Introduction
After the September 11 bombings in New York and Washington, the United States tightened their counterterrorism efforts to thwart further plans of terrorist groups. This does not mean that policies were ineffective before the attacks, but there were murmurs of intelligence failures. It was argued that it was the Central Intelligence Agency’s and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s faults for not being able to intercept the plans of the groups that attacked the World Trade Center (Lewis, 2004).
Intelligence and Strategies
The Intelligence Community or IC of the United States consists of executive agencies. These agencies are separated to prevent an overall powerful organization that may control the country, however, are tasked to work together to execute intelligence activities for the benefit of national security. The IC is responsible for the collection of information to aid executives such as the President, the State and Defense Secretaries, the National Security Council, and other important branch officials in making sensible decisions for their duties and responsibilities. The agencies within IC are also responsible for the production and dissemination of different intelligences that are mainly used for operatives concerning foreign powers. Activities involve international drug cartels, terrorist groups, and other powerful organizations. It is also necessary for administrative support in and out of US.
There are five power players identified for this paper that take actions in counterterrorism measures abroad. These include the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Department of Defense (DoD); the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR); and the organization for military services such as the air force, army, navy, and marines (Bacastow & Schukman, 2007). The CIA is the only intelligence office that is not under any cabinet department. This organization covers analytical capabilities in an international scope. It answers to the president’s directions for covert actions which influences political, economic, and military situation abroad. The entirety of this community has been criticized because its intelligence are said to be bound to “narrow, concrete, and bound by specificity” information (Lewis, 2004). During the 1970s, the CIA was involved with several issues such as the secret war in Laos and the subversion tactics in Chile which only proves of its intelligence activities around the world.
Another important asset to the IC is the FBI. This community works with the Department of Justice, primarily on the investigation and protection of threats to national security. Mostly, it is the agency that focuses on crime-based threats such as fraud, kidnapping, national and transnational groups, and other potentially aggressive crimes which relates to counterintelligence and counterterrorism. After the 9/11 attacks, the FBI had an increase in countermeasures and analytical functions and flow of information within became apparent.
Another community is the DoD. The Secretary of Defense handles this community since it has the biggest part of intelligence gathering and also has the largest budget in all. Under it are agencies that focus on specific intelligence gathering, these are the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The smaller component of the IC is the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research or the INR. It does not really have a definite intelligence function, but is relied on based from its analytical capabilities. It provides thorough assessment of intelligences that are collected from each community. It is also responsible for reporting diplomacies over embassies.
Lastly, the organization of the four military services, namely the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines, all have specific purposes in relation to counterterrorism actions. Most of the time, these are the forces that stands as guards within US territories and are at the baseline of international operations. They also supplements with the analysis of data to provide more depth over technical issues.
These organizations are involved with the acquisition of different intelligence. The DIA, CIA and FBI mainly collect its information through Human Intelligence (HUMINT). HUMINT is the collection of necessary information through individuals holding sensitive data. Most of this intelligence possesses significant interest to the state’s security. Although the DIA is associated with HUMINT, a Central Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) Organization is under it. It identifies distinctive targets through seismic, nuclear, optical and materials science. In addition to the agencies comprising the DoD, the NGA handles Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) derived from representation of objects through imagery. Furthermore, the NSA is responsible for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) which is mostly intercepted transmitted signals. The other intelligences include geospatial intelligence and open-source intelligence which involves other offices, but are equally important with data collection.
The Intelligence Cycle
The intelligence process involves the stages undergone by intelligence from policymakers or the IC to the community that the IC aims to protect. According to Bacastow & Schukman (2007), the cycle has seven phases which includes: requirements, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, dissemination, consumption, and feedback. In the US, it is said that the collection of data is massive, thus leaves behind its processing and exploitation. Sometimes, politics works its way into the community and gaining information has much more appeal than the processing. On another note, the TPED cycle or tasking, processing, exploiting, and dissemination develop raw data into a processed one readily available for policymakers to interpret and base their actions with. TPED is said to be “critical for sustaining the drive for information dominance in the United States” (Bacastow & Schukman, 2007). Yet, its structure is not enough to back up the increasing terrors over global war.
Conclusion
The five agencies mentioned above works all together for different strategies and intelligence collection in and out of the United States. The differences between the agencies involved in the implementation of different policies and efforts for counterterrorism itself have a huge gap. The action that commences inside the state is stable and follows a process. Objectives are also well-defined for each community. However, for international or across the board missions, these agencies overlaps somehow resulting to confusion. .Somehow, there are differences between the actions that take place in US territories and the countermeasures over terrorism in other countries because of the policies involved (Aldrich &Rees, 2005).
Consequently, counterterrorism abroad is seen to be more hostile than how the operations inside the US are controlled. Nonetheless, the efforts of The Intelligence Community are seen to be helpful and aim to maintain national and global peace.
References
Aldrich, R.J. & Rees, W. (2005). Contending cultures of counterterrorism: transatlantic divergence or convergence? Retrieved from University of Warwick institutional repository http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/.
Bacastow, T. & Schukman, K. (2007). Foundations of Geographic Information and Spatial Analysis. Retrived from Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Website https://courseware.e-education.psu.edu/courses/bootcamp/lo07/07.html.
Jones, N., Mallik, L., McLaughlin, W., & Toy, D., (n.d). The Ethics of Information Sharing Between the FBI and CIA. Retrieved from http://www.ethicapublishing.com/ethics/4CH1.pdf.
Lewis, R. (2004). “Espionage and the War on Terrorism: Investigating U.S. Efforts”. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 11(1). 175-180.
(2009). An Overview of the United States Intelligence Community for the 111th Congress. Retrieved from http://www.counterwmd.gov/files/overview.pdf
