Central Intelligence Agency

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the ' foreign , responsible for obtaining and analysing information about foreign , , and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the US government. It also maintains a vast covert military apparatus, which during the was responsible for many succesful attempts to depose foreign governments seen as pro-Soviet and opposing US interests, such as those of in and in . Its headquarters is in , across the from

History

The Agency, created in by President , is a descendant of the (OSS) of . The OSS was dissolved in October 1945 but , the creator of the OSS, had submitted a proposal to the President in 1944. He called for a new organization having direct Presidential supervision, "which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies." Despite strong opposition from the military, the State Department, and the , Truman established the Central Intelligence Group in January 1946. Later under the (which became effective on , ) the and the Central Intelligence Agency were established.

In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act was passed, permitting the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures and exempting it from many of the usual limitations on the use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed." Some critics have charged that this violates a provision of the that the federal budget be openly published.

The activities of the CIA are largely undisclosed. Like other intelligence agencies, it collects information from a variety of sources, the vast majority probably being public information in the countries concerned, but also from individuals who for various reasons including , , and , decide to pass otherwise secret information to the CIA. It also undoubtedly makes use of the surveillance of the (NRO) and the signal interception capabilities of the , including the system, and the surveillance aircraft of the various branches of the US armed forces. At one stage, the CIA even operated its own fleet of surveillance aircraft.

The agency also employs a group of officers with paramilitary skills. , the CIA officer killed in November 2001 during the conflict, was one such individual. A small number of other CIA officers are confirmed to be working in similar roles in Afghanistan, but the extent of paramilitary action by the CIA since the 1961 is largely unknown.

such as have alleged that CIA covert action is extraordinarily widespread, extending even to campaigns within allied countries of the United States. The agency has also been accused of participation in the illegal trade, notably in Laos, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua. It is known to have attempted of foreign leaders, most notably , though since 1976 a Presidential order has banned such actions, except during wartime.

One of the CIA's publications, the , is unclassified and is indeed made freely available without restrictions.

In 1988, President became the first former head of the CIA to become President of the United States.

The activities of the CIA have caused considerable political controversy both in the United States and in other countries, often nominally friendly to the United States, where the agency has operated (or been alleged to). For instance, the CIA has supported various brutal , including (see references below), who have been friendly to perceived US geopolitical interests, sometimes over democratically elected governments.

Often cited as one of the American intelligence communities biggest blunders, is the CIA involvement in equiping and training Mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan, a radical islamist group who would later form the core of the network. , the National Security Advisor under Carter, writes about this quite openly in his book 'the Grand Chessboard'.

The agency has also been criticized for ineffectiveness as an intelligence gathering agency. These criticism included allowing a double agent, to gain high positions within the organization, and for focusing on finding informants with information of dubious value rather than on processing the vast amount of . In addition, the CIA has come under particular criticism for failing to predict the .

On November 5, 2002, newspapers reported that a car full of operatives had been killed by a missile launched from a CIA-controlled (a high-altitude, remote-controlled aircraft).

CIA Directors

The head of the CIA is given the title (DCI). The DCI is not only the head of the CIA but also the leader of the entire U.S. intelligence community and the President's principal advisor on intelligence matters. A list of DCIs (in chronological order) follows.

CIA Operations in Iraq

According to some sources the CIA appears to have supported the 1963 military coup in and the subsequent led government up until the point of the 1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. US support was premised on the notion that Iraq was a key buffer state in relations with the .

In 2002 an unnamed source, quoted in the , says that the CIA was authorized to undertake a covert operation, if necessary with help of the , that could serve as a preparation for a full-scale military attack of Iraq.

"Worldwide Attack Matrix"

In a briefing held , presented the , a "top-secret" document describing covert CIA anti-terror operations in 80 countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The actions, underway or being recommended, would range from "routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks". The plans, if carried out, "would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history".

See also

• - CIA program
• - CIA media control

External links

Further Reading

• , See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism (, 2003)
• and , The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown With the KGB, (, 2003)
• , Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (, 2003)
• , America's Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society (, 1991)
• , Inside the CIA (1992, reissue 1994)
• W. Thomas Smith, Jr., Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency (, 2003)
• , ed., Inside CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency's Internal Journal, 1955-1992 (, 1997)
• The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives ( 1998)
• , Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, Prentice Hall; (April 1973), ASIN