In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, a report by the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Sony  VAIO VGP-BPS13/Q Battery conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the reportreleased by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, identified serious shortcomings in the Intelligence Community's HUMINTcapabilities, Sony  VAIO VGP-BPS13A/Q Battery ranging from the lack of qualified linguists to the lack of Community-wide information sharing. These efforts resulted in the passage of theIntelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in 2004, which created the position of the Director of National Intelligence and tasked the CIA's Director with developing a "strategy for improving the human intelligence and other capabilities of the Agency."^[3] Sony  VAIO VGP-BPS13B/Q Battery In 2004, Senator Pat Roberts, the Senate Intelligence Committee's Chairman, drafted the 9/11 National Security Protection Act^[4] in which he proposed that the Directorate of Operations be removed from the CIA and established as an independent agency known as the National Clandestine Service. Sony  VGP-BPS21 Battery The NCS' creation was also recommended by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.^[5] The Commission's investigation found that HUMINT capabilities had been severely degraded since the end of the Cold War and were ill-suited for targeting non-state actors such as terrorist organizations. Sony  VGP-BPS21A Battery The Commission also noted that HUMINT operations were poorly coordinated between the various federal entities who conducted them and encouraged the development of better methods of validating human sources, in light of the revelations about the source known as Curveball. Sony  VGP-BPS21B Battery Beginning its study of the Intelligence Community in 1995, a non-governmental group^[who?], which included former National Security Agency Director William E. Odom, former Defense Intelligence Agency Director Harry E. Soyster, former DIA Director and current Director of National Intelligence James R. Sony  VGP-BPS21/S Battery Clapper, and former General Counsel for the CIA and the NSA Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, issued a report, first in 1997 and in an updated form in 2002, which recommended the NCS' creation.^[6]The CIA announced the NCS' creation in a press release on October 13, 2005.^[7] Contrary to Senator Roberts' proposal, the NCS would be a component of the CIA, rather than an independent executive branch agency. Sony  VGP-BPS21A/b Battery The Directorate of Operations (DO) was the CIA's branch that conducted covert operations and recruited foreign agents. It was led by the Deputy Director for Plans (later renamed as the Deputy Director for Operations) and reportedly employed 1,000–2,000 people^[.Sony VGP-BPS26 Battery The DO consisted of, among other subdivisions, a unit for political and economic covert action (the Covert Action Staff, or CAS), for paramilitary (PM) covert action (the Special Operationsunit), for counterintelligence (the CI staff, or CIS), and for several geographic desks responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence. Sony VGP-BPL26 Battery It was created on August 1, 1952, as the Directorate of Plans and was renamed the Directorate of Operations on March 1, 1973.^[8] The Directorate also housed special groups for conducting counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism, for tracking nuclear proliferation, and other tasks. Sony VGP-BPS26A Battery Administrated by the DO, the paramilitary operations officers from the legendary Special Operations Group (or SOG, no relation to the Vietnam-era CIA group) are maintained in the elite Special Activities Division (SAD). They are highly skilled in weaponry; covert transport of personnel and material by air, sea, and land; guerrilla warfare; Sony VGP-BPS22 Battery the use of explosives; assassination and sabotage; and escape and evasion techniques. They are prepared to respond quickly to myriad possible needs, from parachute drops and communications support to assistance with counter-narcotics operations and defector infiltration. Sony VGP-BPL22 Battery SAD maintains a symbiotic relationship with the Joint Special Operations Command, and is largely run by former JSOC members.^[9] SAD/SOG is a special operations force, along with the military's four special mission units: United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU, NSWDG or Seal Team Six and previously Mob-Six) Sony VGP-BPS22A Battery

• United States Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (also known as Delta Force, A.C.E. or C.A.G.)
• United States Army Intelligence Support Activity (also known as I.S.A., The Activity and previously Gray Fox)
• United States Air Force's 24th Special Tactics Squadron

In the 2003 book, Special OPS: America's elite forces in 21st century combat, the author states: Sony VAIO PCG-3B1M Battery "Highly classified, the SAD is regarded as the preeminent special operations unit in the world. Members are the elite of the elite; "the best period." This results from the sources from which the organization recruits its members: Special missions units (SMUs); such as Delta Force and NSWDG (United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group)..." Sony VAIO PCG-3D1M Battery For special operations missions and its other responsibilities, the Special Operations staff attempted to recruit people with the appropriate specialized skills, although the geographic desks remain the principal units involved in the recruitment of personnel in so-called denied areas (Libya, Iran, Iraq, etc.). Sony VAIO PCG-3G2M Battery Special operations also provided special air, ground, maritime and training support for the Agency's intelligence gathering operations. The Directorate has been subject to harsh criticism in the media, and due to its covert and independent nature did not, or could not, effectively respond. Sony VAIO PCG-5R1M Battery Its capabilities had been in decline since the public outcry resulting from the Church Committee's revelations of the DO's highly questionable activities. Furthermore, the DO fought frequent "turf" battles amongst the Executive Branch bureaucracies, most prominently with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and theDefense and State Departments. Sony VAIO PCG-7162M Battery These factors became key reasons for the NCS's inception. Qualified candidates can expect to focus on intelligence operations and activities for U.S. policymakers in hazardous and austere overseas environments.^[18] The NCS' primary action arm is the Special Activities Division, which conducts direct action-like raids, ambushes, sabotage, assassinations, Sony VAIO PCG-7181M Battery unconventional warfare (e.g. training and leading guerrillas), and deniable psychological operations, the latter also known as "covert influence." While special reconnaissancemay be either a military or intelligence operation, these usually are executed by SAD officers in denied areas. Sony VAIO PCG-41112M Battery Paramilitary operations officers are chosen mainly from the ranks of U.S. special operations forces.^[9] SAD operatives are the most specialized because they combine the best special operations and clandestine intelligence capabilities in one individual. They operate in any environment (sea, air, or ground), with limited to no support. Sony VAIO PCG-7153M Battery They originate in the SAD's Special Operations Group (SOG), considered one of the most elite special operations units in the world.^[20] Paramilitary operations officers are the primary recipients of the coveted Distinguished Intelligence Cross and the Intelligence Star, the CIA's two highest medals for valor. Sony VAIO PCG-71312M Battery Not surprisingly, the majority of those memorialized on the Wall of Honor at the CIA's headquarters were covert operatives. A covert action is defined as "an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly".^[Sony VAIO PCG-7144M Battery A covert operation differs from a clandestine operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of the identity of the sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation.^[19] Covert operations include paramilitary and psychological activities. See Psychological Operations (United States) for a more general discussion of U.S. Sony VAIO PCG-7191L Battery psychological operations, including those operations for which the CIA is responsible and those that belong to other agencies. Executive Order 12333 bans assassinations by persons employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government. Sony VAIO PCG-3C1M Battery Techniques for the clandestine collection of HUMINT are collectively known as tradecraft. A discussion of many of these techniques can be found at Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques. Very few statutes and publicly available regulations deal specifically with clandestine HUMINT techniques. Sony VAIO PCG-3F1M Battery One such statute forbids the use of journalists as agents unless the President makes the written determination to waive this restriction based on the "overriding national security interest of the United States.".^[29] In the Intelligence Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2002, Sony VAIO PCG-3H1M Battery Congress instructed the CIA's Director to rescind what Congress viewed as overly restrictive guidelines regarding the recruitment of foreign assets who had a record of human rights violations.^[30] Camp Peary (also referred to as "The Farm"), near Williamsburg, Virginia, is purportedly a CIA training facility for clandestine operatives. Sony VAIO PCG-3J1M Battery 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. Sony VAIO PCG-8141M Battery 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.^[40] It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence andmeasurement and signature intelligence capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force. Sony VAIO PCG-8161M Battery 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). Sony VAIO PCG-3C2M Battery The CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in technology to enhance its effectiveness. Sometimes in cooperation with technical personnel at other agencies such as the NSA when the collection discipline is SIGINT, or the DIA when the techniques come MASINT, Sony VAIO PCG-5N2M Battery or other appropriate agencies such as the Department of Energy for nuclear information, the CIA may work to place technical collection equipment in denied territory. They have also cooperated in placing such equipment into U.S. embassies. Emplacing and servicing such equipment is another form of clandestine operation, of which the adversary should not be aware. Sony VAIO PCG-5P1M Battery The CIA took on a more distinct MASINT responsibility in 1987.^[32] The National Security Archive commented, "In 1987, Deputy Director for Science and Technology Evan Hineman established... a new Office for Special Projects. concerned not with satellites,Sony VAIO PCG-5S1M Battery but with emplaced sensors – sensors that could be placed in a fixed location to collect signals intelligence or measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) about a specific target. Such sensors had been used to monitor Chinese missile tests, Soviet laser activity, military movements, and foreign nuclear programs. Sony VAIO PCG-9Z1M Battery The office was established to bring together scientists from the DS&T’s Office of SIGINT Operations, who designed such systems, with operators from the Directorate of Operations, who were responsible for transporting the devices to their clandestine locations and installing them".Sony VAIO PCG-7171M Battery In addition they may produce HUMINT from overt sources, such as voluntary interviews with travelers, businesspeople, etc. Some of the latter may be considered open source intelligence OSINT and be performed by other agencies, just as reports from diplomats are another form of HUMINT that flows into the State Department. Sony VAIO PCG-7186M Battery At times, this function may be assigned to the CIA, because its counter-intelligence staff has biographical indexes that let them check the background of foreign citizens offering information. For example, there may be a name check on a business or scientific contact who meets either with CIA representatives or staff of the National Open Source Enterprise. Sony VAIO PCG-81112M Battery The Directorate of Plans (DDP) was created in 1952, taking control of the Office of Policy Coordination, a covert action group that received services from the CIA but did not go through the CIA management. The other main unit that went into the Directorate of Plans was the Office of Special Operations, Sony VAIO PCG-31111M Battery which did clandestine intelligence collection (e.g., espionage) as opposed to covert action. Approval of clandestine and covert operations came from a variety of committees, although in the early days of quasi-autonomous offices and the early DDP, there was more internal authority to approve operations.^[33] Sony VAIO PCG-31311M Battery After its creation in the Truman administration, the CIA was, initially, the financial manager for OPC and OSO, authorized to handle "unvouchered funds" by National Security Council document 4-A of December 1947, the launching of peacetime covert action operations. Sony VAIO PCG-8152M Battery NSC 4-A made the Director of Central Intelligence responsible for psychological warfare, establishing at the same time the principle that covert action was an exclusively Executive Branch function. Guerrilla warfare was outside this statement of scope, but such operations came under partial CIA control with NSC 10/5 of October 1951. Sony VAIO PCG-61111M Battery See "Psychological Strategy Board" below. To implement covert actions under NSC 10/2, the OPC was created on September 1, 1948. Its initial structure had it taking guidance from the State Department in peacetime and from the military in wartime, Sony PCG-71213M Battery initially had direct access to the State Department and to the military without having to proceed through the CIA's administrative hierarchy, provided the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was informed of all important projects and decisions. In 1950 this arrangement was modified to ensure that policy guidance came to OPC through the DCI. Sony PCG-71311M Battery During the Korean War, the OPC grew quickly. Wartime commitments and other missions soon made covert action the most expensive and bureaucratically prominent of the CIA's activities. Putting special operations under a "psychological" organization paralleled the military's development of U.S. Sony PCG-71312M Battery Army Special Forces, which was created by a Pentagon unit called the Psychological Warfare Division. "NSC 10/5, issued in October 1951, reaffirmed the covert action mandate given in NSC 10/2 and expanded CIA's authority over guerrilla warfare"^[35] The incoming Eisenhower administration soon abolished the PSB, Sony PCG-71212M Battery but the expansion of the CIA's covert action writ in NSC 10/5 helped ensure that covert action would remain a major function of the Agency. fter Smith, who was Eisenhower's World War II Chief of Staff, consolidated the CIA, the OPC and the OSO in 1952, the Eisenhower administration began narrowing the CIA's latitude in 1954. Sony PCG-71811M Battery In accordance with a series of National Security Council directives, the Director of Central Intelligence's responsiblity for the conduct of covert operations was further clarified. President Eisenhower approved NSC 5412 on March 15, 1954, reaffirming the CIA's responsibility for conducting covert actions abroad". Sony PCG-71911M Battery A series of committees, containing reprresentatives from State, Defense, the CIA, and sometimes the White House or NSC, reviewed operations. Over time and reorganizations, these committees were called the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB), NSC 5412/2 Special Group or simply Special Group, Sony PCG-91211M Battery Special Group (Augmented), 303 Committee, and Special Group (Counterinsurgency). The Office of Training begins with the Junior Officer Training program for new employees before going on to conducting courses in a wide range of specialized professional disciplines. Sony PCG-91111M Battery 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. Sony VAIO PCG-5J4M Battery For 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. Sony VAIO PCG-5K1M Battery The overall U.S. intelligence budget has been considered classified until recently. There have been numerous attempts to obtain general information about the budget.^[44] As a result, it was revealed that CIA's annual budget in Fiscal Year 1963 was US $550 million (inflation-adjusted US$ 4.2 billion in 2013),^[45] Sony VAIO PCG-5K2M Battery and the overall intelligence budget in FY 1997 was US $26.6 billion (inflation-adjusted US$ 38.5 billion in 2013).^[46] 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 that the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion.^[47] Sony VAIO PCG-5J5M Battery In Legacy of Ashes-The History of the CIA, Tim Weiner claims that early funding was solicited by James Forrestal and Allen Dulles from private Wall Street and Washington, D.C. sources. Next Forrestal convinced "an old chum," John W. Snyder, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of Truman's closest allies, Sony VAIO PCG-5L2M Battery to allow the use of the $200 million Exchange Stabilization Fund by CIA fronts to influence European elections, beginning with Italy.^[48] After the Marshall Plan was approved, appropriating $13.7 billion over five years, 5% of those funds or $685 million were made available to the CIA. Sony VAIO PCG-6S4M Battery The CIA acts as the primary US 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 U.S. Sony VAIO PCG-6W1M Battery government intelligence agencies, commercial information sources, and foreign intelligence services.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. Sony VAIO PCG-6W2M Battery As do other analytic members of the U.S. intelligence community, such as the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the analytic division of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the CIA's raw input includes imagery intelligence (IMINT) collected by the air and space systems of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Sony VAIO PCG-7Z1M Battery 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. The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (the SIS or MI6), Sony VAIO PCG-8Y2M Battery the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki) (SVR), the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Sony VAIO PCG-8Y3M Battery 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 U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research are purely analytical agencies.^[ Sony VAIO PCG-8Z1M Battery The closest links of the U.S. 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.^[50] Sony VAIO PCG-8Z2M Battery An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main U.S. military communications network. Previously, the marking of NOFORN (i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-U.S. countries could receive the information. Sony VAIO PCG-8Z3M Battery A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL Five Eyes, used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The Central Intelligence Agency was created by Congress with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, Sony VAIO PCG-7112M Battery 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, Sony VGP-BPL15/B Battery 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."^[51] Sony VGP-BPS15/B Battery 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." Sony VGP-BPL15/S Battery The Office of Strategic Services, which was the first independent U.S. 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. Sony VGP-BPS15/S Battery 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). Sony VGP-BPS15 Battery This division lasted only a few months. The first mention of the "Central Intelligence Agency" concept and term appeared on a U.S. 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.^[53] Sony VGP-BPL15 Battery Despite opposition from the military establishment, the United States Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),^[51] President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) in January 1946, which was the direct predecessor to the CIA.^[54] The CIG was an interim authority established under Presidential authority. Sony VGN-P series Battery 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). In September 1947, the National Security Act of 1947 established both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.^[55] Sony VGN-P11Z/Q Battery Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was appointed as the first Director of Central Intelligence, and one of the first secret operations under him was the successful support of theChristian Democrats in Italy. The National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, Sony VGN-P11Z/R Battery 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 U.S. government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons."^[57] Sony VGN-P11Z/W Battery 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, Sony VGN-P21S/W Battery 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. Sony VGN-P21Z/G Battery 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. Those organizations, as well as some minor functions, formed the euphemistically named Directorate of Plans in 1952.^{[Sony VGN-P21Z/R Battery} 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. ^{Sony VGN-P29VN/Q Battery} Allen Dulles, who had been a key OSS operations officer in Switzerland during World War II, took over from Smith, at a time where U.S. policy was dominated by intense anticommunism. Various sources existed, the most visible being the investigations and abuses of Senator Joseph McCarthy, ^{Sony VGP-BPS18 Battery} and the more quiet but systematic containment doctrine developed by George Kennan, theBerlin 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, ^{Sony VGP-BPL18 Battery} 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 thought to be above Soviet air defenses' reach. ^{Sony VGP-BPL18 Battery} AfterGary 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. During this period, there were numerous covert actions against left-wing movements perceived as communist. Sony Vaio VGN-NW21MF Battery The CIA overthrew a foreign government for the first time during the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, at the request of Winston Churchill. 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. Sony Vaio VGN-NW21EF Battery 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 U.S.-UK defector in place, Oleg Penkovsky.^[59] 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. Sony Vaio VGN-NW21JF Battery "The fact of" the United States operating reconnaissance satellites, like "the fact of" the existence of NRO, was highly classified for many years. One of the biggest operations ever undertaken by the CIA was directed at Zaïre in support of Mobutu Sese Seko. Sony Vaio VGN-NW21ZF Battery 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.^[61] While the Patti mission forwarded Ho's proposals for phased independence, with the French or even the United States as the transition partner, Sony Vaio VGN-NW31ZF/S Battery 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. U.S.-based analysts were simultaneously trying to project the evolution of political power, Sony Vaio VGN-NW31JF Battery both if the scheduled referendum chose merger of the North and South, or if the South, the U.S. client, stayed independent. Initially, the US focus in Southeast Asia was on Laos, not Vietnam. During the period of U.S. combat involvement in the Vietnam War, Sony Vaio VGN-NW31EF Battery 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.^[62] In general, the military was consistently more optimistic than the CIA. Sam Adams, Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF/P Battery 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. Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF/S Battery 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 the U.S. Presidency and the executive branch of the U.S. government. Revelations about past CIA activities, Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF/W Battery such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders (most notably Fidel Castro and Rafael Trujillo) and illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, provided the opportunities to increase Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations.^[63] Sony Vaio VGN-NW11Z/T Battery 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 attempt to use the CIA to impede the FBI's investigation of the burglary. In the famous "smoking gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Sony Vaio VGN-NW11Z/S Battery 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.^[64] In this way Nixon and Haldemann ensured that the CIA's No. 1 and No. 2 ranking officials, Sony Vaio VGN-NW11S/T Battery 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. Sony Vaio VGN-NW11S/S Battery 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.^[65] Sony Vaio VGN-NW31EF Battery 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" (after it was leaked to him by DCI William Colby) in a front-page article in The New York Times, Sony  VAIO VGN-FW21E Battery claiming that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders, and had illegally conducted surveillance on some 7,000 U.S. citizens involved in the antiwar movement (Operation CHAOS).^[63] The CIA had also experimented on people, who unknowingly took LSD (among other things).^[63] Sony  VAIO VGN-FW21I Battery 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).^[63] In addition, Sony  VAIO VGN-FW21L Battery President Gerald Ford created theRockefeller Commission,^[63] and issued an executive order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. During the investigation, Schlesinger's successor as DCI, William Colby, testified before Congress on 32 occasions in 1975, including about the "Family Jewels".^[66] Sony  VAIO VGN-FW21Z Battery Colby later stated that he believed that providing Congress with this information was the correct thing to do, and ultimately in the CIA's own interests.^[67] 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."^[63] Sony  VAIO VGN-FW21M Battery 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 U.S. is neither openly nor apparently engaged. Sony  VAIO VGN-FW31M Battery 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." The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Sony VAIO VGN-FW11J Battery 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, Sony VAIO VGN-FW11Z Battery and preparation of briefings for the president. On July 30, 2008, President Bush issued Executive Order 13470^[68] amending Executive Order 12333to 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW11ZRU Battery The DCI's title now is "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (D/CIA), 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW11ZU Battery The National Security Advisor is a permanent member of the National Security Council, responsible for briefing the President with pertinent information collected by all U.S. intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, etc. Sony VAIO VGN-FW21J Battery All 16 Intelligence Community agencies are under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW21ZR Battery At first confronted with secular terrorism, the Agency found Islamist terrorism looming increasingly large on its scope. 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW3ZJ Battery 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".^[70] Sony VAIO VGN-FW41E/H Battery 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW41J/H Battery Allen to set up a "Qaeda cell" to oversee its tactical execution.^[71] In 2000, the CIA and USAF jointly ran a series of flights over Afghanistan with a small remote-controlled reconnaissance drone, thePredator; they obtained probable photos of Bin Laden. Sony VAIO VGN-FW41M/H Battery Cofer Black and others became advocates of arming the Predator with missiles to try to assassinate Bin Laden and other al-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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW41ZJ/H Battery 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW46M Battery 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, Sony VAIO VGN-FW4ZTJ/H Battery both in the "Afghan sanctuary" and in "ninety-two countries around the world".^[75] The new strategy was called the "Worldwide Attack Matrix". Anwar al-Aulaki, a Yemeni-American U.S. citizen and al-Qaeda member, was killed on September 30, 2011 by an air attack carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command. Sony VAIO VGN-FW51 Battery After several days of surveillance of Mr. Aulaki by the Central Intelligence Agency, armed drones took off from a new, secret American base in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed into northern Yemen and unleashed a barrage of Hellfire missiles at al-Aulaki's vehicle. Samir Khan, Sony VAIO VGN-FW51ZF/H Battery a Pakistani-American al-Qaeda member and editor of the jihadist Inspire magazine, also reportedly died in the attack. The combined CIA/JSOC drone strike was the first in Yemen since 2002 – there have been others by the military’s Special Operations forces – and was part of an effort by the spy agency to duplicate in Yemen the covert war which has been running in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sony VAIO VGN-FW51MF/H Battery 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.^[78] Sony VAIO VGN-FW41J/H Battery 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.^[79] CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary teams were the first teams in Iraq arriving in July 2002. Sony VAIO VGN-FW41M/H Battery Once on the ground they prepared the battle space for the subsequent arrival of U.S. military forces. SAD teams then combined with U.S. Army Special Forces (on a team called the Northern Iraq Liaison Element or NILE).^[80] This team organized the Kurdish Peshmerga for the subsequent U.S.-led invasion. Sony VAIO VGN-FW41ZJ/H Battery 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 U.S./Kurdish force in the subsequent assault on Saddam's Army. The U.S. side was carried out by Paramilitary Operations Officers from SAD/SOG and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. Sony VAIO VGN-FW46M Battery 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, Sony VAIO VGN-FW4ZTJ/H Battery 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 U.S.-led invasion force.^[80][83] NATO member Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used by the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division for the invasion. Sony VAIO VGN-FW51 Battery As a result, the SAD, U.S. 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. Sony VAIO VGN-FW51ZF/H Battery This combined U.S. Special Operations and Kurdish force soundly defeated Saddam's Army, a major military success, similar to the victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan.^[80] Four members of the SAD/SOG team received CIA's rare Intelligence Star for their "heroic actions." Sony Vaio VGN-FW5ERF/H Battery,Sony Vaio VGN-FW5MJF/H Battery,Sony Vaio VGN-FW5MTF/H Battery