State, Justice, and DHS each include LEAs that operate from U.S. embassies. LEAs abroad work on a wide array of law enforcement issues, including those that cover criminal enterprises, drug cartels, visa and immigration fraud, financial crimes, criminal and terrorist threats against U.S. embassies and personnel, and fugitive capture and extraditions. In this statement, we are focused primarily on ICE, FBI, and DS operations abroad, although in our report we also reviewed the overseas counter- terrorism activities of the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the U.S. Marshals Service; Customs and Border Protection; and the U.S. Secret Service. ICE investigates threats to U.S. border security and works to eliminate the potential threat of terrorist acts against the United States. The FBI is charged with protecting the United States from terrorist attacks; preventing, disrupting, and defeating terrorist operations; and expanding operational partnerships with foreign nation law enforcement and intelligence agencies to disrupt and prevent terrorism. DS is State’s law enforcement arm and is responsible for protecting U.S. embassies, diplomats, and their families from criminal and terrorist attacks. The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act created the NCTC and charged it with integrating all instruments of national power—including diplomatic, financial, military, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement activities—within and among agencies, with the ultimate goal of preventing future attacks against America and its interests worldwide. The NCTC is a part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and reports to the Director on matters of intelligence collection and analysis; however, on matters of strategic operational planning for counterterrorism, the Director of the NCTC reports directly to the President. As a result, the NCTC works under the policy direction of the NSC on matters of counterterrorism planning. A series of national strategies have provided broad guidance for U.S. LEAs to help foreign nations to identify, disrupt, and prosecute terrorists. However, the strategies lack essential elements of a strategic plan and for facilitating interagency collaboration, and they do not clearly delineate what role, if any, the various LEAs should play in assisting foreign nations to combat terrorism. The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act requires the NCTC to develop U.S. governmentwide strategic operational plans to combat terrorism, which should include the mission, objectives, tasks to be performed, interagency coordination of operational activities, and assignment of roles and responsibilities among participating agencies. NCTC officials told us that, in response to the act, they had drafted a general plan, which was approved by the President in June 2006, but the implementing guidance for the plan was still under development. A series of national strategies have provided some strategic-level guidance for U.S. LEAs to help foreign nations identify, disrupt, and prosecute terrorists. For example, the National Security Strategy, issued in 2002 and updated in March 2006, states that the United States will continue to encourage regional partners to take up a coordinated effort that isolates the terrorists, and help ensure that foreign nations have the law enforcement, military, political, and financial tools necessary to disrupt and destroy terrorist operations before they reach American borders. Additionally, the 2002 National Strategy for Homeland Security primarily focuses on domestic efforts to secure America from further terrorist attacks. It clarifies the role of LEAs in the post 9/11 world, stating that, “Our Nation’s highest law enforcement objective must be the prevention of terrorist acts—a significant shift from pre-9/11 objectives.” The strategy also notes that, in a world where the terrorist threat pays no respect to traditional boundaries, the American strategy for homeland security cannot stop at the country’s borders. It also calls for a sustained and systematic international agenda to counter the global terrorist threat and improve homeland security, and identifies a number of initiatives in this area, including (1) intensifying international law enforcement cooperation and helping foreign nations fight terrorism and (2) augmenting the FBI’s overseas presence by increasing the number of LEGATs around the world. It states that Justice, in cooperation with State, is to work with foreign nation counterparts on these law enforcement issues. Also, the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, issued in 2003 and updated in 2006, focuses on the United States’ efforts to combat terrorism abroad. It also provides greater detail on the objectives and strategies for U.S. LEAs in working with their foreign nation counterparts. According to the strategy, the United States is to: Expand, where appropriate, the U.S. law enforcement presence abroad to further the investigative and operational assistance related to the interdiction, investigation, and prosecution of terrorist suspects. Increase technical and operational assistance efforts to help foreign nation LEAs acquire the necessary capabilities to fight terrorism through a variety of means, including (1) improved legislation, (2) technical assistance, (3) new investigative techniques, (4) intelligence sharing, and (5) law enforcement training. Enhance operational assistance to expand international cooperation to combat terrorism through expanded sharing of law enforcement information. In 2006, the White House released updates of the National Security Strategy and the National Strategy to Combat Terrorism. Both updated strategies reinforce the basic concepts of using U.S. LEAs to assist foreign nations in identifying, disrupting, and prosecuting terrorists abroad. For example, the National Strategy to Combat Terrorism supports intensifying training and other types of assistance to improve foreign nation LEA capacities to identify and disrupt terrorists threats, as well as implementing legal reforms aimed at ensuring that foreign nations have the necessary laws to carry out this effort, and that investigators, prosecutors, and judges have the capacity to effectively prosecute terrorists using these new laws. The strategies state that this approach has succeeded in identifying, disrupting, and prosecuting terrorists since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Our past work has stressed the importance of developing a strategy to combat terrorism that would establish goals, objectives, priorities, outcomes, milestones, and performance measures. In March 2003, we reported that strategic plans should clearly define objectives to be accomplished, identify the roles and responsibilities for meeting each objective, ensure that funding necessary to achieve the objectives is available, and employ monitoring mechanisms to determine progress and identify needed improvements. For example, our past work has found that identifying clear roles and responsibilities for each federal agency combating terrorism is a major challenge in implementing national strategies related to terrorism. In addition, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) requires each federal agency to develop strategic plans that cover a period of at least 5 years and include the agency’s mission statement; identify the agency’s general goals and objectives; and describe how the agency intends to achieve those goals through its activities and human, capital, information, and other resources. Under GPRA, strategic plans are the starting point for agencies to set annual performance plans for programs and to measure the performance of the programs in achieving those goals. Our past work has found that GPRA has the potential for greatly enhancing agency performance. For example, managers can use performance information to identify problems in existing programs, to try to identify the causes of problems, and to develop corrective actions. Moreover, in a large-scale interagency effort where interagency collaboration is essential, we have found that agencies should (1) define and articulate a common outcome; (2) establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies; (3) identify and address funding needs by leveraging resources; (4) agree on roles and responsibilities; (5) establish compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across agency boundaries; (6) develop mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results; (7) reinforce agency accountability for collaborative efforts through agency plans and reports; and (8) reinforce individual accountability for collaborative efforts through performance management systems. We have specifically noted that, given the number of agencies involved in U.S. government efforts to combat terrorism, it is particularly important that there be mechanisms to coordinate across agencies. We found that while the national strategies, as well as their updates in 2006, provided broad guidance, they lacked key strategic elements, including those to promote LEA collaboration in assisting foreign nations to identify, disrupt, and prosecute terrorists. For example, none of the three national strategies established joint agency strategies that would capitalize on the unique capacity of each LEA to combat terrorism. Further, none of them identified funding needs or leveraged resources; reached agreement on roles and responsibilities; or established procedures to operate across agency boundaries. Moreover, none of the strategies included mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on their overall results, nor did they reinforce agency accountability for collaborative efforts through agency plans and reports. In December 2004, Congress passed the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act, creating the NCTC and charging it with developing strategic operational plans to combat terrorism using every element of national power, including those of U.S. LEAs. Under the act, the NCTC is expected to (1) conduct strategic operational planning for counterterrorism activities; (2) integrate all instruments of national power in such planning, including law enforcement, diplomatic, military, intelligence, and financial activities; (3) assign roles and responsibilities to lead departments and agencies; (4) ensure that agencies have access to intelligence and intelligence support needed to execute their counterterrorism plans and accomplish their assigned activities; and (5) monitor implementation of these operational plans. In June 2006, the NCTC Director testified before Congress that the lack of a detailed plan to ensure full implementation of the national security strategy had been a void that stretched back for decades. According to the director, what has long been missing is a plan to ensure that national strategies are implemented at the operational level in a coordinated, integrated fashion, and that there has been no formal process to translate the national strategies into strategic and tangible objectives, assigned to lead agencies, with roles and responsibilities clearly defined.