CIA Transnational Activities in Counterproliferation - Other Interagency Roles

Other Interagency Roles

The United States Department of State's Office of Counterproliferation Initiatives (ISN/CPI) is responsible for the treaty-level implementation of arms control, but specificallty works with military and CIA agencies. It with the (DNI) National Counterproliferation Center, the CIA's Suppliers and Interdiction Group, and other intelligence organizations as appropriate. Note that the precise nomenclature of the various groups will change over time, but there has been a continuing CIA analytic and technical collection role in these areas.

The office receives support from, coordinates efforts of, and provides guidance to, other offices (including the missile, chemical and biological interdiction groups) for these meetings. It leads policy development to attack the trade in nuclear materials (nuclear smuggling), and coordinate closely with CTR as the lead ISN office for securing facilities and materials worldwide.>

To this end, ISN/CPI will receive support from, coordinate efforts of, and provide guidance to, other offices as necessary (including the missile, chemical and biological interdiction groups) for these meetings. It will lead policy development to attack the trade in nuclear materials (nuclear smuggling), and coordinate closely with CTR as the lead ISN office for securing facilities and materials worldwide. It also will work closely with White House offices and other agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Justice, and with the Intelligence Community, to develop and implement appropriate diplomatic, defense, law enforcement, and rapid response options, and other international measures designed to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Again remembering that the arms control mission involves a large amount of interagency coordination, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has, as its mission, "Our mission is to safeguard America and its allies from Weapons of Mass Destruction (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high yield explosives) by providing capabilities to reduce, eliminate, and counter the threat, and mitigate its effects. " Note this includes conventional explosives as well as the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons commonly associated with WMD." The CIA unit assigned to work most closely with DTRA is the Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINACC), which provides intelligence support to deal with national and non-national threats, as well as supporting threat reduction/arms control.

CIA units in the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate for Science & Technology work in the verification for all of these functions, starting in 1962, when the Central Intelligence Agency, Deputy Directorate for Research (now the Deputy Directorate for Science and Technology), formally took on ELINT and COMINT responsibilities. "The consolidation of the ELINT program was one of the major goals of the reorganization ... it is responsible for:

• Research, development, testing, and production of ELINT and COMINT collection equipment for all Agency operations.
• Technical operation and maintenance of CIA deployed non-agent ELINT systems.
• Training and maintenance of agent ELINT equipment
• Technical support to the Third Party Agreements.
• Data reduction of Agency-collected ELINT signals.
• ELINT support peculiar to the penetration problems associated with the Agent's reconnaissance program under NRO.
• Maintain a quick reaction capability for ELINT and COMINT equipment."

"CIA's Office of Research and Development was formed to stimulate research and innovation testing leading to the exploitation of non-agent intelligence collection methods ... All non-agent technical collection systems will be considered by this office and those appropriate for field deployment will be so deployed. The Agency's missile detection system, Project based on backscatter radar is an example. This office will also provide integrated systems analysis of all possible collection methods against the Soviet antiballistic missile program is an example." . It is not clear where ELINT would end and MASINT would begin for some of these projects, but the role of both is potentially present. MASINT, in any event, was not formalized as a US-defined intelligence discipline until 1986.

CIA took on a more distinct MASINT responsibility in 1987. The National Security Archive commented, "In 1987, Deputy Director for Science and Technology Evan Hineman established ... a new Office for Special Projects. concerned not with satellites, but with emplaced sensors – sensors that could be placed in a fixed location to collect signals intelligence or measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) about a specific target. Such sensors had been used to monitor Chinese missile tests, Soviet laser activity, military movements, and foreign nuclear programs. The office was established to bring together scientists from the DS&T's Office of SIGINT Operations, who designed such systems, with operators from the Directorate of Operations, who were responsible for transporting the devices to their clandestine locations and installing them.