS’s operation officers. It is the responsibility of DI to accurately analyze the information. Only relevant and timely information can bring the accurate result. Therefore the department has to meet its timelines in order to analyze the relevant information. Moreover, the analysis is carefully conducted and a single piece of information is not considered worthless in analysis process because one wrong analysis can lead America in a worst position. The analysis of Directorate Intelligence helps US policymaker to identify the foreign defense policies and its impact on the overall world especially on America (DNI, 2011, 15-34). iii. The Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) The Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) department also play a crucial role in CIA’s intelligence service. The department is responsible for analyzing the secret information scientifically in order to provide the scientific solution to US policy makers. For this purpose, it uses the expertise of over 50 scientific disciplines such as engineers, computer programmers and other scientific analysts. It has made partnership with other intelligence based organizations in order to have more accurate and timely expertise in the scientific field. The scientific method used by DS&T reduces the chances of wrong analysis of information. The current technology has also made it easy to use relevant information in decision making (DNI, 2011, 15-34). iv. The Directorate of Support (DS) The Directorate of support (DS) is the main department of CIA. The main responsibility of DS is to provide support to other departments in order to achieve intelligence mission. The services which DS provide include acquisitions, logistics, information technology, financial management, communications, security of personnel, medical, and other technologies and facilities. The DS services are international in standard and secret in nature. The services are provided every time to the agency. The DS department provides all the necessary services to make CIA a great intelligence community (DNI, 2011, 15-34). Budget of Agency: United States is always spending major portion of its budget into intelligence and military services. The increasing number of incidents of terrorism has made them aware regarding the overall situation of the world. Therefore the US spending figure on intelligence activities is increasing every year. US assigned $550 million for CIA in the annual budget of 1963 while the aggregate intelligence budget in the fiscal year 1998 was $26.7 billion. The National Intelligence Program (NIP) is the program which is responsible for funding the various intelligence activities conducting by concern federal departments and Central Intelligence Agency of United States. In 2007, the US federal government allocated 43.5 billion to National Intelligence program. Since then the figure is continuously increasing and reached to $53.1 billion in 2010. The figure then increased to 54.6 billion in fiscal year 2011 and $55 billion is now requested for National Intelligence Program for the fiscal year 2012. (Aftergood) The above figure represents the spending On National Foreign Intelligence program by US government from 1960s to 1990s. It has been noted that the total spending on intelligence agency has been increased rapidly from 1980 onward and the spending rose to 125 percent from 1980 to 1990. It started declining slightly from 1990 but it was much higher than 1980 figure. (Aftergood) The above chart representing the US spending on defense and intelligence. It is clearly shown that US spending on intelligence has grown significantly more than the defense spending. The figures show that US government is more interested in making intelligence strong. After 9/11 attack, US realized its weaknesses in intelligence and started to pay special attention on intelligence agencies such as CIA. The above chart also indicating that US spending on intelligence is increasing after FY 2000. The highlights of the budget for National Intelligence and Military Intelligence Program for the last five year i.e. 2007-2011 are given below (Aftergood). In 2007, the US federal government assigned $20 billion for Military intelligence program and $43.5 billion for National Intelligence Program which collectively make $63.5 billion. The two figures show that US spending was almost double in National Intelligence Program as compare to Military Intelligence Program. In 2008, the figure reached to $22.9 billion for Military Intelligence Program and $47.5 billion for National Intelligence Program which collectively accounted $70.4 billion. The percentage increase in NIP’s fund is almost 9 percent. In 2009, US spent $26.4 on MIP budget and $49.8 billion on NIP. The total amount of these two figures was 76.2 billion. The percentage increase in spending on NIP over the last year was 5 percent. In 2010, the MIP fund increased to 27 billion while NIP fund improved to $53.1 billion. The collective figure was 80.1 billion. Nip budget was enhanced by almost 6.5 percent over the last year. In 2011, the US government did not continue the MIP’s increasing trend and reduced its fund by $3 billion to $24 billion. However, National Intelligence Program continued its trend and increased by $1.5 billion to $54.5 billion. However, the percentage increase in NIP fund was only 3 percent over the last year (Aftergood, 2011). The collective analysis of National intelligence program for the last five years reveals that National Intelligence funds have been increased by $11 billion which shows almost 26 percent increment from 2007. The US government also spent more than 200 percent in National Intelligence than Military Intelligence Program. Tim Weiner in his book “Legacy of ashes: the History of CIA” claimed that the early funding for CIA was requested by Allen Dulles and James Forrestal. According to him, these two people asked from private Wall Street and Washington D.C. sources for CIA funds. He further revealed that Forrestal convinced US secretary of Treasury for the funding of $200 million to CIA to affect European election (Weiner, 2007, 27). The CIA was allowed $685 million after Marshal Plan (Weiner, 2007, 28). The specific Intelligence Agency’s budget is not publically disclosed by the directorate of National Intelligence. The directorate only discloses the accumulative budget of National Intelligence Program (NIP). The first aggregate figure for national Intelligence and intelligence activities was first publicized in 1997 which was $26.6 billion. It is generally believed that CIA has unlimited funds to spend but this is not true. The budget size of CIA is properly checked and scrutinized by senate committee of intelligence, US official department of budget, and the Defense intelligence committee. The fund is allocated to CIA by analyzing its past performance and the future tasks. The approval process of funding to CIA is also similar with all the other US government organizations (Aftergood, 2011). Reference List Aftergood, Steven. 2011. A New Milestone in Intelligence Budget Disclosure. http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/02/intelbud_request.html Aftergood, Steven. Intelligence Budget Data. http://www.fas.org/irp/budget/index.html CIA. CIA Vision, Mission, and Values. https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/cia-vision-mission-values/index.html DNI. 2011. U.S. National Intelligence: an overview 2011. http://www.whs.mil/library/IC_Consumers_Guide_2011.pdf FAS. 2009. An Overview of the United States Intelligence Community for the 111th Congress. http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/overview.pdf Weiner, Tim. 2007. Legacy of Ashes: the History of CIA. New York: Anchor Books. Read More