THE
TERRORIST THREAT INTEGRATION CENTER
One Year Later
04/30/04
Pictured
are the TTIC logo and, at the May 1, 2003, ribbon-cutting
ceremony for the Center, Richard Haver, Special
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence;
J. Cofer Black, Ambassador at Large, Office of
Coordination for Counter Terrorism, State Department;
FBI Director Robert Mueller; DCI George Tenet;
and Gordon England, Department of Homeland Security
Deputy Secretary. |
On
May 1, 2003, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center
was established for a very clear purpose: to centralize
the universe of threats aimed at America, analyze
them on the spot, every day, and produce an evolving
big picture of threats that are instantly actionable.
How
does it work? The concept is simple--like
a war room you see in old films: Analysts from
every agency in the U.S. Intelligence Community
receive a steady stream of threat information developed
by their agency agents and sources--and they continuously
fit those pieces into the ongoing picture...question
them...validate them...analyze their implications...demand
fresh information from the appropriate agency wherever
they see gaps...and produce sequential "fused" snapshots
of threats that can be--and are--converted into
alerts and actions.
They
send daily reports to the President and senior policymakers
and share them across agencies responsible for the
protection of the country. They make terrorist threat
information and finished analyses available 24/7
at TTIC Online to some 2,600 specialists at every
major federal agency and department involved in counterterrorism
activities.
Where
exactly does the threat information come from? From
everywhere in the world--because it is aggressively
gathered from intelligence, law enforcement, homeland
security, diplomatic, and military sources everywhere
in the world, then immediately entered into agency
information systems and databases and picked up
by TTIC analysts. Eyes and ears in Omaha that report
to the FBI, say, an embassy bomb plot in Africa
can--and do--match with eyes and ears in remote
corners of the globe that report the same plot
to CIA, diplomatic, and military intelligence officers.
What's
the FBI's role in this joint venture? The
same as our colleagues there from CIA, the Departments
of State, Defense, Homeland Security, and Energy,
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other agencies:
to provide credible information from the U.S. law
enforcement community and from our law enforcement
colleagues overseas; to produce focused analysis
on specific terrorist issues; and to fuse it with
our partners into pure intelligence that will prevent
terrorist attacks and protect American people and
interests.
On
the occasion of TTIC's one-year anniversary, we'd
like to quote TTIC Director John Brennan on this
crafting of a new national terrorism analysis and
information sharing framework, which he correctly
calls "a revolutionary concept": "TTIC
represents a new way of optimizing the U.S. Government's
knowledge and formidable capabilities in the fight
against terrorism...that allows us to gain a comprehensive
understanding of terrorist threats to U.S. interests
at home and abroad and, most importantly, to provide
this information and related analysis to those
responsible for detecting, disrupting, deterring,
and defending against terrorist attacks."
This
particular war room is designed precisely to prevent
attacks.
