MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Imagery

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)

1990s

NIMA came into existence on 1 October 1996. It consolidated the work of the Defense Mapping Agency, the Defense Department's Central Imagery Office, the Defense Dissemination Program Office, and the CIA National Photographic Interpretation Center. It also assumed the imagery exploitation, dissemination, and processing duties previously held by the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and Defense Air-borne Reconnaissance Office.

Ackerman, Robert K. "Imagery Agency Passes the Torch to Commercial Service Providers." Signal, May 1999. [http://www.afcea.org/signal/]

"The National Imagery and Mapping Agency is fielding a team of commercial companies to provide vital geospatial information services to military and civilian government customers. The goal is not only to rapidly obtain various products ranging from basic mapping to detailed geospatial imagery, but also to establish an extensive commercial base of geospatial information services and generate two-way technology transfer."

Eddington, Patrick G. "Get Ready for More Targeting Disasters." Los Angeles Times, 5 Jul. 1999, 15.

"Since October 1996, when the CIA was told by Congress to turn its imagery components over to the Department of Defense's National Imagery and Mapping Agency, there has been loss of key personnel and a lack of coordination between the intelligence and operational communities. This has left the United States and its allies vulnerable to making catastrophic errors like bombing the Chinese embassy. Congress must rethink how things are done or tragic mistakes will continue to happen."

Harvey, Donald [RADM/USN (Ret.)]. "Intelligence Notes: NIMA Begins Operations." American Intelligence Journal 17, no. 1/2 (1996): 94.

King, James C. [LTGEN/USA] "Delivering On-Time Information Superiority." Defense Intelligence Journal 8, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 14-23.

Gen. King assumed command as Director, National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), in July 1998. Fulfilling the U.S. Imagery and Geospatial Information System (USIGS) Modernization Plan "requires significant investment to meet the challenges of the information age."

Loeb, Vernon. "IntelligenCIA: Inside Information." Washington Post, 31 Oct. 1999. [http:// www.washingtonpost.com]

According to National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) officials, the agency is "working to produce a data base of high-resolution satellite imagery of 25 percent of the earth's land mass by the end of Fiscal 2005, thanks in part to the availability of high-resolution commercial imagery from Space Imaging Inc.'s recently launched IKONOS satellite. The stored imagery -- detailed enough to show white lines on a city street -- will be geo-referenced and suitable for targeting, meaning exact coordinates can be derived for anything depicted."

Loeb, Vernon. "To See and Not Been Seen: Behind the Grids of NIMA -- 2 Overseas Incidents Popped Agency's Bubble of Invisibility." Washington Post, 10 Jul. 1999, A3. [http://www. washingtonpost.com]

"Twice in the past 18 months, the secretive agency that analyzes U.S. satellite photographs and prepares military maps has been blamed for costly mishaps: a Marine jet's collision with an Italian ski lift in February 1998 and NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia this May.... [S]ome critics question whether NIMA is competent."

Marshall, Mark G. "Intelligence." Defense Intelligence Journal 8, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 93-119.

There are "organizational, technical and professional problems" associated with a failure to understand the nature of IMINT and a "consequent failure to recognize the differences between IMINT and MASINT....

"With the disassembly of the NPIC and DIA's Directorate for Imagery Exploitation, there is no longer a shelter for image talent in the Intelligence Community. Scientists and engineers have talked and counted their way into control over a discipline that they do not fully appreciate.... After a decent interval has passed, the Community may openly regret having given cartographic engineers influence over the craft of seeing."

Miles, Anne Daugherty. The Creation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency: Congress' Role as Overseer. Occasional Paper No. 9. Washington, DC: Joint Military Intelligence College, 2001.

Wiant, Studies 46.1, calls this monograph on the creation of NIMA in 1996 "thoughtful and timely.... Miles is primarily concerned with congressional processes and the play between authorization and appropriation committees."

Pincus, Walter. "Pentagon Gaining Turf from the CIA: Intelligence Aides Deny Accounts that Deutch Lets Langley Lose Ground to Military." Washington Post, 16 Nov. 1995, A21.

SSCI Vice Chairman Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) has announced his opposition to DCI John "Deutch's proposed consolidation of intelligence imagery analysis in a new Pentagon-run agency, which would swallow up the CIA's National Photo[graphic] Interpretation Center along with the Defense Department-based Central Imagery Office and Defense Mapping Agency.

Rutledge, John W. ("Bill") [BGEN/USAF] "National Imagery and Mapping: Guaranteeing an Information Edge." American Intelligence Journal 17, no. 3/4 (1997): 33-38.

The author was previously director of NIMA's Customer Support Office. Prior to that, he served as deputy director of the Central Imagery Office. He notes that "NIMA is unique among DoD combat support agencies in that it has been assigned -- by statute -- important national support responsibilities" (emphasis in original).

Schmitt. Eric. "Mapping Unit Failures Laid to Reorganization." New York Times, 12 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

"Formation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency from parts of the Pentagon and the CIA three years ago ignited an uproar among intelligence officials.... [M]any senior CIA photographic analysts perceived their new assignments to the mapping agency as drudge work, and they either retired or sought transfers to other government jobs....

"The agency is a hybrid of eight defense and intelligence agencies, principally the Pentagon's Defense Mapping Agency and the CIA's National Photographic Intelligence [sic] Center.... [C]ombining the two organizations has been a bumpy process.... The cadre of scientific and technical experts who analyzed the satellite data dwindled through resignations and retirements, intelligence experts said, and was gradually supplanted by a younger work force steeped more in political science than scientific testing.

"As a result, the intelligence analysts responsible for interpreting spy satellite photographs are less skilled and less experienced than their predecessors of 10 years ago.... NIMA officials insist the criticism is unfair and say that as trouble spots erupt around the world, their analysts are being asked to analyze more and faster, while Congress in recent years has kept cutting the agency's budget."

Vogel, Steve. "Charting a Military Course: After Cartographic Consolidation, Mapping Agency Is Aiding Forces in the Balkans." Washington Post, 9 May 1999, A21. [http://www. washingtonpost.com]

The National Imagery and Mapping Agency sits in a "secluded defense compound near MacArthur Boulevard and the Potomac River.... About 3,000 employees work in the Bethesda compound.... NIMA [also] has 1,000 employees in several other facilities throughout the Washington area, including the District, Reston, Fort Belvoir and Chantilly. Some of the agency's most sensitive work is done inside Building 213 [home of the former NPIC] at the Washington Navy Yard, where analysts study imagery collected by satellites....

"NIMA, commanded by a three-star Army general, is a hybrid, both an intelligence agency and a combat support agency for the Pentagon.... The agency was born in 1996 from a controversial effort to streamline intelligence gathering, in part because commanders during the Persian Gulf War had trouble getting useful and timely satellite intelligence.... NIMA incorporates all of the former Defense Mapping Agency,... as well as all or portions of six other agencies, including the CIA's photographic intelligence center, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Intelligence Agency."

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