DOD protects the sovereignty of the United States through its homeland defense missions, which it conducts through air, land, maritime, space, and other supporting operations. While DOD is the lead federal agency for these types of operations, it coordinates with and receives support from its federal partners. Contrary to its homeland defense mission where it is the lead federal agency, DOD serves in a support capacity when it conducts civil support missions. DOD’s civil support missions include providing support during disasters and declared emergencies (both natural and man- made); providing support for restoring public health and services and civil order (for example, counterdrug, or animal/plant disease eradication); providing support for national special security events (for example, national political conventions); and periodic planned support (for example, military lab support), as shown in figure 2. DOD has established a structure to facilitate interagency coordination at three different levels: strategic, operational, and tactical; however, some DOD entities coordinate across multiple levels as shown in table 1. Other U.S. federal agencies do not necessarily operate with a similar structure for interagency coordination. While DOD has issued a number of strategies, policies, and guidance related to interagency coordination for its homeland defense and civil support missions, DOD entities lack clearly defined roles and responsibilities because key documents are outdated, are not fully integrated, or are not comprehensive. Previous GAO work, the National Response Framework, and DOD strategy and guidance all identify the need for clearly defined roles and responsibilities to enhance interagency coordination. In addition, DOD policy requires the department to review DOD directives to ensure that they are necessary, current, and consistent with DOD policy, existing law, and statutory authority 4 years from the date that the directive is issued. Although DOD’s civil support directives were issued between 1985 and 2000, DOD has yet to fulfill this requirement. We found that roles and responsibilities identified in DOD’s homeland defense and civil support strategy, its series of civil support directives, its interagency guidance for support to law enforcement authorities, and its joint publication on interagency coordination no longer provide a clear, comprehensive, and current description of DOD’s interagency coordination efforts for its civil support mission. A detailed time line of the outdated strategy, guidance, and policies is shown in figure 3. DOD issued its Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support in June 2005. Among other things, this strategy identifies the roles and responsibilities of some of the key DOD entities for support to civil authorities. For example, the strategy identifies ASD/HD, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NORTHCOM, and PACOM as several key DOD entities responsible for coordinating with federal partners for homeland defense, and it provides brief descriptions of their roles in homeland defense missions. However, the 2005 strategy does not reflect the current environment in which DOD supports civil authorities. For example, while the strategy primarily discusses DOD’s civil support mission in the context of the department’s response to a weapon of mass destruction—DOD’s primary focus after the 2001 terrorist attacks—it does not address the breadth of civil support missions that DOD must be prepared to support subsequent to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Such civil support missions include catastrophic natural or man-made disasters, pandemic influenza, and the southwest border counterdrug efforts. Additionally, DOD’s Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support has not been updated to incorporate important recommendations made to DOD to define roles and responsibilities for its entities during federal response activities. For example, in a February 2006 report on lessons learned after Hurricane Katrina, the White House recommended DOD should provide imagery support and coordinate with DHS through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. However, the strategy does not identify this agency’s roles and responsibilities for coordination. The strategy also does not reflect changes to the national preparedness system since September 2005—such as the issuance of the National Response Framework. Additionally, the June 2005 strategy does not incorporate changes made in the National Defense Strategy when it was reissued in June 2008, nor does it reflect changes made in the National Homeland Security Strategy when it was reissued in October 2007. According to ASD/HD officials, revision of the strategy began in October 2008 but was postponed due to the change in presidential administrations. ASD/HD officials told us that they expect this strategy will be updated and issued no later than December 2011. In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD estimated the updated strategy will be completed in March 2011. In addition to DOD’s outdated Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, we found that DOD’s series of civil support policies and guidance, such as its 1997 DOD directive Military Assistance to Civil Authorities, are also outdated, as most of them were written in the 1990s and thus do not reflect changes that occurred subsequent to their issuance. For example, none of these directives identify the roles and responsibilities of either NORTHCOM or ASD/HD—both of whom have had key interagency coordination roles and responsibilities with federal partners since their establishment in 2002 and 2003, respectively. These directives also do not reflect the substantial changes that occurred in the national preparedness system after the late 1990s, including the establishment of DHS in November 2002 and the subsequent issuance of extensive civilian policy and doctrine for homeland security. For example, the directives do not identify the current roles and responsibilities of DOD entities supporting civil authorities under the National Response Framework, such as DOD’s Defense Coordinating Officers. According to ASD/HD officials, DOD intends to replace current directives on military support and assistance to civil authorities with a new draft directive on military support to civil authorities that is currently undergoing internal revision by DOD. ASD/HD officials stated this new directive will likely be updated in early 2010; however, this office has previously extended deadlines for making these needed revisions. DOD’s directive on supporting law enforcement agencies, which was last updated in 1989 and is still in effect, is outdated and results in unclear roles and responsibilities. This directive assigns several responsibilities to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Management and Personnel—subsequently renamed the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Personnel—related to coordination with civilian law enforcement officials. However, this directive conflicts with a 2009 directive that assigns many of the same responsibilities to ASD/HD—and additionally, another directive tasks the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities with overseeing DOD’s counterdrug mission in support of federal law enforcement agencies instead of ASD/HD. Because DOD’s law enforcement support directive has not been updated or superseded in 20 years, it is unclear which DOD office is responsible for coordinating with law enforcement agencies. DOD plans to cancel its directive on DOD cooperation with civilian law enforcement agencies and integrate aspects of its policy for law enforcement support into a new DOD instruction to be issued in 2010. However, according to ASD/HD officials, this policy revision will not include DOD’s support for counterdrug missions. As DOD does not have another directive for its support to law enforcement agencies for its homeland defense missions—such as Joint Task Force-North’s support of federal partners for counterdrug missions—there will be a gap in DOD’s law enforcement support policy. Furthermore, DOD’s directive delineating the roles and responsibilities of ASD/HD and other offices within the Office of the Secretary of Defense that directly coordinate with federal partners are not integrated, which leads to unclear roles and responsibilities. For example, ASD/HD is designated as the principal DOD representative to interagency partners. However, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has a DOD liaison located at CDC who does not directly coordinate with ASD/HD. CDC officials and the DOD liaison to CDC told us that they were not aware of ASD/HD’s roles and responsibilities as the principal DOD representative to interagency partners. Consequently, it is unclear as to the extent to which ASD/HD or the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs is the principal DOD representative to CDC. We found similar issues in September 2006, when we reported that there was uncertainty about the roles and responsibilities among DOD entities, including ASD/HD and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, for preparing for a pandemic influenza. DOD’s joint doctrine on interagency coordination, which is supposed to provide DOD entities information that will enable them to work with their federal partners in meeting the entities’ missions, does not provide comprehensive information to the DOD entities. Specifically, we found that this guidance primarily focuses on interagency coordination overseas, leaving DOD entities supporting homeland defense and civil support missions with limited information regarding their federal partners. For example, DOD’s joint guidance focuses only on USDA’s roles and responsibilities for foreign activities and does not delineate the role of the USDA entity or DOD’s potential relationship to it during civil support operations. This joint doctrine on interagency coordination is designed to provide guidance to DOD personnel by providing descriptions of federal agencies that DOD may encounter during the course of contingency operations, but it is not comprehensive. USDA, for example, is identified as the lead coordinating agency within the National Response Framework for the Emergency Support Function annex regarding Agriculture and Natural Resources, and DOD is identified within the annex as a supporting agency to USDA. Within the annex, the homeland security and emergency response roles and responsibilities for a range of USDA entities, such as the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, are detailed, and DOD is expected to provide civil support to this USDA entity if needed during an emergency or disaster. However, DOD’s joint doctrine on interagency coordination does not describe this USDA entity’s domestic roles and responsibilities and thus does not provide DOD entities sufficient information that would facilitate their coordination efforts.