The
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency of
the United States government responsible for providing national security
intelligence to senior United States policymakers. The CIA also engages
in covert activities at the request of the President of the United
States.
It
is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed
during World War II to coordinate espionage activities between the
branches of the United States military. The 1947 National Security Act
established the CIA, affording it "no police or law enforcement
functions, either at home or abroad". One year later, this mandate was
expanded to include "sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation
measures...subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance
movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of
indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free
world".
The
CIA's primary function is to collect information about foreign
governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public
policymakers. The agency conducts covert operations and paramilitary
actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special
Activities Division. The CIA and its responsibilities changed markedly
in 2004. Before December 2004, the CIA was the main intelligence
organization of the US government; it coordinated and oversaw not only
its own activities but also the activities of the US Intelligence
Community (IC) as a whole. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National
Intelligence (DNI), which took over some of the government and IC-wide
functions. The DNI manages the IC and therefore the intelligence cycle.
The functions that moved to the DNI included the preparation of
estimates of the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies, and the
preparation of briefings for the President of the United States.
Today,
the CIA still has a number of functions in common with other countries'
intelligence agencies; see Relationships with foreign intelligence
agencies. The CIA's headquarters is in Langley in McLean, unincorporated
Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, D.C. along
the Potomac River.
Sometimes,
the CIA is referred to euphemistically in government and military
parlance as Other Government Agencies (OGA), particularly when its
operations in a particular area are an open secret.Other terms include
The Company , and The Agency.
Organization
In its present form, the CIA has an executive office and several agency-wide functions, and four major directorates:
The Directorate of Intelligence, responsible for all-source intelligence research and analysis
The
National Clandestine Service, formerly the Directorate of Operations,
which does clandestine intelligence collection and covert action
The Directorate of Support
The Directorate of Science and Technology
Budget
The
overall US intelligence budget has been considered classified until
recently. There have been numerous attempts to obtain general
information about the budget and there have also been accidental
disclosures: for instance, Mary Margaret Graham, a former CIA official
and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005,
said the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion.
Executive Office
The
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) reports directly to
the Director of National Intelligence (DNI); in practice, he deals with
the DNI, Congress (usually via the Office of Congressional Affairs),
and the White House, while the Deputy Director is the internal
executive. The CIA has varying amounts of Congressional oversight,
although that is principally a guidance role.
The
Executive Office also facilitates CIA’s support of the US military by
providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from
military intelligence organizations, and cooperating on field
activities. Two senior executives have responsibility, one CIA-wide and
one for the National Clandestine Service. The Associate Director for
Military Support, a senior military officer, manages the relationship
between CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands, who produce
regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence; he
is assisted by the Office of Military Affairs in providing support to
all branches of the military.
In
the National Clandestine Services, an Associate Deputy Director for
Operations for Military Affairs deals with specific clandestine
human-source intelligence and covert action in support of military
operations.
The
CIA also makes national-level intelligence available to tactical
organizations, usually to their all-source intelligence group.
Executive Staff
Staff
offices with several general responsibilities report to the Executive
Office. The staff also gather information and then report such
information to the Executive Office.
General Publications
The
CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence maintains the Agency's
historical materials and promotes the study of intelligence as a
legitimate discipline.
In
2002, the CIA's Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis began
publishing the unclassified Kent Center Occasional Papers, aiming to
offer "an opportunity for intelligence professionals and interested
colleagues—in an unofficial and unfettered vehicle—to debate and advance
the theory and practice of intelligence analysis."
General counsel and inspection
Two
offices advise the Director on legality and proper operations. The
Office of General Counsel advises the Director of the CIA on all legal
matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source
of legal counsel for the CIA.
The
Office of Inspector General promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and
accountability in the administration of Agency activities, and seeks to
prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector
General, whose activities are independent of those of any other
component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the CIA.
Public Affairs
See also: CIA influence on public opinion
The
Office of Public Affairs advises the Director of the CIA on all media,
public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role.
This office, among other functions, works with the entertainment
industry.
Directorate of Intelligence
The
Directorate of Intelligence produces all-source intelligence analysis
on key foreign issues. It has four regional analytic groups, six groups
for transnational issues, and two support units.
Regional groups
There is an Office dedicated to Iraq, and regional analytical Offices covering:
The Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis (MENA)
The Office of South Asia Analysis (OSA)
The Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA)
The Office of Asian Pacific, Latin American and African Analysis (APLAA)
Transnational groups
The
Office of Terrorism Analysis supports the National Counterterrorism
Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. See CIA
transnational anti-terrorism activities.
The
Office of Transnational Issues assesses perceived existing and emerging
threats to US national security and provides the most senior
policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis,
warning, and crisis support.
The
CIA Crime and Narcotics Center researches information on international
crime for policymakers and the law enforcement community. As the CIA has
no legal domestic police authority, it usually sends its analyses to
the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, such as the Drug
Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice.
The
Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center
provides intelligence support related to national and non-national
threats, as well as supporting threat reduction and arms control. It
receives the output of national technical means of verification.
The
Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group identifies, monitors, and
analyzes the efforts of foreign intelligence entities, both national and
non-national, against US government interests. It works with FBI
personnel in the National Counterintelligence Executive of the Director
of National Intelligence.
The Information Operations Center Analysis Group.deals with threats to US computer systems. This unit supports DNI activities.
Support and general units
The
Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis provides comprehensive
intelligence collection expertise to the Directorate of Intelligence, to
senior Agency and Intelligence Community officials, and to key national
policymakers.
The
Office of Policy Support customizes Directorate of Intelligence
analysis and presents it to a wide variety of policy, law enforcement,
military, and foreign liaison recipients.
National Clandestine Service
Main article: National Clandestine Service
In
2004, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, which many
consider the core of the agency.[citation needed] As such, the National
Clandestine Service (NCS; formerly the Directorate of Operations) is
responsible for collecting foreign intelligence, mainly from clandestine
HUMINT sources, and covert action. The new name reflects its having
absorbed some Department of Defense HUMINT assets. The NCS was created
in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and
budget between the United States Department of Defense and the CIA. The
Department of Defense had organized the Defense HUMINT Service, which,
with the Presidential decision, became part of the NCS.
The precise present organization of the NCS is classified.
Directorate of Science and Technology
Directorate of Science & Technology
The
Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research,
create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many
of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations,
or, as they became more overt, to the military services.
For
example, the development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance
aircraft was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force. The
U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied
areas such as the Soviet Union.[citation needed] It was subsequently
provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature
intelligence capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force.
Imagery
intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites was
analyzed by a DS&T organization called the National
Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA
and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The
CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in
technology to enhance its effectiveness. This interest has historically
had two primary goals:
harnessing techniques for its own use
countering any new intelligence technologies the Soviets might develop.
In
1999, the CIA created the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel to help fund
and develop technologies of interest to the agency.It has long been the
IC practice to contract for major development, such as reconnaissance
aircraft and satellites.
Directorate of Support
Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency#Directorate of Support and Directorate of Support
The
Directorate of Support has many traditional organizational
administrative functions, such as personnel, security, communications,
and financial operations, but in a manner consistent with the needs of
highly sensitive operations. Significant units include
The Office of Security
The Office of Communications
The Office of Information Technology
Training
The
Office of Training begins with the Junior Officer Training program for
new employees, but it also conducts courses in a wide range of
specialized professional disciplines. So that the initial course might
be taken by employees who had not received final security clearance and
thus were not permitted unescorted access to the Headquarters building, a
good deal of basic training has been given at office buildings in the
urban areas of Arlington, Virginia.
For
a later stage of training of student operations officers, there is at
least one classified training area at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg,
Virginia. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways
derived from the OSS, published as the book Assessment of Men, Selection
of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services.
Relationship with other sources of intelligence
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)
The
CIA acts as the primary American HUMINT, HUMan INTelligence, and
general analytic agency, under the Director of National Intelligence,
who directs or coordinates the 16 member organizations of the United
States Intelligence Community. In addition, it obtains information from
other US government intelligence agencies, commercial information
sources, and foreign intelligence services.
Other US intelligence agencies
A
number of intelligence organizations are fully or partially under the
budgetary control of the United States Secretary of Defense or other
cabinet officers such as the United States Attorney General.
As
do other analytic members of the US intelligence community, such as the
Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the
analytic division of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), CIA's raw
input includes imagery intelligence (IMINT) collected by the air and
space systems of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), processed by
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), signals intelligence
(SIGINT) of the National Security Agency (NSA), and measurement and
signature intelligence (MASINT) from the DIA MASINT center.
Open Source Intelligence
Until
the 2004 reorganization of the intelligence community, one of the
"services of common concern" that CIA provided was Open Source
Intelligence from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).FBIS,
which had absorbed the Joint Publication Research Service, a military
organization that translated documents,which moved into the National
Open Source Enterprise under the Director of National Intelligence.
CIA still provides a variety of unclassified maps and reference documents both to the intelligence community and the public.
As
part of its mandate to gather intelligence, CIA is looking increasingly
online for information, and has become a major consumer of social
media. "We're looking at YouTube, which carries some unique and
honest-to-goodness intelligence," said Doug Naquin, director of the DNI
Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters. "We're looking at chat
rooms and things that didn't exist five years ago, and trying to stay
ahead."
Outsourcing
Intelligence Outsourcing
Many
of the duties and functions of Intelligence Community activities, not
the CIA alone, are being outsourced and privatized. Mike McConnell,
former Director of National Intelligence, was about to publicize an
investigation report of outsourcing by US intelligence agencies, as
required by Congress. However, this report was then classified.
Hillhouse speculates that this report includes requirements for the CIA
to report:
different standards for government employees and contractors;
contractors providing similar services to government workers;
analysis of costs of contractors vs. employees;
an assessment of the appropriateness of outsourced activities;
an estimate of the number of contracts and contractors;
comparison of compensation for contractors and government employees,
attrition analysis of government employees;
descriptions of positions to be converted back to the employee model;
an evaluation of accountability mechanisms;
an
evaluation of procedures for "conducting oversight of contractors to
ensure identification and prosecution of criminal violations, financial
waste, fraud, or other abuses committed by contractors or contract
personnel"; and
an "identification of best practices of accountability mechanisms within service contracts."
According to investigative journalist Tim Shorrock:
...what
we have today with the intelligence business is something far more
systemic: senior officials leaving their national security and
counterterrorism jobs for positions where they are basically doing the
same jobs they once held at the CIA, the NSA and other agencies — but
for double or triple the salary, and for profit. It's a privatization of
the highest order, in which our collective memory and experience in
intelligence — our crown jewels of spying, so to speak — are owned by
corporate America. Yet, there is essentially no government oversight of
this private sector at the heart of our intelligence empire. And the
lines between public and private have become so blurred as to be
nonexistent.
Congress has required an outsourcing report by March 30, 2008.
The
Director of National Intelligence has been granted the authority to
increase the number of positions (FTEs) on elements in the Intelligence
Community by up to 10% should there be a determination that activities
performed by a contractor should be done by a US government employee."
Part
of the contracting problem comes from Congressional restrictions on the
number of employees in the IC. According to Hillhouse, this resulted in
70% of the de facto workforce of the CIA's National Clandestine Service
being made up of contractors. "After years of contributing to the
increasing reliance upon contractors, Congress is now providing a
framework for the conversion of contractors into federal government
employees--more or less."
As
with most government agencies, building equipment often is contracted.
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), responsible for the
development and operation of airborne and spaceborne sensors, long was a
joint operation of the CIA and the United States Department of Defense.
NRO had been significantly involved in the design of such sensors, but
the NRO, then under DCI authority, contracted more of the design that
had been their tradition, and to a contractor without extensive
reconnaissance experience, Boeing. The next-generation satellite Future
Imagery Architecture project, which missed objectives after $4 billion
in cost overruns, was the result of this contract.
Some
of the cost problems associated with intelligence come from one agency,
or even a group within an agency, not accepting the compartmented
security practices for individual projects, requiring expensive
duplication.
Foreign intelligence services
Many intelligence services cooperate. There may even be a deniable communications channel with ostensibly hostile nations.
The
role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the
United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Australian Secret Intelligence
Service (ASIS), the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (Sluzhba
Vneshney Razvedki) (SVR), the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the French foreign
intelligence service Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE)
and Israel's Mossad. While the preceding agencies both collect and
analyze information, some like the US State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research are purely analytical agencies. See List of
intelligence agencies.
The
closest links of the US IC to other foreign intelligence agencies are
to Anglophone countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United
Kingdom. There is a special communications marking that signals that
intelligence-related messages can be shared with these four countries.
An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the
creation of a new message distribution label within the main US
military communications network. Previously, the marking of NOFORN
(i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which,
if any, non-US countries could receive the information. A new handling
caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL Eyes Only, used primarily on intelligence
messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be
shared with Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand.
Organizational history
See also: Director of Central Intelligence and Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action
The
Central Intelligence Agency was created by Congress with the passage of
the National Security Act of 1947, signed into law by President Harry
S. Truman. It is the descendant of the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) of World War II, which was dissolved in October 1945 and its
functions transferred to the State and War Departments. Eleven months
earlier, in 1944, William J. Donovan, the OSS's creator, proposed to
President Franklin D. Roosevelt to create a new organization directly
supervised by the President: "which will procure intelligence both by
overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence
guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the
intelligence material collected by all government agencies." Under his
plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all
the intelligence services. He also proposed that this agency have
authority to conduct "subversive operations abroad," but "no police or
law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad."
The lives of 83 fallen CIA officers are represented by 83 stars on the CIA Memorial Wall in the Original Headquarters building.
CIA
personnel have died on duty, some in accidents and some by deliberate
hostile action. On the memorial wall at CIA headquarters, some of the
stars have no name attached, because it would reveal the identity of a
clandestine officer. Both the OSS and its British counterparts, as do
other agencies worldwide, struggle with finding the right organizational
balance among clandestine intelligence collection, counterintelligence,
and covert action.
Immediate predecessors, 1946–47
The
Office of Strategic Services, which was the first independent US
intelligence agency, created for World War II, was broken up shortly
after the end of the war, by President Harry S. Truman, on September 20,
1945 when he signed an Executive Order which made the breakup
'official' as of October 1, 1945. The rapid reorganizations that
followed reflected the routine sort of bureaucratic competition for
resources, but also trying to deal with the proper relationships of
clandestine intelligence collection and covert action (i.e.,
paramilitary and psychological operations).[citation needed] In October
1945, the functions of the OSS were split between the Departments of
State and War:
New Unit Oversight OSS Functions Absorbed
Strategic
Services Unit (SSU) War Department Secret Intelligence (SI) (i.e.,
clandestine intelligence collection) and Counter-espionage (X-2)
Interim Research and Intelligence Service (IRIS) State Department Research and Analysis Branch (i.e., intelligence analysis)
Psychological
Warfare Division (PWD) (not uniquely for former OSS) War Department,
Army General Staff Staff officers from Operational Groups, Operation
Jedburgh, Morale Operations (black propaganda)
This
division lasted only a few months. The first mention of the “Central
Intelligence Agency” concept and term appeared on a US Army and Navy
command-restructuring proposal presented by Jim Forrestal and Arthur
Radford to the U.S. Senate Military Affairs Committee at the end of
1945.Despite opposition from the military establishment, the United
States Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG)
in January 1946 which was the direct predecessor to the CIA.The CIG was
an interim authority established under Presidential authority. The
assets of the SSU, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of
clandestine intelligence was transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and
reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO).
Early CIA, 1947–1952
In
September 1947, the National Security Act of 1947 established both the
National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. Rear
Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was appointed as the first Director of
Central Intelligence.
The 16-foot (5 m) diameter CIA seal in the lobby of the Original Headquarters Building.
The
National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June
18, 1948 (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out
covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in
support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned
and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not
evident to unauthorized persons."
In
1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act (Public law 81-110)
authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative
procedures, and exempting it from most of the usual limitations on the
use of Federal funds. It also exempted the CIA from having to disclose
its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of
personnel employed." It also created the program "PL-110", to handle
defectors and other "essential aliens" who fall outside normal
immigration procedures, as well as giving those persons cover stories
and economic support.
The structure stabilizes, 1952
Then-DCI
Walter Bedell Smith, who enjoyed a special degree of Presidential
trust, having been Dwight D. Eisenhower's primary Chief of Staff during
World War II, insisted that the CIA – or at least only one department –
had to direct the OPC and OSO.[citation needed] Those organization, as
well as some minor functions, formed the euphemistically named
Directorate of Plans in 1952.
Also
in 1952, United States Army Special Forces were created, with some
missions overlapping those of the Department of Plans. In general, the
pattern emerged that the CIA could borrow resources from Special Forces,
although it had its own special operators.
Early Cold War, 1953–1966
Lockheed U-2 "Dragon Lady", the first generation of near-space reconnaissance aircraft.
Allen
Dulles, who had been a key OSS operations officer in Switzerland during
World War II, took over from Smith, at a time where US policy was
dominated by intense anticommunism. Various sources existed, the most
visible being the investigations and abuses of Senator Joseph McCarthy,
and the more quiet but systematic containment doctrine developed by
George Kennan, the Berlin Blockade and the Korean War. Dulles enjoyed a
high degree of flexibility, as his brother, John Foster Dulles, was
simultaneously Secretary of State. Concern regarding the Soviet Union
and the difficulty of getting information from its closed society, which
few agents could penetrate, led to solutions based on advanced
technology. Among the first success was with the Lockheed U-2 aircraft,
which could take pictures and collect electronic signals from an
altitude above Soviet air defenses' reach. After Gary Powers was shot
down by an SA-2 surface to air missile in 1960, causing an international
incident, the SR-71 was developed to take over this role.
The USAF's SR-71 Blackbird was developed from the CIA's A-12 OXCART.
During
this period, there were numerous covert actions against resource
nationalism and socialism. The CIA overthrew a democratically-elected
government for the first time during Operation Ajax, after Iran moved to
take control of its petroleum reserves. Some of the largest operations
were aimed at Cuba after the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship,
including assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and the failed Bay
of Pigs Invasion. There have been suggestions that the Soviet attempt
to put missiles into Cuba came, indirectly, when they realized how badly
they had been compromised by a US-UK defector in place, Oleg
Penkovsky.[58]
The
CIA, working with the military, formed the joint National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to operate reconnaissance aircraft such as
the SR-71 and later satellites. "The fact of" the United States
operating reconnaissance satellites, like "the fact of" the existence of
NRO, was highly classified for many years.
Early CORONA/KH-4B imagery IMINT satellite
Indochina and the Vietnam War (1954–1975)
See also: Vietnam War and Phoenix Program
The
OSS Patti mission arrived in Vietnam near the end of World War II, and
had significant interaction with the leaders of many Vietnamese
factions, including Ho Chi Minh. While the Patti mission forwarded Ho's
proposals for phased independence, with the French or even the United
States as the transition partner, the US policy of containment opposed
forming any government that was communist in nature.
The
first CIA mission to Indochina, under the code name Saigon Military
Mission arrived in 1954, under Edward Lansdale. US-based analysts were
simultaneously trying to project the evolution of political power, both
if the scheduled referendum chose merger of the North and South, or if
the South, the US client, stayed independent.[citation needed]
Initially, the US focus in Southeast Asia was on Laos, not Vietnam.
During
the period of US combat involvement in the Vietnam War, there was
considerable argument about progress among the Department of Defense
under Robert McNamara, the CIA, and, to some extent, the intelligence
staff of Military Assistance Command Vietnam. In general, the military
was consistently more optimistic than the CIA. Sam Adams, a junior CIA
analyst with responsibilities for estimating the actual damage to the
enemy, eventually resigned from the CIA, after expressing concern to
Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms with estimates that were
changed for interagency and White House political reasons. Adams
afterward wrote the book War of Numbers.
Abuses of CIA authority, 1970s–1990s
Things
came to a head in the mid-1970s, around the time of Watergate. A
dominant feature of political life during that period were the attempts
of Congress to assert oversight of US Presidency, the executive branch
of the US Government. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as
assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders (most
notably Fidel Castro) and illegal domestic spying on US citizens,
provided the opportunities to execute Congressional oversight of US
intelligence operations.
Hastening
the CIA's fall from grace were the burglary of the Watergate
headquarters of the Democratic Party by ex-CIA agents, and President
Richard Nixon's subsequent use of the CIA to impede the FBI's
investigation of the burglary.[citation needed] In the famous "smoking
gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered
his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, to tell the CIA that further
investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the
Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. In this way Nixon and Haldemann ensured
that the CIA's #1 and #2 ranking officials, Richard Helms and Vernon
Walters, communicated to FBI Director L. Patrick Gray that the FBI
should not follow the money trail from the burglars to the Committee to
Re-elect the President, as it would uncover CIA informants in Mexico.The
FBI initially agreed to this due to a long standing agreement between
the FBI and CIA not to uncover each other's sources of information.
Though within a couple of weeks the FBI demanded this request in
writing, and when no such formal request came, the FBI resumed its
investigation into the money trail. Nonetheless, when the smoking gun
tapes were made public, damage to the public's perception of CIA's top
officials, and thus to the CIA as a whole, could not be avoided.
In
1973, then-DCI James R. Schlesinger commissioned reports – known as the
"Family Jewels" – on illegal activities by the Agency. In December
1974, Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the news of the
"Family Jewels" in a front-page article in The New York Times, revealing
that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders, and had illegally
conducted surveillance on some 7,000 US citizens involved in the antiwar
movement (Operation CHAOS). The CIA had also experimented on people,
who unknowingly took LSD (among other things).
Congress
responded to the disturbing charges in 1975, investigating the CIA in
the Senate via the Church Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church
(D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the Pike Committee,
chaired by Congressman Otis Pike (D-NY). In addition, President Gerald
Ford created the Rockefeller Commission, and issued an executive order
prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. As the CIA fell out of
favor with the public, Ford assured Americans that his administration
was not involved: "There are no people presently employed in the White
House who have a relationship with the CIA of which I am personally
unaware."
Repercussions
from the Iran-Contra affair arms smuggling scandal included the
creation of the Intelligence Authorization Act in 1991.It defined covert
operations as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the US is
neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing
chain of command, including an official, presidential finding report
and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees,
which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".
2004, DNI takes over CIA top-level functions
The
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the
office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who took over
some of the government and intelligence community (IC)-wide functions
that had previously been the CIA's. The DNI manages the United States
Intelligence Community and in so doing it manages the intelligence
cycle. Among the functions that moved to the DNI were the preparation of
estimates reflecting the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies,
and preparation of briefings for the president. On July 30, 2008,
President Bush issued Executive Order 13470 amending Executive Order
12333 to strengthen the role of the DNI.
Previously,
the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) oversaw the Intelligence
Community, serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor,
additionally serving as head of the CIA. The DCI's title now is
"Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (DCIA), serving as head of
the CIA.
Currently,
the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to the
establishment of the DNI, the CIA reported to the President, with
informational briefings to congressional committees. The National
Security Advisor is a permanent member of the National Security Council,
responsible for briefing the President with pertinent information
collected by all US intelligence agencies, including the National
Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, etc. All 16
Intelligence Community agencies are under the authority of the Director
of National Intelligence.
Mission-related issues and controversies
The
history of CIA deals with several things, certainly including covert
action, but also clandestine and overt intelligence collection,
intelligence analysis and reporting, and logistical and technical
support of its activities. Prior to the December 2004 reorganization of
the intelligence community (IC), it also was responsible for
coordinations of IC-wide intelligence estimates.
These
articles are organized in two different ways: By geographical region
(for state actors or non-state actors limited to a country or region)
and by transnational topic (for non-state actors).
CIA activities in the Near East, North Africa, South and Southwest Asia
CIA
analyses of issues such as the effect of emerging infectious diseases,
and the detection of Weapons of mass destruction, are inherently
transnational, and are discussed in the following articles. CIA
operations and, where appropriate, authorizations for covert operations
(for example, NSDD 138 authorizing direct action against opponents) by
transnational topic are discussed in the following
CIA sponsored regime change
Major
sources for this section include the Council on Foreign Relations of
the United States series, the National Security Archive and George
Washington University, the Freedom of Information Act Reading Room at
the CIA, US Congressional hearings, Blum's book and Weiner's book Note
that the CIA has responded to the claims made in Weiner's book,and that
Jeffrey Richelson of the National Security Archive has also been
critical of it.
Areas
of controversy about inappropriate, often illegal actions include
experiments, without consent, on human beings to explore chemical means
of eliciting information or disabling people. Another area involved
torture and clandestine imprisonment. There have been attempted
assassinations under CIA orders and support for assassinations of
foreign leaders by citizens of the leader's country, and, in a somewhat
different legal category that may fall under the customary laws of war,
assassinations of militant leaders.
Security and counterintelligence failures
While
the names change periodically, there are two basic security functions
to protect the CIA and its operations. There is an Office of Security in
the Directorate for Support, which is responsible for physical security
of the CIA buildings, secure storage of information, and personnel
security clearances. These are directed inwardly to the agency itself.
In
what is now the National Clandestine Service, there is a
counter-intelligence function, called the Counterintelligence Staff
under its most controversial chief, James Jesus Angleton. This function
has roles including looking for staff members that are providing
information to foreign intelligence services (FIS) as moles. Another
role is to check proposals for recruiting foreign HUMINT assets, to see
if these people have any known ties to FIS and thus may be attempts to
penetrate CIA to learn its personnel and practices, or as a provocateur,
or other form of double agent.
This
agency component may also launch offensive counterespionage, where it
attempts to interfere with FIS operations. CIA officers in the field
often have assignments in offensive counterespionage as well as
clandestine intelligence collection.
Security failures
The
"Family Jewels" and other documents reveal that the Office of Security
violated the prohibition of CIA involvement in domestic law enforcement,
sometimes with the intention of assisting police organizations local to
CIA buildings.
On
December 30, 2009, a suicide attack occurred in the Forward Operating
Base Chapman attack, a major CIA base in the province of Khost,
Afghanistan. Seven CIA officers, including the chief of the base, were
killed and six others seriously wounded in the attack. The CIA is
consequently conducting an investigation into how the suicide bomber
managed to avoid the base's security measures.
Counterintelligence failures
Perhaps
the most disruptive period involving counterintelligence was James
Jesus Angleton's search for a mole, based on the statements of a Soviet
defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn. A second defector, Yuri Nosenko, challenged
Golitsyn's claims, with the two calling one another Soviet double
agents. Many CIA officers fell under career-ending suspicion; the
details of the relative truths and untruths from Nosenko and Golitsyn
may never be released, or, in fact, may not be fully understood. The
accusations also crossed the Atlantic to the British intelligence
services, who also were damaged by molehunts.
On
February 24, 1994, the agency was rocked by the arrest of 31-year
veteran case officer Aldrich Ames on charges of spying for the Soviet
Union since 1985.
Other
defectors have included Edward Lee Howard, a field operations officer,
and William Kampiles, a low-level worker in the CIA 24-hour Operations
Center. Kampiles sold the Soviets the detailed operational manual for
the KH-11 reconnaissance satellite.
Failures in intelligence analysis
The
agency has also been criticized for ineffectiveness as an intelligence
gathering agency. Former DCI Richard Helms commented, after the end of
the Cold War, "The only remaining superpower doesn't have enough
interest in what's going on in the world to organize and run an
espionage service." The CIA has come under particular criticism for
failing to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.
See
the information technology section of the intelligence analysis
management for discussion of possible failures to provide adequate
automation support to analysts, and A-Space for a IC-wide program to
collect some of them. Cognitive traps for intelligence analysis also
goes into areas where CIA has examined why analysis can fail.
Agency
veterans[who?] have lamented CIA's inability to produce the kind of
long-range strategic intelligence that it once did in order to guide
policymakers. John McLaughlin, who was deputy director and acting
director of central intelligence from October 2000 to September 2004,
said that CIA is drowned by demands from the White House and Pentagon
for instant information, "intelligence analysts end up being the
Wikipedia of Washington." In the intelligence analysis article,
orienting oneself to the consumers deals with some of ways in which
intelligence can become more responsive to the needs of policymakers.
For
the media, the failures are most newsworthy. A number of declassified
National Intelligence Estimates do predict the behavior of various
countries, but not in a manner attractive to news, or, most
significantly, not public at the time of the event. In its operational
role, some successes for the CIA include the U-2 and SR-71 programs, and
anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s.
Among
the first analytic failures, before the CIA had its own collection
capabilities, it assured President Harry S Truman on October 13, 1950
that the Chinese would not send troops to Korea. Six days later, over
one million Chinese troops arrived. See an analysis of the failure; also
see surrounding text for the two Koreas and China, and the time period
before the Korean War. Earlier, the intelligence community failed to
detect the North Korean invasion, in part because resources were not
allocated to SIGINT coverage of the Korean peninsula.
The
history of US intelligence, with respect to French Indochina and then
the two Vietnams, is long and complex. The Pentagon Papers often contain
pessimistic CIA analyses that conflicted with White House positions. It
does appear that some estimates were changed to reflect Pentagon and
White House views.. See CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific for
detailed discussions of intelligence and covert operations from 1945
(i.e., before the CIA) onwards.
Another
criticism is the failure to predict India's nuclear tests in 1974. A
review of the various analyses of India's nuclear program did predict
some aspects of the test, such as a 1965 report saying, correctly, that
if India did develop a bomb, it would be explained as "for peaceful
purposes".
A
major criticism is failure to forestall the September 11 attacks. The
9/11 Commission Report identifies failures in the IC as a whole. One
problem, for example, was the FBI failing to "connect the dots" by
sharing information among its decentralized field offices. The report,
however, criticizes both CIA analysis, and impeding their investigation.
The
executive summary of a report which was released by the office of CIA
Inspector General John Helgerson on August 21, 2007 concluded that
former DCI George Tenet failed to adequately prepare the agency to deal
with the danger posed by Al-Qaeda prior to the attacks of September 11,
2001. The report had been completed in June, 2005 and was partially
released to the public in an agreement with Congress, over the
objections of current DCI General Michael Hayden. Hayden said its
publication would "consume time and attention revisiting ground that is
already well plowed.” Tenet disagreed with the report's conclusions,
citing his planning efforts vis-a-vis al-Qaeda, particularly from 1999.
Questionable/controversial tactics
CIA transnational human rights actions
SProject MKULTRA, Extraordinary rendition by the United States, Church Committee, and Covert US regime change actions
The
CIA has been called into question on several occasions for some of the
tactics it employs to carry out its missions. At times these tactics
have included torture, funding and training of groups and organizations
that would later participate in killing of civilians and other
non-combatants and would try or succeed in overthrowing
democratically-elected governments, human experimentation, and targeted
killings and assassinations.
In
understanding the CIA's role in human rights, there are challenging
problems of ethics. John Stockwell, a CIA officer who left the Agency
and became a public critic, said of the CIA field officers: "They don't
meet the death squads on the streets where they're actually chopping up
people or laying them down on the street and running trucks over their
heads. The CIA people in San Salvador meet the police chiefs, and the
people who run the death squads, and they do liaise with them, they meet
them beside the swimming pool of the villas. And it's a sophisticated,
civilized kind of relationship. And they talk about their children, who
are going to school at UCLA or Harvard and other schools, and they don't
talk about the horrors of what's being done. They pretend like it isn't
true".
The
CIA has been criticized for ineffectiveness in its basic mission of
intelligence gathering. A variant of this criticism is that allegations
of misconduct are symptomatic of lack of attention to basic mission in
the sense that controversial actions, such as assassination attempts and
human rights violations, tend to be carried out in operations that have
little to do with intelligence gathering. The CIA has been charged with
having more than 90% of its employees living and working within the
United States, rather than in foreign countries, which is in violation
of its charter. The CIA has also been accused of a lack of financial and
whistleblower controls which has led to waste and fraud.
External investigations and document releases
Official reports by the US Government on the CIA
At
various times since the creation of the CIA, the US Government has
produced comprehensive reports on CIA actions that marked historical
watersheds in how CIA went about trying to fulfill its vague charter
purposes from 1947. These reports were the result of
internal/presidential studies, external investigations by Congressional
committees or other arms of the US Government, or even the simple
releases and declassification of large quantities of documents by the
CIA.
Several
investigations (e.g., the Church Committee, Rockefeller Commission,
Pike Committee, etc.), as well as released declassified documents,
reveal that the CIA, at times, operated outside its charter. In some
cases, such as during Watergate, this may have been due to inappropriate
requests by White House staff. In other cases, there was a violation of
Congressional intent, such as the Iran-Contra affair. In many cases,
these reports provide the only official discussion of these actions
available to the public.
nfluencing public opinion and law enforcement
CIA influence on public opinion, CIA and the media, CIA in fiction and the movies, Robertson Panel, and Operation Mockingbird
This
is an area with many shades of gray. There is little argument, for
example, that the CIA acted inappropriately in providing technical
support to White House operatives conducting both political and security
investigations, with no legal authority to do so. Things become much
more ambiguous when law enforcement may expose a clandestine operation, a
problem not unique to intelligence but also seen among different law
enforcement organizations, where one wants to prosecute and another to
continue investigations, perhaps reaching higher levels in a conspiracy.
Involvements with former Nazi and Japanese war criminals
While
the United States was involved in the prosecution of war criminals, US
military and intelligence agencies protected some war criminals in the
interest of obtaining technical or intelligence information from them,
or taking part in ongoing intelligence or engineering (e.g., Operation
Paperclip). Multiple US intelligence organizations were involved, and
many of these relationships were formed before the creation of the CIA
in 1947, but the CIA, in some cases, took over the relationships and
concealed them for nearly 60 years.
Al-Qaeda and the War on Terror
Further information: CIA transnational anti-terrorism activities and CIA transnational human rights actions
The
CIA had long been dealing with terrorism originating from abroad, and
in 1986 had set up a Counterterrorist Center to deal specifically with
the problem. At first confronted with secular terrorism, the Agency
found Islamist terrorism looming increasingly large on its scope.
The
network that became known as al-Qaeda (The Base) grew out of Arab
volunteers who fought the Soviets and their puppet regimes in
Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 1984 Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden set
up an organization known as the Office of Services in Peshawar,
Pakistan, to coordinate and finance the "Afghan Arabs", as the
volunteers became known.
The
CIA also channeled US aid to Afghan resistance fighters via Pakistan in
a covert operation known as Operation Cyclone. It denied dealing with
non-Afghan fighters, or having direct contact with bin Laden.However,
various authorities relate that the Agency brought both Afghans and
Arabs to the United States for military training. Azzam and Bin Laden
set up recruitment offices in the US, under the name "Al-Khifah", the
hub of which was the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. This
was "a place of pivotal importance for Operation Cyclone".
Among
notable figures at the Brooklyn center was the Egyptian "double agent"
Ali Mohamed, who worked for the CIA, the Green Berets, Egyptian Islamic
Jihad and al-Qaeda at various times in the 1980s and 1990s. FBI special
agent Jack Cloonan called him "bin Laden's first trainer". Another was
"Blind Sheikh" Abdel Rahman, a leading recruiter of mujaheddin, who
obtained US entry visas with the help of the CIA in 1987 and 1990.
Around
1988, Bin Laden set up al-Qaeda from the more extreme elements of the
Services Office. But it was not a large organization. When Jamal al-Fadl
(who had been recruited through the Brooklyn center in the mid 1980s)
joined in 1989, he was described as Qaeda's "third member".
In
January 1996 the CIA created an experimental "virtual station", the Bin
Laden Issue Station, under the Counterterrorist Center, to track Bin
Laden's developing activities. Al-Fadl, who defected to the CIA in
spring 1996, began to provide the Station with a new image of the Qaeda
leader: he was not only a terrorist financier, but a terrorist organizer
too. FBI special agent Dan Coleman (who together with his partner Jack
Cloonan had been "seconded" to the Bin Laden Station) called him Qaeda's
"Rosetta Stone".
In
1999 CIA chief George Tenet launched a grand "Plan" to deal with
al-Qaeda. The Counterterrorist Center, its new chief Cofer Black and the
center's Bin Laden unit were the Plan's developers and executors. Once
it was prepared Tenet assigned CIA intelligence chief Charles E. Allen
to set up a "Qaeda cell" to oversee its tactical execution. In 2000 the
CIA and USAF jointly ran a series of flights over Afghanistan with a
small remote-controlled reconnaissance drone, the Predator; they
obtained probable photos of Bin Laden. Cofer Black and others became
advocates of arming the Predator with missiles to try to assassinate Bin
Laden and other Qaeda leaders. After the Cabinet-level Principals
Committee meeting on terrorism of September 4, 2001, the CIA resumed
reconnaissance flights, the drones now being weapons-capable.
The
CIA set up a Strategic Assessments Branch in 2001 to remedy the deficit
of "big-picture" analysis of al-Qaeda, and apparently to develop
targeting strategies. The branch was formally set up in July 2001, but
it struggled to find personnel. The branch's head took up his job on
September 10, 2001.
After
9/11, the CIA came under criticism for not having done enough to
prevent the attacks. Tenet rejected the criticism, citing the Agency's
planning efforts especially over the preceding two years. He also
considered that the CIA's efforts had put the Agency in a position to
respond rapidly and effectively to the attacks, both in the "Afghan
sanctuary" and in "ninety-two countries around the world". The new
strategy was called the "Worldwide Attack Matrix".
2003 War in Iraq
CIA activities in Iraq
Further information: Plame affair and CIA activities in the Near East, North Africa, South and Southwest Asia
Whether
or not the intelligence available, or presented by the Bush
Administration justified the 2003 invasion of Iraq or allowed proper
planning, especially for the occupation, is quite controversial.
However, there were more than one CIA employee that asserted the sense
that Bush administration officials placed undue pressure on CIA analysts
to reach certain conclusions that would support their stated policy
positions with regard to Iraq.
CIA
Special Activities Division paramilitary teams were the first teams in
Iraq arriving in July 2002. Once on the ground they prepared the battle
space for the subsequent arrival of US military forces. SAD teams then
combined with US Army Special Forces (on a team called the Northern Iraq
Liaison Element or NILE). This team organized the Kurdish Peshmerga for
the subsequent US-led invasion. They combined to defeat Ansar al-Islam,
an ally of Al-Qaeda. If this battle had not been as successful as it
was, there would have been a considerable hostile force behind the
US/Kurdish force in the subsequent assault on Saddam's Army. The US side
was carried out by Paramilitary Operations Officers from SAD/SOG and
the Army's 10th Special Forces Group.
SAD
teams also conducted high risk special reconnaissance missions behind
Iraqi lines to identify senior leadership targets. These missions led to
the initial strikes against Saddam Hussein and his key generals.
Although the initial strike against Hussein was unsuccessful in killing
the dictator, it was successful in effectively ending his ability to
command and control his forces. Other strikes against key generals were
successful and significantly degraded the command's ability to react to
and maneuver against the US-led invasion force.
NATO
member Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used by the US
Army's 4th Infantry Division for the invasion. As a result, the SAD, US
Army Special Forces joint teams and the Kurdish Peshmerga were the
entire northern force against Saddam's Army during the invasion. Their
efforts kept the 1st and 5th Corps of the Iraqi Army in place to defend
against the Kurds rather than their moving to contest the coalition
force coming from the south. This combined US Special Operations and
Kurdish force soundly defeated Saddam's Army, a major military success,
similar to the victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan.Four members of
the SAD/SOG team received CIA's rare Intelligence Star for their "heroic
actions."
Drug trafficking
Two
offices of CIA Directorate of Intelligence have analytical
responsibilities in this area. The Office of Transnational Issuesapplies
unique functional expertise to assess existing and emerging threats to
US national security and provides the most senior US policymakers,
military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and
crisis support.
CIA
Crime and Narcotics Center researches information on international
narcotics trafficking and organized crime for policymakers and the law
enforcement community. Since CIA has no domestic police authority, it
sends its analytic information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and other law enforcement organizations, such as the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Office of Foreign Assets
Control of the United States Department of the Treasury (OFAC).
Another part of CIA, the National Clandestine Service, collects human intelligence (HUMINT) in these areas.
Research
by Dr. Alfred W. McCoy, Gary Webb, and others has pointed to CIA
involvement in narcotics trafficking across the globe, although the CIA
officially denies such allegations. During the Cold War, when numerous
soldiers participated in transport of Southeast Asian heroin to the
United States by the airline Air America[citation needed], the CIA's
role in such traffic was reportedly rationalized as "recapture" of
related profits to prevent possible enemy control of such assets. Gary
Webb and other researchers have reported about similar operations during
Reagan's Contra War against the democratically-elected government of
Nicaragua, US involvement in Afghanistan during the Cold War, and
current CIA involvement with Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, which
allegedly has links to the refining of Afghan heroin in Pakistan.
Lying to Congress
Speaker
of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has stated
that the CIA repeatedly misled the Congress since 2001 about
waterboarding and other torture, though Pelosi admitted to being told
about the programs. Six liberal members of Congress have claimed that
Director of CIA Leon Panetta admitted that over a period of several
years since 2001 the CIA alledgedly deceived Congress, including
affirmatively lying to Congress. Some congressmen beleive that these
"lies" to Congress are similar to CIA lies to Congress from earlier
periods.
Covert programs hidden from Congress
On
July 10, 2009, House Intelligence subcommittee Chairwoman
Representative Jan Schakowsky (D, IL) announced the termination of an
unnamed CIA covert program described as "very serious" in nature which
had been kept secret from Congress for eight years.
"It's
not as if this was an oversight and over the years it just got buried.
There was a decision under several directors of the CIA and
administration not to tell the Congress."
Jan Schakowsky, Chairwoman, U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Subcommittee
CIA
Director Panetta had ordered an internal investigation to determine why
Congress had not been informed about the covert program. Chairman of
the House Intelligence Committee Representative Silvestre Reyes
announced that that he is considering an investigation into alleged CIA
violations of the National Security Act, which requires with limited
exception that Congress be informed of covert activities. Investigations
and Oversight Subcommittee Chairwoman Schakowsky indicated that she
would forward a request for congressional investigation to HPSCI
Chairman Silvestre Reyes.
"Director
Panetta did brief us two weeks ago -- I believe it was on the 24th of
June -- ... and, as had been reported, did tell us that he was told that
the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the
Congress."
Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
As
mandated by Title 50 of the United States Code Chapter 15, Subchapter
III, when it becomes necessary to limit access to covert operations
findings that could affect vital interests of the US, as soon as
possible the President must report at a minimum to the Gang of Eight
(the leaders of each of the two parties from both the Senate and House
of Representatives, and the chairs and ranking members of both the
Senate Committee and House Committee for intelligence). The House is
expected to support the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Bill including a
provision that would require the President to inform more than 40
members of Congress about covert operations. The Obama administration
threatened to veto the final version of a bill that included such a
provision.On July 16, 2008 the fiscal 2009 Intelligence Authorization
Bill was approved by House majority containing stipulations that 75% of
money sought for covert actions would be held until all members of the
House Intelligence panel were briefed on sensitive covert actions. Under
the George W. Bush administration, senior advisers to the President
issued a statement indicating that if a bill containing this provision
reached the President, they would recommend that he veto the bill.
The
program was rumored vis-a-vis leaks made by anonymous government
officials on July 23, to be an assassinations program, but this remains
unconfirmed. "The whole committee was stunned....I think this is as
serious as it gets," stated Anna Eshoo, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Intelligence Community Management, U.S. House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence (HPSCI).
Allegations
by Director Panetta indicate that details of a secret counterterrorism
program were withheld from Congress under orders from former US Vice
President Dick Cheney. This prompted Senator Feinstein and Senator
Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to insist that
no one should go outside the law. "The agency hasn't discussed publicly
the nature of the effort, which remains classified," said agency
spokesman Paul Gimigliano.
Wall
Street Journal reported, citing former intelligence officials familiar
with the matter, that the program was an attempt to carry out a 2001
presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives.
Intelligence Committee investigation
On
July 17, 2009, The House Intelligence Committee said it was launching a
formal investigation into the secret program. Representative Silvestre
Reyes announced the probe will look into "whether there was any past
decision or direction to withhold information from the committee".
"Is
giving your kid a test in school an inhibition on his free learning?”
Holt said. “Sure, there are some people who are happy to let
intelligence agencies go about their business unexamined. But I think
most people when they think about it will say that you will get better
intelligence if the intelligence agencies don’t operate in an unexamined
fashion. "
Rush Holt, Chairman, House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, Committee on Appropriations
Congresswoman
Jan Schakowsky (D, IL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, who called for the investigation, stated that the
investigation was intended to address CIA failures to inform Congress
fully or accurately about four issues: C.I.A. involvement in the downing
of a missionary plane mistaken for a narcotics flight in Peru in 2001,
and two "matters that remain classified", as well as the
rumored-assassinations question. In addition, the inquiry is likely to
look at the Bush administration’s program of eavesdropping without
warrants and its detention and interrogation. program U.S. Intelligence
Chief Dennis Blair testified before the House Intelligence Committee on
February 3, 2010 that the U.S. intelligence community is prepared to
kill U.S. citizens if they threaten other Americans or the United
States. The American Civil Liberties Union has said this policy is
"particularly troubling" because U.S. citizens "retain their
constitutional right to due process even when abroad." The ACLU also
"expressed serious concern about the lack of public information about
the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power."
