Sep 26 2006
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NIE Overview
The National Intelligence Council (NIC) was formed in 1979, but intelligence estimates are much older than a quarter century. From the website:
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Group (1946) and the early CIA that succeeded it (in 1947) had an Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE) that wrote estimative intelligence.Office of The Director of National Intelligence
An Office of National Estimates (ONE) came into being in 1950 with the division of ORE into three functional offices, one to conduct basic research, one to write brief daily reports, and ONE—whose sole task was to produce coordinated "National Intelligence Estimates." That autumn the first such National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) dealt with prospects for Communist armed action in the Philippines...
To improve responsiveness to intelligence needs and to better engage the Intelligence Community members in the drafting of estimative intelligence, the Office of National Estimates was succeeded in 1973 by National Intelligence Officers. This group of substantive experts became the National Intelligence Council in 1979.
The NIC members serve at the pleasure of the Director of National Intelligence. The 9-11 Commission Report (2004) proposed the creation of this position. From the NIC website:
President Bush signed four Executive Orders in August 2004, which strengthened and reformed the Intelligence Community as much as possible without legislation. In Congress, both the House and Senate passed bills with major amendments to the National Security Act of 1947. Intense negotiations to reconcile the two bills ultimately led to the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which President Bush signed into law on December 8.FOIA
In February 2005, the President announced that John D. Negroponte, ambassador to Iraq, was his nominee to be the first Director of National Intelligence and Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, USAF, as the first Principal Deputy DNI, which earned him his fourth star. On April 21, 2005, in the Oval Office, Amb. Negroponte and Gen. Hayden were sworn in, and the ODNI began operations at 7:00 AM on April 22.
The CIA website provides access to a database of declassified NIE reports from the NIC as well its predecessor organizations, "the Office of National Estimates and the Office of Reports and Estimates."
