The Intelligence Community Essay

In the intelligence community, there are some collection challenges, redundancy is one of the issues always to be mentioned. Redundancy can affect the core of the intelligence work ethics, resources management, budging, work force, future planning, and development methods. Also, the capability of the intelligence agencies and departments to predict attacks, analyze the indications and warning (I&W). The congress oversight of the intelligence community and the operations of the sixteen agencies imbedded in the community, to regulate the funds and allocate proper budget, also to monitor that the rights of US person are not violated in any collection method.

In the book, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, by Gerald Posner he argues that the act of terrorism that occurred on September 11, 2001 could have and should have been prevented. He presented a powerful case of how stupidity and misdirected priorities made America an easy aim for terrorists. Gerald Posner, the author of the book was a former Wall Street Lawyer, award winning investigative journalist and bestselling author. Posner purposefully wrote this book to demonstrate all the clues that were given out prior to the attack and inform us on previously undisclosed information after a thorough 18-month investigation. Posner’s goal was to discover what the CIA, FBI, and others in the Government were doing behind the scenes for at least a decade leading up to 9/11. The intended audience for this book is anyone who is willing to open their eyes on the true occurrences that happened on 9/11. The title of the piece is related directly to the book and the subject matter of it. America slept on all the clues that they received that there would be a terrorist attack and the book demonstrated how exactly they failed to prevent the acts that occurred on 9/11. Why America Slept is such a staggering book and Posner successfully demonstrates to the audience how 9/11 could have been prevented through his use of examples and facts.

September 11th, 2001 is a day darkened by tragedy. This day is remembered for one of the biggest terrorist attacks the United States has ever faced on American soil. The 9/11 attacks left many hearts broken and heads spinning about the events that occurred. I personally have been very skeptical about the official version of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. There are a few reasons that made me question what started a war that has become the longest war in American History. This paper will dive into the facts behind the events of this day to uncover the truth behind what occurred that day. Some of the major aspects I will be examining are the hard facts of September 11th, who was responsible for these attacks, the political repercussions,

September 11, 2001 forever impacted America and gave a new challenge to our government that went far beyond any challenges that a natural disaster had presented in decades. The terrorist attacks were definitely a wake up call to being more prepared for natural disasters and reevaluating our intelligence agency jobs and communication levels. In chapter 2, one of the key points that Kettl discuss is connecting the dots. We can see that in the midst of 9/11, America focused on the nation’s intelligence services for answers. As the American people we wanted to know, who were the hijackers, where was security and most importantly, and who do we hold accountable? Furthermore, that the intelligence agencies failed to piece together information that already had about terrorism speculations. In chapter 1, Kettl talks about the warnings and signs that the government has before catastrophes (such as September 11, Hurricane

•One of the historical day in the United State of America is 9/11 one of the horrific incidents. The time prior of 9/11 was unheard of in this era due to the lack of experience in terrorist organization in our country. Mostly, in the 80’s terrorist activity during this time oversea bombing and airline hijacking. The World Trade Center was bombs by the violent terrorist extremist that cause serious injuries and even deaths. The Oklahoma City bombing was the most deadly attacks during the 90’s on the United States soil. There was a lack of intelligence prior to the 9/11 for the government, first responders and law enforcement. The United States was unable to plan, implement and coordinate vital information and to organize the various agencies.

After World War II American intelligence had the need to be transformed. The inexperience along with bureaucracy and poor coordination among American intelligence officers obligated the United States intelligence community to change dramatically in order to confront the new challenges that emerged after the end of WWII. From Early America through WWI the intelligence system of the United States of America was involved in operations in which they had to construct intelligence systems virtually from scratch (Andrew 1995). Human intelligence was already developed, but with certain limitations and other intelligence disciplines were underdeveloped and very seldom sophisticated. After WWI America recessed and settled in a period of peace. The

Perhaps the most important change in how the federal government was reorganized after September 11th is the creation of both the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) position and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2004 with the passage of the same IRTPA that created TSA. This concept had been first suggested in 1955 after a study by Congress then and was recommended time and again but only became a reality after the September 11th attacks drove the need for major intelligence reform home and the 9/11 Commission continued the push for the creation of such a position (ODNI, n.d., paras. 1-5). As one can see from the mission and vision of the ODNI, the importance cannot be overstated. The mission includes leading intelligence integration while having the IC produce the most insightful intelligence products possible and the vision is fully integrating the IC thus making the nation more secure (ODNI, n.d., paras. 1-2).

The 9/11 attacks opened the avenue for a scrutiny of the performance and ability of the intelligence community to detect any threats to the safety of the United States. The media, politicians, reformists and other interested parties would not comprehend how such an attack would happen without the knowledge of the intelligence community. However, it is important to consider the fact that the attack was one of its kind and could not be approached with the resources and expertise used in other initiative such as the cold war. Therefore, the need to restructure the intelligence community arose from the view that it was still operating in the mindset and spirit of the cold war even in the modern era that had seen a revolutionary change of warfare

Since 9/11, the intelligence community has improved greatly. It is not that they have been reconstructed from the ground up, or that their mission has completely changed, it is, in the community’s eye anyway, that they now all share information, no matter how important or how small. This information sharing now even includes all the way down to local and tribal authorities. The reasoning is that, even if it might be small or seem insignificant to you at your level, it may be the piece someone somewhere else in the country needs.

When the citizens of the United States went to bed on September 10th, 2001 they had no idea that the events the next day would change their lives in one way or another for the rest of their lives. September 11th began just like any other day but by the end of the day, almost 3,000 people died in four separate deliberate terrorist attacks against the United States. The events on September 11th had shocked the world, caused billions of dollars in damages and made Americans question their sense of security. The attacks on September 11th, conducted by the Islamic extremist group, al-Qaeda, was an important event in United States history because it was the deadliest and biggest terrorist attack on American soil and caused extensive death and destruction

By disregarding cues of possible terrorist attacks and constant mistakes within the American Intelligence for not planning ahead, the United States failed to achieve its number one goal as a governing body: not keeping its citizens safe. It is important to dig into the issue of the disaster of 9/11 and completely understand the reason for failed prevention efforts. Moreover adding to these issues was the lack of communication and information shared between the two agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Central Intelligence Agency.

9/11 was one of the biggest terrorists attacks in the history of the United States that lead many people to ask what was next. This day lead to a war that is still going on to this day. A 16 year period. I was initially interested in this topic because I wanted to know more about the events that lead up to this day and the events that followed this day. While researching my topic, I found information about people who were in and around the buildings and people who were on the planes at the time. Through my essay I want to tell you and show you about all the events on September 11, 2001, the people behind it, and the message it left with the U.S.

After 9/11, an event so shocking, and humiliating to both the American people, and the U.S. Government, vast reforms were identified to ensure that an attack of this magnitude never happened again. From the ashes of this despicable act came two major pieces of Intelligence reform. These documents were the 9/11 Commission Report and The Intelligence Reform Act and Terrorist Prevent Act of 2004 (IRTPA). Both documents worked to reform the Intelligence Community (IC), and streamline current processes to improve the sharing of intelligence information, and products. With the sweeping changes

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 played one of the most significant roles on intelligence and its process of procurement and disciplines. Prior to the attack on 9/11 the U.S intelligence community had been downsized and was under further constraint by budget restrictions. The U.S. had been in a long intelligence battle during the Cold War and the intelligence community found them without a viable large threat to focus its priorities on. It is also speculated that without a major threat some functions of the intelligence process could have become redundant and complacent. There was also a breakdown in communication between intelligence community members that could have overlooked some key components to a pending terrorist attack.

Intelligence collection and apprehension of criminals have occurred for many years; however, with the exception of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, these actions were performed by different organizations. Nonetheless, roles and responsibilities have changed since the attacks on September 11, 2001. Intelligence-led policing and the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing program were incorporated, and fusion centers were established to help gather intelligence from different levels of the government. Although law enforcement at the local, state, and tribal levels aid in intelligence collection, it is important to ensure that intelligence gathered to protect national security and law enforcement