The commission’s report, released on 31 March 2005, found the intelligence community to have been “dead wrong” in virtually all its prewar judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. It also concluded that the United States knew “disturbingly little about the programs and even less about the intentions of many of America’s dangerous adversaries,” including Iran and North Korea. The report asserted that the spy agencies were disorganized and fragmented, even after the changes instituted in the aftermath of the 9/11 Commission’s report in the fall of 2004 and the enactment of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in January 2005.
The commission made 74 recommendations, the most important of which are giving the new director of national intelligence (DNI) greater powers over the intelligence agencies, including their budgets, programs, personnel, and priorities; setting up a National Security Service within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to address counterterrorism and counterintelligence issues; establishing a National Counterproliferation Center to combat the spread of weapons; creating a new office within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate intelligence among the different agencies; training more intelligence agents; and revamping the president’s daily brief (PDB) to include more divergent views and alternative analyses.
On the day of the report’s release, President Bush publicly said that he shared the commission’s assessment that U. S. intelligence “needed fundamental change,” but did not indicate which, if any, of the recommendations he would consider implementing. U. S. intelligence agencies have a solid record of fiercely opposing any change proposed from outside the community.
COMMISSION ON THE ROLES AND CAPABILITIES OF THE UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY. Also known as the Aspin/Brown Commission, the congressionally mandated body began its work in 1995 with the charge to review “the efficacy and appropriateness” of U. S. intelligence activities in the global environment of the post-Cold War period. The commission released its report on 1 March 1996, titled “Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U. S. Intelligence,” which examined the entire range of intelligence issues, such as the size of the intelligence community (IC), collection capabilities, organizations, overall structure, management, analysis, and oversight. The report also addressed the proposal to give the director of central intelligence (DCI) direct line control of the major Department of Defense (DOD) intelligence agencies — the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). In 1996, Congress passed legislation providing the DCI with greater power to coordinate the IC but declined to give him direct control.
COMMITTEE OF SECRET CORRESPONDENCE. Created on 29 November 1775, the Committee on Secret Correspondence carried out intelligence activities for the Continental Congress, corresponded with agents, and established precedents for secrecy in its operations. The committee included numerous well-known Revolutionary War figures, including Benjamin Franklin and James Lovell, the latter becoming Congress’s expert on codes and ciphers, thereby earning him the sobriquet of “the father of American cryptology.”
The committee employed secret agents abroad, conducted covert actions, devised codes and ciphers, funded propaganda activities, authorized the opening of private mail, acquired foreign publications for analysis, and established a courier system.
On 17 April 1777, the Committee of Secret Correspondence was renamed the Committee of Foreign Affairs, but kept its intelligence function. Matters of diplomacy were conducted by other committees or by the Congress as a whole. With the creation of a Department of Foreign Affairs—the forerunner of the Department of State—on 10 January 1781, correspondence “for the purpose of obtaining the most extensive and useful information relative to foreign affairs” was shifted to the new body, whose secretary was empowered to correspond “with all other persons from whom he may expect to receive useful information.” See also HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE; SONS OF LIBERTY.
COMMITTEE ON IMAGERY REQUIREMENTS AND EXPLOITATION (COMIREX). Established on 1 July 1967 as a subcommittee of the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB), COMIREX replaced the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance (COMOR) to coordinate imagery collection requirements in the United States government. The establishment of COMIREX reflected the increasing use of imaging capabilities of overhead collection systems, including satellites. COMIREX was designed to set priorities for the imagery needs of competing intelligence community (IC) agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the military services. COMIREX was absorbed by the Central Imagery Office (CIO) in May 1992. See also NATIONAL IMAGERY AND MAPPING AGENCY.
World History
