New Defense center to synchronize intel ops
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The Defense Joint Intelligence Operations Center will integrate full-spectrum intelligence operations on behalf of U.S. military combatant commands.
DALLAS'The Defense Department's enemy is decentralized, networked and unpredictable. To become better equipped to fight this enemy, the intelligence community is being restructured into an integrated, joint enterprise with a focus on getting information to warfighters quickly.
Part of this restructuring occurred April 3 when Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed off on establishing a Defense Joint Intelligence Operations Center (DJIOC). The center, managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency, was established to integrate and synchronize full-spectrum intelligence operations on behalf of the combatant commands.
The DJIOC will be housed at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, with final operational capability expected by December 2007.
"The DJIOC facilitates intelligence planning to bring analysts and collectors together," said Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, yesterday during the Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems (DODIIS) Worldwide Conference. Maples called DJIOC 'a major transformational initiative" and said it will help intelligence agencies better fuse information and operations.
Another portion of the intelligence community restructuring includes a move by DIA to take over operational control and IT management for the combatant commands. Officials say the move was designed to control the IT spending of the commands while centralizing management of Defense information systems. Some of the work will be completed later this year.
Eventually, Defense employees will be measured by how successful they are in integrating processes.
"Ultimately there will be metrics that will measure our success in meeting these objectives," Maples said. "This will drive us in terms of resources. We're going to be driven by the customer."
The mission of the DJIOC will be integrated with the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JFCC-ISR), a command established six months ago with a global focus on ISR planning and asset allocations. JFCC-ISR will be jointly housed with the DJIOC.
All of this is being driven by the Quadrennial Defense Review and the National Intelligence Strategy, officials say.
"A comprehensive IT infrastructure is an imperative," Maples said.
Standing in the way of this are policies, processes and procedures that are outdated and often not integrated.
"We've got to eliminate the impediments to progress. We are encumbered by them," Maples told the audience. "There are impediments to progress that are keeping us from achieving what we hope to achieve. We are still stuck in vertical stovepipes: our policies, our processes and our procedures. We've got to move to a horizontally integrated capability."
Maples said he hopes venues like the DODIIS conference will produce discussions and a better understanding of what the major impediments are.
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