The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s brought a call to down-
size the national security apparatus in the U.S. government, including
the intelligence agencies. Anticipating the “peace dividend,” each of the
agencies began programs of reducing staff and activities, such that by
the mid-1990s staffing numbers were at levels not seen since the early
1970s. At the same time, a process of “openness” ushered in a period of
public debate and discussion about intelligence and its role in the Amer-
ican society.
Rapid technological advancements, especially in information tech-
nologies, also contributed to organizational innovations in the 1990s.
Yet, the American intelligence establishment did not forecast the inter-
tribal conflict in Somalia that led to the killing of American peace-
keepers in 1993, and it performed poorly in Bosnia and Kosovo. It
even missed the Indian nuclear tests in 1998. Because of widespread
perceptions of a steady deterioration of U.S. intelligence capabilities,
the administration of President William J. Clinton reversed itself and
began making substantial investments in intelligence capabilities. By
the end of the 1990s, U.S. intelligence was making a comeback from
the sloth into which it had sunk in the early parts of the decade. The 11
September 2001 terrorist attacks propelled U.S. intelligence into the
forefront of the national fight against terrorists and thrust the U.S. in-
telligence community into the center of American national security
policy.
Despite its prominence in the national security front, U.S. intelli-
gence came under intense scrutiny for its failure to anticipate the 9/11
terrorist attacks. First, a congressional joint intelligence inquiry in 2002
found America’s intelligence agencies to have performed poorly in col-
lecting and analyzing terrorism information and criticized the loose
management of the intelligence community. The independent national
commission investigating the terrorist attacks, established in 2003,
came to similar conclusions, focusing on the lack of centralized direc-
tion and control as the key ingredient in making for the 9/11 intelligence
failure. Subsequently, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which established the position of the
director of national intelligence (DNI) and provided for various fusion
centers as palliatives for the historic drawbacks of the American intelli-
gence community.l•INTRODUCTION05-398 (1) FM.qxd 10/20/05 6:14 AM Page l