Transforming Air Force Intelligence

On December 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (Public Law 108-458). Commonly known as the Intelligence Reform Act, this legislation created the Director of National Intelligence to (a) be the chief intelligence advisor to the President, (b) lead the entire intelligence community (IC), and (c) oversee and direct the purchase of intelligence collection systems for all the IC. Touted as the most far-reaching IC reorganization since the National Security Act of 1947, the Intelligence Reform Act resolved to improve (fix) unity of effort by centralizing control of budgets and collection priorities of national-level intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) agencies and assets. The rationale was simple. Decentralized control of national intelligence agencies and assets, and their corresponding collection, analysis and reporting stovepipe bureaucracies were cited as a major finding by the 9/11 Commission.