Defense Intelligence Agency

DIA and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are distinct organizations with different functions. DIA focuses on national level defense-military topics, while CIA is concentrated on broader, more general intelligence needs of the President and Cabinet. Additionally, due to DIA's designation as a combat support agency, it has special responsibilities in meeting intelligence requirements specifically for the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Combatant Commanders, both in peace and at war. Although there are misconceptions in the media and public about the DIA–CIA rivalry, the two agencies have a mutually beneficial relationship and division of labor. According to a former senior U.S official who worked with both agencies, "the CIA doesn't want to be looking for surface-to-air missiles in Libya" while it is also tasked with evaluating the Syrian opposition.[8] CIA and DIA Operations Officers all go through the same type of clandestine training at an interagency Defense installation under CIA administration, best known in popular culture by its CIA nickname "The Farm".[8]

DIA is not a collective of all U.S. military intelligence units and the work it performs is not in lieu of that falling under intelligence components of individual services. Unlike the Russian GRU, which encompasses equivalents of nearly all joint U.S. military intelligence operations, DIA assists and coordinates the activities of individual service-level intelligence units (i.e. 25 AF, INSCOM, etc.), but they nevertheless remain separate entities. As a general rule, DIA handles national-level, long-term and strategic intelligence needs, whereas service-level intelligence components handle tactical, short-term goals pertinent to their respective services.[16] DIA does, however, lead coordination efforts with the military intelligence units and with the national DOD intelligence services (NSA, NGA, NRO) in its role as chair of the Military Intelligence Board and through the co-located Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.

• Victor Kaliadin (Russian: Виктор Калядин) – a CEO of a Russian company "Elers Electron", who in 2001 was sentenced to 14 years in prison for selling a ring run by a DIA agent technical information on Arena, the Russian active protection system for tanks. He died of his fourth heart attack in 2004.[34]

Igor Sutyagin

• Igor Sutyagin – Russian arms control and nuclear weapons specialist convicted in 2004 of spying for DIA. Released in 2010 in exchange for Russian spies arrested in the U.S. during the break-up of the Illegals Program. Denies any involvement in spying.
• Edmond Pope – A retired intelligence officer-turned-"businessman", sentenced by a Russian court in 2000 to 20 years for buying up and smuggling classified military equipment out of the country as scrap metal.[35] He was soon pardoned by newly elected Vladimir Putin but continues to assert that the Russian authorities used him as a scapegoat for their broken system.[36] In the same interview with Larry King, however, he spoke of a plot by unspecified people in the U.S., as part of which Pope was being slowly poisoned in the Lefortovo Prison, with the hopes that he would eventually have to be transferred to a hospital, abducted on his way and smuggled out of the country; he claims that his representatives stopped the plot.
• Jerzy Strawa – a Polish engineer and an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Trade executed in 1968 at Mokotów Prison for passing industrial and defense information to DIA agents while on official trips in Austria and West Germany.[37]
• Natan Sharansky – a former high ranking Israeli politician and Soviet dissident who, during his life in Russia, was sentenced to 13 years of prison with hard labor for spying for DIA. The prosecution alleged that he gave a DIA agent in journalist's disguise—Robert Toth—a list of people who had access to military and other secrets.[38] Sharansky was released in 1986 following a spy exchange that took place on the Glienicke Bridge between the USSR and the Western allies. In 2006, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• Charles Dennis McKee – a DIA officer who, along with CIA's Matthew Gannon, died as a result of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.[39] The incident gave birth to numerous conspiracy theories that the flight was bombed because the officers were aware of illicit U.S. intelligence drug activities or that the case was related to them trying to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. He is notably absent from DIA's memorial wall (below)

Ana Montes

• Ana Belen Montes – a senior DIA analyst arrested in 2001 for spying for the G2 of Cuba and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Prosecutors alleged that she started spying in the mid-1980s, around the same time when CIA's Aldrich Ames started his interaction with the KGB.
• Ronald Montaperto – a senior DIA intelligence analyst who pled guilty in 2006 for giving classified information to China's MSS. Montaperto claimed that he was tricked and served only three months in jail due to letters of support from other pro-China intelligence analysts, pejoratively known as the "Red Team", who "harshly [criticize] anyone who raises questions about the threat posed by Beijing's communist regime."[40] One of such supporters, Lonnie Henley, was initially reprimanded by the ODNI for his support of Montaperto but was later promoted to acting national intelligence officer for East Asia.[41]
• Waldo H. Dubberstein – a senior DIA intelligence officer for the Middle East and an associate of CIA arms smuggler Edwin P. Wilson who was indicted in 1983 for selling DIA secrets to Libya. The day after being charged, he was found dead in what was ruled a suicide.[42]

A declassified FBI correspondence alleging DIA misconduct

In 2003, the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "Working Group" on interrogations requested that DIA come up with prisoner interrogation techniques for the group's consideration. According to the 2008 US Senate Armed Services Committee report on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody, DIA began drawing up the list of techniques with the help of its civilian employee, a former Guantanamo Interrogation Control Element (ICE) Chief David Becker. Becker claimed that the Working Group members were particularly interested in aggressive methods and that he "was encouraged to talk about techniques that inflict pain."[43]

It is unknown to what extent the agency's recommendations were used or for how long, but according to the same Senate report, the list drawn up by DIA included the use of "drugs such as sodium pentothal and Demerol," humiliation via female interrogators and sleep deprivation. Becker claimed that he recommended the use of drugs due to rumors that another intelligence agency, the name of which was redacted in the Senate report, had successfully used them in the past.[44] According to the analysis of the Office of Defense Inspector General, DIA's cited justification for the use of drugs was to "[relax] detainee to cooperative state" and that mind-altering substances were not used.[45]

Some of the more lurid revelations of DIA's alleged harsh interrogations came from FBI officers, who conducted their own screenings of detainees in Guantanamo along with other agencies. According to one account, the interrogators of what was then DIA's Defense Humint Service (referenced in FBI correspondence as DHS[46]), forced subjects to watch gay porn, draped them with the Israeli Flag, and interrogated them in rooms lit by strobe lights for 16–18 hours, all the while telling prisoners that they were from FBI.[47]

The real FBI operatives were concerned that DIA's harsh methods and impersonation of FBI agents would complicate the Bureau's ability to do its job properly, saying "The next time a real Agent tries to talk to that guy, you can imagine the result."[47] A subsequent military inquiry countered FBI's allegations by saying that the prisoner treatment was degrading but not inhuman, without addressing the allegation of DIA staff regularly impersonating FBI officers—usually a felony offense.[48]

Similar activities transpired at the hands of DIA operatives in Bagram, where as recently as 2010 the organization ran the so-called "Black Jail". According to a report published by The Atlantic, the jail was manned by DIA's DCHC staff, who were accused of beating and sexually humiliating high-value targets held at the site.[49] The detention center outlived the black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency, with DIA allegedly continuing to use "restricted" interrogation methods in the facility under a secret authorization. It is unclear what happened to the secret facility after the 2013 transfer of the base to Afghan authorities following several postponements.[50]

DIA's harsh interrogation methods at times paled in comparison to those of some U.S. special operations forces. In 2004, interrogations by Joint Special Operations Command's high-value targets special operations task forces (including Task Force 6-26) were so heavy-handed and physical with the detainees that two DIA officials complained, as a result of which they were threatened and put under surveillance by abusive military interrogators. The two DIA officials managed to share their accounts of abuse with the agency leadership, prompting DIA Director Lowell Jacoby to write a memo on this topic to the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.[51]

Skinny Puppy billed DIA for allegedly using its music in torture.

In 2014, a Canadian electronic music group Skinny Puppy sent the Defense Intelligence Agency a symbolic bill of $666,000, after finding out that the agency had used their music in Guantanamo during "enhanced interrogation" (deemed torture by some) sessions.[52] Their music was originally heard at GTMO by a guard, who happened to be a fan of Skinny Puppy and could not understand how his favorite music was being used in such a manner: "[Skinny Puppy's] songs are characterized by ... lyrics that call out corporate wrongdoing. The songs I heard at GTMO were heavily distorted, almost to the point of inaudibility. Even so, I would never have imagined that Skinny Puppy's music would, or could, be used for enhanced interrogation". The officer conducting interrogation sessions allegedly stating that the Canadian group's songs—which are "characterized by relentless drumbeats, panicked, convulsive riffs, synth samples"—were very effective for "enhanced interrogation".

Since mid-2000s, DIA has come under scrutiny for requesting new powers "to covertly approach and cultivate 'U.S. persons' and even recruit them as informants" without disclosing they are doing so on behalf of the U.S. government.[53] George Peirce, DIA's general counsel, told The Washington Post that his agency is "not asking for the moon" and that DIA officers "only want to assess their [individual U.S. citizens'] suitability as a source, person to person", while protecting the ID and security of the agency operatives.[54] The provision allowing DIA to covertly approach U.S. citizens was reportedly removed from the bill at the request of Senator Ron Wyden.[55] It is unclear if the agency has received any additional powers since but it is known that until at least 2005 and possibly later, DIA's "personnel stationed in major U.S. cities [have been] ... monitoring the movements and activities—through high-tech equipment—of individuals and vehicles"; this occurred parallel to the NSA's warrantless surveillance that was of similarly dubious legality.[56]

In 2008, with the consolidation of the new Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC), DIA secured an additional authority to conduct "offensive counterintelligence", which entails conducting clandestine operations, domestically and abroad, "to thwart what the opposition is trying to do to us and to learn more about what they're trying to get from us."[57] While the agency remained vague about the exact meaning of offensive counterintelligence, experts opined that it "could include planting a mole in a foreign intelligence service, passing disinformation to mislead the other side, or even disrupting enemy information systems", suggesting strong overlap between CI and traditional HUMINT operations.[58]

According to the agency, Americans spying for a foreign intelligence service would not be covered under this mechanism and that DIA would coordinate in such cases with the FBI which, unlike any DIA components at the time, is designated a law enforcement agency. The media showed particular interest in the domestic aspect of DIA's counterintelligence efforts due to the fact that agency's newly created DCHC had absorbed the former Counterintelligence Field Activity, which had become infamous for storing data on American peace activists in the controversial TALON database that was eventually shut down.[58]

Anthony Shaffer, a former DIA officer, has claimed that DIA was aware of and failed to adequately act against one of the organizers of the September 11 attacks prior to the event, in what became known as the Able Danger controversy. Shaffer's claims were rejected and later his security clearance revoked, with the Pentagon denying any wrongdoing. Later Shaffer published his book Operation Dark Heart but, upon complaints from DIA and NSA that it included national security information, the Defense Department went as far as to buy and destroy the initial 10,000 copies of the book, causing the Streisand effect.[59]

In 2011, Germany uncovered a far-right terrorist group named National Socialist Underground, which had been linked to series of murders, including the murder of a police officer. A report by Stern magazine stated that German BfV and DIA officers had witnessed the murder of a policewoman during their surveillance of the "Sauerland" group—an Islamist organization that planned attacks on U.S. military installations in Germany—but that neither of the agencies reported it, thus enabling subsequent violent acts by the same criminal entities. The magazine cited an alleged DIA report that confirmed the agency's officers were at the site of the incident.[60][61]

The authenticity of the alleged DIA observation protocol, on which Stern based its report, was swiftly denied by the BfV, while DIA refused to comment. An unnamed U.S. "insider expert" for intelligence matters told Der Spiegel he deemed it unlikely that DIA could be involved in that type of operation at all; the "expert", however, erroneously described DIA as an analytic organization,[62] when in fact the agency has been involved in clandestine operations for decades. Der Spiegel report, for its part, noted that security organizations prefer not to disclose the details of their work or the nature of their cooperation with other intelligence organizations, implying that DIA and German agencies could be denying involvement to maintain secrecy.[62]

A U-2 reconnaissance plane discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba based on a flight path selected by DIA analysts

Following DIA's establishment, the Services reluctantly transferred intelligence functions and resources to it on a time-phased basis to avoid rapidly degrading the overall effectiveness of defense intelligence. A year after its formation, in October 1962, the agency faced its first major intelligence test during the superpower Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation that developed after Soviet missiles were discovered at bases in Cuba by Air Force spy planes.[63]

In late 1962, DIA established the Defense Intelligence School (now the National Intelligence University), and on January 1, 1963, it activated a new Production Center. Several Service elements were merged to form this production facility, which occupied the "A" and "B" Buildings at Arlington Hall Station, Virginia.[63]

The agency also added an Automated Data Processing (ADP) Center on February 19, a Dissemination Center on March 31, and a Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate on April 30, 1963. DIA assumed the staff support functions of the J-2, Joint Staff, on July 1, 1963. Two years later, on July 1, 1965, DIA accepted responsibility for the Defense Attaché System—the last function the Services transferred to DIA.[63]

During the 1960s, DIA analysts focused on China's detonation of an atomic bomb and the launching of its Cultural Revolution; increasing unrest among African and South Asian nations; fighting in Cyprus and Kashmir; and the missile gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In the late 1960s, crises that tested intelligence responsiveness included: the Tet Offensive in Vietnam; the Six-Day War between Egypt and Israel; continuing troubles in Africa, particularly Nigeria; North Korea's seizure of the USS Pueblo; and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.[63]

The early 1970s were transitional years as the agency shifted its focus from consolidating its functions to establishing itself as a credible producer of national-level intelligence. This proved difficult at first since sweeping manpower decrements between 1968 and 1975 had reduced agency manpower by 31 percent and precipitated mission reductions and a broad organizational restructuring. Challenges facing DIA at this time included the rise of Ostpolitik in Germany; the emergence of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the Middle East; and the U.S. incursion into Cambodia from South Vietnam.[63]

DIA sets intelligence requirements for numerous installations, such as T-AGM-23, which checks compliance with strategic arms treaties worldwide.

The agency's reputation grew considerably by the mid-1970s, as decision makers increasingly recognized the value of its products. Agency analysts in 1972 concentrated on Lebanon, President Richard Nixon's visit to China, the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, the formation of Sri Lanka, and the prisoners of war being held in Southeast Asia. Subsequent challenges involved: détente; the development of arms control agreements; the Paris peace talks (Vietnam); the Yom Kippur War; and global energy concerns.[63]

Intense Congressional review during 1975–76 created turbulence within the Intelligence Community. The Murphy and Rockefeller Commission investigations of charges of intelligence abuse ultimately led to an Executive Order that modified many Intelligence Community functions. At the same time, with U.S. involvement in Vietnam ending, defense intelligence faced a significant decline in resources. During this period, DIA conducted numerous studies on ways of improving its intelligence products. Despite these and other Community-wide efforts to improve intelligence support, the loss of resources during the 1970s limited the Community's ability to collect and produce timely intelligence and ultimately contributed to intelligence shortcomings in Iran, Afghanistan, and other strategic areas.[63]

Special DIA task forces were set up to monitor crises such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the overthrow of Iranian monarchy, and the taking of American hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979. Also, of serious concern were the Vietnamese takeover in Phnom Penh, the China–Vietnam border war, the overthrow of Idi Amin in Uganda, the north–south Yemen dispute, troubles in Pakistan, border clashes between Libya and Egypt, the Sandinista takeover in Nicaragua, and the Soviet movement of combat troops to Cuba during the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II.[63]

Following the promulgation in 1979 of Executive Order 12036, which restructured the Intelligence Community and better outlined DIA's national and departmental responsibilities, the agency was reorganized around five major directorates: production, operations, resources, external affairs, and J-2 support.

President Ronald Reagan unveiling the first copy of Soviet Military Power, one of DIA's serialized publications

By the 1980s, DIA had transformed into a fully integrated national-level intelligence agency. Its 1981 flagship publication Soviet Military Power, the most comprehensive overview of Soviet military strength and capabilities at the time, was met with wide acclaim; SMP continued to be produced by DIA as a serialized publication roughly over the next decade. In 1983, in order to research the flow of technology to the Soviet Union, the Reagan Administration created Project Socrates within the agency. Over the following years Project Socrates's scope broadened to include monitoring of foreign advanced technology as a whole. Project Socrates ended in 1990 with Michael Sekora, the project's director, leaving in protest when the Bush Administration reduced funding.

In 1984, the Clandestine Services organization, designated STAR WATCHER, was created under DIA with the mission of conducting intelligence collection on perceived areas of conflict and against potential adversaries in developing countries. A critical objective was to create a Joint Services career path for case officers, since individual Services were inconsistent in their support of clandestine operations, and case officers were routinely sacrificed during reductions in force. Ultimately, the organization was created to balance CIA's espionage operations which primarily targeted Soviet KGB/GRU officers, but ignored and were dismissive of Third World targets in areas of potential military conflict.[63]

In the 1980s, DIA moved into the newly built Defense Intelligence Agency Headquarters (seen here in 1988), which now represents only one wing of the sprawling complex.

Although there were previous attempts to establish such a DoD level espionage organization, there was no authorization document by which it could be established. This changed when Gregory Davis, a military intelligence officer, defined and established a clandestine services program under the U.S. Southern Command's "Plan Green". The program was then authorized by JCS Chairman John Vessey, and sanctioned by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence ("SSCI"), with the sponsorship of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). The Goldwater–Nichols DoD Reorganization Act was crafted partly to force military officers to serve in a Joint Services assignment in order to qualify for flag rank—ensuring the future of case officers from each Service. The clandestine organization within DIA grew and flourished, and was cited by the SSCI for its intelligence achievements. Personnel selection and training were rigorous, and the case officers were notable for their advanced educations, area knowledge, and multilingual capabilities. The program was partially gutted under President Bill Clinton as he foresaw no conflict which would justify its existence, but, it was resurrected under President George W. Bush.[63]

Designated a combat support agency under the Goldwater–Nichols Act, DIA moved to increase cooperation with the Unified & Specified Commands and to begin developing a body of joint intelligence doctrine. Intelligence support to U.S. allies in the Middle East intensified as the Iran–Iraq War spilled into the Persian Gulf. DIA provided significant intelligence support to Operation Earnest Will while closely monitoring incidents such as the Iraqi rocket attack on the USS Stark, the destruction of Iranian oil platforms, and Iranian attacks on Kuwaiti oil tankers. The "Toyota War" between Libya and Chad and the turmoil in Haiti added to DIA's heavy production workload, as did unrest in other parts of Latin America, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burma, Pakistan, and the Philippines.[63]

With the end of the Cold War, defense intelligence began a period of reevaluation following the fall of the Soviet system in many Eastern European countries, the reunification of Germany, and ongoing economic reforms in the region. In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, DIA set up an extensive, 24-hour, crisis management cell designed to tailor national-level intelligence support to the coalition forces assembled to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

President George H.W. Bush being briefed by DIA during the US invasion of Panama

By the time Operation Desert Storm began, some 2,000 agency personnel were involved in the intelligence support effort. Most of them associated in some way with the national-level Joint Intelligence Center (JIC), which DIA established at The Pentagon to integrate the intelligence being produced throughout the Community. DIA sent more than 100 employees into the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations to provide intelligence support.

The Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC), and the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), associated with the Army for over 20 and 50 years respectively, became part of DIA in January 1992. This was part of the continuing effort to consolidate intelligence production and make it more efficient.[63]

On September 11, 2001, seven DIA employees lost their lives[64] along with 118 other victims at the Pentagon in a terrorist attack when American Airlines Flight 77 piloted by five Al-Qaeda hijackers plowed into the western side of the building, as part of the September 11 attacks. The death of seven employees at once was the largest combined loss in DIA's history. On September 11, 2009, DIA dedicated a memorial to the seven employees lost in the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon. The memorial is located in the garden at the Defense Intelligence Agency Analysis Center in Washington D.C.[64]

Defense Clandestine Service recruitment poster

Since the September 11 attacks, DIA has been active in nuclear proliferation intelligence collection and analysis with particular interests in North Korea and Iran as well as counter-terrorism. DIA was also involved with the intelligence build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was a subject in the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq. After the invasion, DIA led the Iraq Survey Group to find the alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction. The agency has conflicted with the CIA in collection and analysis on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and has often represented the Pentagon in the CIA–DoD intelligence rivalry due to DIA's own Clandestine HUMINT collection.[63]

In 2012, DIA announced an expansion of clandestine collection efforts. The newly consolidated Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) would absorb the Defense HUMINT Service and expand DIA's overseas espionage apparatus to complement the work of corresponding elements at CIA. DCS would focus on military intelligence concerns—issues that the CIA has been unable to manage due to lack of personnel, expertise or time—and would initially deal with Islamist militia groups in Africa, weapons transfers between North Korea and Iran, and Chinese military modernization. The DCS works in conjunction with CIA's Directorate of Operations and the Joint Special Operations Command in overseas operations.[65]

In October 2015, the Pentagon said that DIA appointed a British Royal Air Force officer as its first deputy director in charge of improving integration between U.S. intelligence units and spy agencies of other English-speaking countries in the Five Eyes alliance. This was the first time that a foreign national was appointed to a senior position at a U.S. intelligence agency.[66][67]

Today, corporations carry out a large amount of DIA’s workload. In fiscal year 2020 alone, such activity included work in DIA’s Science & Technology Directorate,[68] National Media Exploitation Center,[69] and Missile & Space Intelligence Center.[70] Corporations also worked on technology transfer analysis and assessments at DIA’s Charlottesville branch,[71] planned and analyzed DIA’s workforce,[72] carried out technical support,[73] and conducted polygraph examinations and background investigations.[74] IT Concepts Inc. of Vienna, Virginia, was contracted to develop and operate software that aids in the "identification of intelligence requirements, management of priorities, and planning and production of intelligence products," among other related activities.[75]