Today the United States enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great economic and political influence. In keeping with our heritage and principles, we do not use our strength to press for unilateral advantage. We seek instead to create a balance of power that favors human freedom: conditions in which all nations and all societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges of political and economic liberty.

 President George W. Bush

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002

The Intelligence Community routinely gives national policymakers intelligence regarding the intentions of foreign states in many arenas including strategic warning, diplomacy and treaty monitoring, proliferation of WMD, and promoting economic security. Each intelligence discipline provides a valuable piece of the puzzle, and in many cases, a single intelligence discipline may provide the only information available on a given topic. The IC has placed great emphasis on methodologies of alternative analysis and outreach to new and non-traditional sources of expertise, including nongovernmental experts.

Through the Intelink program, significant gains were made in moving classified information from IC Top Secret networks to the Secret-level environment where the majority of the intelligence consumers involved in diplomacy, treaty monitoring, and support to military field operations operate. In addition, information portals tailored to individual site needs are being built so that mission-essential information will be presented directly to the user as it is received.

Strategic Warning

• CIA analysts conducted research on trends that transcend current issues and could pose major policy challenges in the future. Major studies in support of this role included "Russia's Defense Industries and Military Forces in 2020,"  "Russian Goals for Arms Sales and Technology Exports in 2010," and "Ethnic Russians in the Former Empire: The Potential for Trouble in the Next Decade." CIA also engaged with a broad range of outside experts on such matters as alternative European Security and Defense Policy futures, war games on a Libyan WMD crisis, and a simulation focused on European reactions to a new Balkan crisis.

  
  CIA established an energetic program to ensure that analysts keep abreast of outside views on issues of interest to the policy community, including an Alternative Analysis panel of prestigious outsiders and academic specialists to promote "out of the box thinking" on key trends.

• The National Intelligence Warning System continued to provide strategic warning to senior policymakers to enable them to either avert crises or prepare to effectively deal with them. The National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Warning manages the National Warning Process, along with the DCI Strategic Warning Committee, composed of representatives from CIA, DIA, NSA, State/INR, and NIMA. The NIO also oversees training on warning analysis.

• As tensions between nuclear powers India and Pakistan rose and the threat of war between them increased in late 2001 and early 2002, the NIC produced a series of assessments, as part of its warning function, alerting policymakers to the situation on both sides and the prospects for the standoff escalating or cooling down.

• DIA, in collaboration with the Joint Intelligence Center-Pacific and other elements of the Intelligence Community, produced both the classified and unclassified versions of the Secretary of Defense's Annual Report on the Military Capabilities of the People's Republic of China. This Congressionally-directed report is a comprehensive assessment of China's current and future military trends and capabilities and their potential impact on US national security policy.

• During and immediately following the Afghan campaign, State/INR provided a variety of assessments, tools, and intelligence support to policymakers, including a humanitarian map and integrated situation report for Secretary Powell. This information was provided to the Secretary on a daily basis prior to his morning meetings at the White House. 

• The DCI Warning Committee monitored and developed an early warning system for near-term crises in which complex contingency planning might be needed and humanitarian situations in which early international intervention would avert massive human suffering and reduce the demand for direct US military involvement.

• The USCG Intelligence Program produced its annual Worldwide Maritime Threat Assessment that covers maritime terrorism, crimes, and piracy. It is distributed to government and commercial entities and fosters information sharing.

The Deputy DCI for Community Management, on behalf of the DCI, signed the IC Support to Diplomacy and Diplomatic Operations Implementation Plan specifying actions the IC will pursue in support of diplomacy. Our response to the 11 September attacks required rapid coalition building to support the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, which in turn required close support from Intelligence and the crafting of delicate diplomatic arrangements. The Intelligence Community and the Diplomatic Community worked together to maximize the contribution of Intelligence to achieving America's foreign policy goals.

• After the military campaign in Afghanistan, State/INR and World Bank officials presented the Afghanistan Reconstruction Information Management Strategy (ARIMS) concept in Tokyo at the International Conference for Reconstruction Assistance in Afghanistan in January 2002.  This information strategy for Afghanistan's reconstruction was established to assist the Afghan Interim Authority and the international donor community with a means to organize data collection related to living conditions throughout the country and donor-funded relief and reconstruction projects.  ARIMS promoted standardized data collection and sharing among various UN agencies, the World Bank, and Afghan ministries.  It contributed geospatial and imagery data provided by NIMA.

• NIMA responded to a DoS request to delineate the common border of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in support of negotiations of a boundary treaty.  Sixty-six areas of dispute were identified along the border.  The DoS used this product in negotiations with delegates from both countries. 

• NIMA produced a Zimbabwe reference map that was disseminated to IC customers, in a collaborative effort with the DoS and CIA. The reference map was produced to aid in the evacuation of foreign nationals, based on the increased violence in Zimbabwe prior to the presidential elections. It portrayed towns, roads, railroads, elevation, airfields, ferries, dams, population density, administrative boundaries, and the mileage between cities.

• State/INR sponsored and organized (frequently with other agencies) 113 conferences—often at the specific request of a policymaker.  These conferences facilitated the interchange of expertise and ideas between outside experts and government officials.  These events contributed to a more informed foreign policy process.  Notable conferences held during FY2002 included:

  • Conference on Global Infectious Disease and U .S. Foreign Policy.  This conference was organized to heighten awareness of the economic and political impacts of disease.  Speakers stressed the linkages among poverty, conflict, and disease.

  • Conference on Counterterrorism.  Participants discussed defeating and eradicating terrorism, noting that failed and lawless states and zones have become the most useful for terrorists.

  • Conference on China's Strategic Vision.  Presenters gave insights into China's priorities for the future.

  • Conference on Anti-Americanism.  This conference explored the various manifestations and roots of anti-Americanism around the world, what it means for the United States, and how the United States may address it. 

  • Conference on Islamic Extremism in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Conference participants examined new lines of Islamic and radical thought in Africa. 

• State/INR is the official pollster for the US Government abroad.  Insights gained from the polls conducted in FY2002 were used to advise the President, the Secretary of State and other senior policymakers on the implications of foreign public opinion.

• CIA analysts produced a landmark intelligence assessment on the crisis between India and Pakistan.  That assessment has served as the basis for policy meetings and papers looking at next steps in managing the India-Pakistan relationship and for points of US leverage to facilitate a more peaceful coexistence.

• CIA analysts provided extensive support for meetings, summits, and official visits, including the G8 Summit in Canada and a US-European Union Summit.  CIA also supported the May 2002 US-Russia Summit.

• CIA analysts provided extensive support to policymakers on trade, human rights and other issues affecting US-China relations.  They also reported on North Korean foreign policy and security and economic issues, drawing extensively on outside expertise to broaden CIA's analytic perspective and build substantive expertise.

• The Army's National Ground Intelligence Center identified at least 15 contracts related to Iraqi tank procurement that appeared to be in violation of international sanctions.  As a result, these contracts were flagged for termination.

• In anticipation of ratification hearings, the NIC produced a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Monitoring the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions.   

• DIA's Operation ENDURING FREEDOM Intelligence Task Force also contributed counterproliferation planning data that played a role in the successful mediation of tensions between India and Pakistan.  The Secretary of Defense personally credited task force members with providing the information and advice that made his mission to South Asia a success and helped to avoid a possible war between those two nuclear powers.

• The NIC published the unclassified paper, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs.  The paper warned that Iraq had continued its WMD programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions.  Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.  In addition, the NIC produced several NIEs on WMD programs in Iraq and several other countries of concern, including North Korea. 

• CIA analysts prepared DCI testimony to Congress on Iraqi WMD and military capabilities.  CIA provided new information on three of Iraq's primary missile systems to policymakers and worked with foreign intelligence services to track Iraqi illicit weapons and dual-use technology procurement activity.

• The NIC's Annual Report to Congress on the Safety and Security of Russian Nuclear Facilities and Military Forces was quoted widely in the national and international press and academic journals.  The report noted that Russia employs physical, procedural, and technical measures to secure its weapons against an external threat, but many of these measures are not designed to counter the pre-eminent threat faced today—an insider who might attempt unauthorized actions.  The report also expressed the IC's concern that weapons-grade nuclear materials have been diverted from Russia in the last 10 years, although the Community does not know the extent or magnitude of such thefts.

• The NIC published an unclassified summary of its NIE on Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015.  The summary noted that most intelligence agencies project that before 2015 the United States most likely will face ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran, and possibly from Iraq—barring significant changes in their political orientations—in addition to the longstanding missile forces of Russian and China.

• During FY2002, State/INR provided senior officials with all-source analyses on nonproliferation issues, especially the development of WMD and their deployment, transfers of advanced conventional weapons and technologies, and bilateral and multilateral arms control agreements.

• State/INR supported the policy community's effort to prepare demarche language based on intelligence to combat the proliferation of WMD, sensitive technologies, and arms to countries such as Iraq, and ensured appropriate vetting of this language within the Intelligence Community.

• CIA analysts continue to assess proliferation issues relevant to states of the former Soviet Union, including questions of Ukraine's role in a possible sale of an air defense detection system to Iraq.

• CIA analysis on North Korea's uranium enrichment program has been key to US efforts to engage Pyongyang.   

• The USCG Intelligence Program supported the interdiction of illegal fishing in a US Exclusive Economic Zone that escalated into a force protection and US sovereignty issue.

• NIMA analysts traveled to La Plata, Maryland, at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as an integral responder in the aftermath of the La Plata tornado that devastated the area.  NIMA analysts created four imagery-derived base maps showing the locations and levels of the damage.  The resulting products were released to FEMA and the emergency management community.

• NIMA provided crucial imagery-based information to prosecutors of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the case against former Yugoslav President Milosovic.

• NIMA produced a Nyiragongo Volcano reference map at the request of the DoS and United Nations Human Rights Commission to aid relief efforts precipitated by the volcanic eruption in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The map encompassed portions of the countries of Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. Data layers portrayed towns, roads, drainage, airfields, lava flow paths, and existing refugee camps.

• After more than a year of consultations with partners in both US Government civilian agencies and military commands, State/INR in September 2002 inaugurated its new interagency Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU).  Unique within the US Government, the HIU's complement of interagency humanitarian affairs specialists—with a broad range of expertise—to address both extensive complex emergencies and the more specific aspects of humanitarian assistance such as food security, infectious diseases, climatology, and demining. 

  • The HIU has been established to provide a nucleus for a better information management system focused on developing reliable, unclassified data needed for humanitarian planning and disaster response. 

  • The HIU also will produce value-added analysis, coordinate with IC components to facilitate better use of their unclassified information, enhance interagency assessments of conditions affecting US involvement in humanitarian and peace operations, and provide a coordinating mechanism for data sharing with the UN, NGOs, and foreign governments. 

  • The HIU currently is spearheading new technical initiatives and customized software to both improve analytical capabilities and expedite information exchange.

• The NIC provided policymakers with analyses on continuing security, political, and economic challenges affecting many countries in Latin America.  The NIC published papers on the continuing economic turmoil in the Southern Cone of Latin America, with a particular emphasis on the crisis in Argentina and prospects for contagion throughout the region and its impact on US policy.  The NIC, through consultations and workshops with outside experts, assisted policymakers in gaining a better understanding of the complex and serious challenges in the Andean Ridge, particularly Colombia and Venezuela.

• The NIC published a special unclassified report, The Next Wave of HIV/AIDS: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russian, India and China (ICA 2002-04D, September 2002).  The report drew on extensive consultations with outside experts to assess prospects for the spread of HIV/AIDS through 2010 in five countries of importance to the United States.  This paper and others are part of the NIC's ongoing effort to improve the public discourse on critical national security issues and engage outside experts in a dialogue about global trends, looking out to the year 2015.

• The NIC and the DoS cosponsored a conference that examined the prospects for resolving regional conflicts involving four states of the former Soviet Union:  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova.  The conference brought together outside scholars and regional experts to deepen understanding of the complex geopolitical dynamics at work in the region.  The NIC summarized the views of the participants in a conference report, Resolving Conflicts in the Caucasus and Moldova:  Perspectives on Next Steps.

• CIA analysts prepared a multimedia presentation on Caspian energy, looking both at the energy-producing potential of the region and the geostrategic visions of the Caspian states and key outside players.  These analysts also met the heavy demand for information on Russia's energy sector, including work on Russia's contentious relations with OPEC, the effects of privatization on Russia's seven major oil companies, and Moscow's energy investment strategy.  CIA also gathered information on the energy infrastructure of the world's other key oil and gas producers and used the data to produce analyses of their capabilities and vulnerabilities.

• The NIC supported policymakers with analyses on environmental issues, including dynamics and developments regarding the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development.

• CIA provided policymakers with analysis on the humanitarian situation in and around Afghanistan; identified actions needed to stabilize it; and provided medical aid to Afghan civilians, delivering enough medical supplies, equipment, and medication to enable local hospitals and clinics to function. 

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