The admiral also is the de facto director of military intelligence. In this role, he chairs the military intelligence board, which comprises the five service chiefs of intelligence, the unified command directors of intelligence, and representatives of the defense agencies that perform intelligence functions under the assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence. The admiral coordinates intelligence efforts from the national level down to the first component of a joint task force commander. He also serves as program manager for the general defense intelligence program. This encompasses funding for the DIA, the service intelligence centers and the unified command joint intelligence centers.
Several points dominate defense intelligence program issues.
These range from incorporating advanced capabilities to keeping up with intelligence demands that, in turn, have exceeded funding and personnel resources. Right now, we are underresourced for our mission. As we have broader interests, we must recapitalize our investment, our equipment and the work force. Our ability to do that within the resource environment is the biggest challenge we have. Even though the threat of worldwide nuclear war may be lower and some of the other concerns we had in the Cold War may not be the same, there is an intense interest by all of our senior customers in what really is happening in the former Soviet Union.