Established in 1961, DIA manages the Defense Attache System and other human intelligence (humint) collection efforts. In addition, DIA is responsible for the analysis of information from allsources in response to requirements established by the DNI, by the Office of the Secretary of Defense(OSD), and other DOD officials. DIA provides analytical support to senior defense officials, to theJoint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commanders, and joint task forces worldwide. Established in 1960, the NRO designs, builds, and operates the reconnaissance satellites that collect images of the earth's surface and signals information. While the NRO is a DOD agency, itis staffed by both DOD and CIA personnel. Established in 1952, NSA has two primary missions -- developing codes to protect the security of official U.S. communications and providing signals intelligence (sigint). NSA collects, processes,and analyzes foreign signals in order to support national policymakers and the operational forces. The NGA, established in 1996 and originally known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), provides geospatial intelligence -- imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatialdata and information to DOD users and other officials responsible for national security. Geospatialinformation includes topographic, hydrographic, and other data referenced to precise locations onthe earth's surface. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have their own intelligence components that are, in general, not intelligence collection agencies, but process and analyze data, and disseminateintelligence to their respective operating forces. Three of these agencies -- the NRO, NSA, and the NGA -- have significant responsibilitiesfor collecting intelligence of concern to agencies outside DOD. These three agencies more directlysupport national-level decisionmakers than do the intelligence organizations of the four militaryservices and even DIA. Their efforts are described as "national," as opposed to departmental ortactical. Senior policymakers often have significantly different intelligence needs than militaryconsumers, although there is considerable overlap. For instance, national policymakers are directlyconcerned with implications of nuclear test programs in countries that are of no immediate concernto military commanders, whereas the latter could be focused on tactical threats to operations longunderway that are not the focus of high-level policymakers. "National intelligence" is the term used for intelligence that is of concern to more than one department or agency and provides the basis for national security policymaking. Beginning in the1960's, a generation of arms control agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was basedon satellite imagery that allowed U.S. policymakers to be confident of their estimates of Sovietmilitary capabilities. More recently, national systems have permitted policymakers to monitor suchcrucial developments as transfers of WMDs, ethnic cleansing in various countries, and indicationsof narcotics traffic. Inasmuch as national systems are expensive, and therefore not available in unlimited quantities, procedures have been developed to sort out priorities for coverage. The DCI had statutory authorityto develop collection and analysis priorities in response to National Security Council (NSC)guidance. Generally, priorities have been sorted out by inter-agency committees working throughthe DCI's Community Management Staff of the Intelligence Community and the Assistant DCI forCollection, to be implemented by national-level agencies, including NSA, the NRO, and the NGA. (2) The efforts of NSA, the NRO, and the NGA have been funded as parts of the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) (3) the annual budget forwhich the DCI annually develops and presentsto the President. (4) The DCI also has had authorityto transfer funds and (for periods up to a year)personnel among NFIP programs with the approval of the Director of the Office of Management andBudget and affected agency heads. The Secretary of Defense was required to obtain the concurrenceof the DCI before recommending individuals for appointment as head of the NRO, NSA, and theNGA. If the DCI did not concur, the Secretary of Defense might still recommend an individual tothe President, but he had to include in the recommendation a statement that the DCI did not concur. (5) The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act provides that the DNI will be responsible for developing and determining the NIP budget and gives him/her authority to manage appropriations by directing theallotment or allocation of such funds with prior notice to agency heads. The DNI also has authorityto reprogram funds under certain conditions and if the transfer out of any one department or agencyis less than $150 million in a single year and is less than 5 percent of the amounts available to theagency or department. The DNI will also have certain limited authorities to transfer intelligencepersonnel from one agency to another. In addition to responding to tasking in support of national policymakers, all defense agenciesare closely involved in directly supporting operating military forces. The Secretary of Defense hasstatutory responsibilities for the effective functioning of national intelligence agencies in DOD. (6) Inaddition, statutes require that the agencies be prepared to participate in joint training exercises, andestablish uniform reporting systems to strengthen their readiness to support operating forces withrespect to a war or threat to national security. (7) The Defense Department's view of the central role of intelligence is evident in its most recent planning document, Joint Vision 2020 : The evolution of information technology will increasingly permit us to integrate the traditional forms of information operations with sophisticatedall-source intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in a fully synchronized informationcampaign. The development of a concept labeled the global information grid will provide thenetwork-centric environment required to achieve this goal. The grid will be the globallyinterconnected, end-to-end set of information capabilities, associated processes, and people tomanage and provide information on demand to warfighters, policy makers, and supportpersonnel. (8) National intelligence is now an essential part of DOD's planning and operational capabilities and, since the Persian Gulf War, has become thoroughly integrated into combat operations. One mediaaccount of the role of national-level agencies during recent hostilities in Iraq concluded: As with imagery and early-warning [satellite] constellations, space-based signals intelligence was far more responsive to tactical users in OperationIraqi Freedom than in earlier campaigns. National Security Agency teams and related Air Forcecryptologic units were forward-deployed to the theater of operations to assist tactical commandersin accessing and interpreting signals intelligence from orbital and air-breathingsources. The need to integrate intelligence resources has also become more important inasmuch as The distinction between strategic and tactical ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] systems gradually has melted away as militaryrequirements shifted from the nuclear and conventional threat posed by Russia to more diversedangers arising from rogue states and terrorists. (9) Propelled largely by the need for precise locating data to target precision-guided munitions (PGMs), intelligence from national sources has been woven into military operations at all echelons. Senior DOD officials and military leaders emphasize their reliance on this stream of information andargue that the national agencies need to be more responsive to their direction. Some observers have long argued that the focus on support to military operations by national agencies has led to reduced support for national-level policymakers at the State Department and theNSC. For instance, it has been suggested that this emphasis on supporting the military was acontributing factor in the Intelligence Community's failure to provide advance notice of the Indiannuclear test in May1998, at a time when U.S. reconnaissance satellites were primarily tasked withthe support of U.S. military forces operating in the Persian Gulf region. (10) In recent years, DOD's intelligence effort was coordinated, loosely according to some observers, by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, andIntelligence (ASD C3I). In 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sought congressionalauthorization to establish a more senior position, that of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence(USD(I)); a provision was included to that effect in the Defense Authorization Act for FY2003 ( P.L.107-314 , section 901). In March 2003, Stephen A. Cambone, who had previously served as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, was appointed to the position and his appointment was confirmed by the Senate. His responsibilities include coordinating DOD intelligence, and intelligence-related policy, plans,programs, requirements and resource allocations. He is to "exercise authority, direction, and control"over DIA, NGA, the NRO, NSA, and other agencies. (11) He had served as a single point of contactbetween DOD and the DCI on intelligence resource and policy issues. (12) A significant responsibility of the Secretary of Defense is ensuring that the national intelligence programs of the NIP and the joint military and tactical intelligence programs (known as the JointMilitary Intelligence Program (JMIP) and Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (TIARA)) aremutually supportive and not duplicative. (13) Inrecent years the various sets of programs have beenbrought into closer alignment to support national policymakers concerned with details of tacticalintelligence and military commanders who need information from national systems such as satellites. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, a number of observers as well as the JointInquiry of the two congressional intelligence committees and the 9/11 Commission, concluded thatthe organization and management of the Intelligence Community was inadequate and that, as aresult, the DCI was unable to ensure that crucial information about the 9/11 plot was shared withanalysts who might have been able to identify the threat in advance. The 9/11 Commission took noteof ... some of the limitations of the DCI's authority over the direction and priorities of the intelligence community, especially its elements within theDepartment of Defense.