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Challenges – What Can You Do For the Nation?

SUMMARY

The NSA has deployed over 300 people in the field to support the missions of U.S. Central Command. Most of those positions are 90-180 day rotations. Keeping those positions staffed is a challenge and Signals Intelligence Directorate employees are encouraged to apply for CENTCOM assignments overseas or in Tampa, Florida. Analysts with language skills in Pashto, Arabic, Dari, and Kurdish are also needed.

DOCUMENT’S DATE

Oct 26, 2005

PUBLICLY AVAILABLE

Mar 01, 2018

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Page 1 from Challenges – What Can You Do For the Nation?
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL (U) Challenges - What Can You Do For the Nation? FROM: CENTCOM Account Manager (S113) Run Date: 10/26/2005 (S//SI) In the last installment, we looked at CENTCOM's top missions and how NSA/CSS has placed over 300 people in the field to be with our customer face-to-face. We also showed that about 31% of NSA/CSS's analytic workforce is working on CENTCOM targets, resulting in over 36,000 serialized reports over a 13month period. (S//SI) Today, we will talk about the challenges we face in supporting CENTCOM in Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, and the rest of its area of responsibility - and issue a challenge to you to consider what you can contribute to the fight. (U) Challenges (S//REL) Nearly all of the NSA/CSS positions (non-SCS) supporting CENTCOM overseas are 90-180 day rotational slots (see graphic ). Maintaining this steady flow of quality, trained, personnel has been a challenge - and CENTCOM's requirements call for even more people. A number of SID today articles, and messages from NSA/CSS leadership have described the great benefits of such a tour: directly fighting the war on terror, unique learning experience, focused mission with tangible results, and no long term commitment to overseas service, to name a few. There are also positions available at CENTCOM Headquarters in Tampa, Florida. If you want to be part of this exciting and life-changing mission, please contact NCR CENTCOM Chief of Staff, , . (S//SI//REL) Another challenge is meeting the growing requirements for language support for CENTCOM targets. There is an ongoing shortage in Pashto, Arabic, Dari, Kurdish, and other languages. While the Armed Services have recently ramped up training in these vital areas, it takes a lot of experience to become an operationally effective analyst. To help expand the linguist pool, the Agency continues to recruit native and non-native linguists in these languages, is streamlining hiring and operational processes, and is opening Regional Language Centers. You can earn $1000 for every language analyst, native-level or not, you refer who is successfully hired (see also the referral program webpage and a related article from Charlie Meals ). (TS//SI) While NSA/CSS continues to deliver superb SIGINT to CENTCOM, resulting in the killing, capture, and disruption of the top terrorist targets, the intelligence challenges are not yet all met. Iranian and Pakistani leadership plans and intentions, actionable intelligence to stop the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, and growing terrorism targets and crises (such as the London Bombings) are all top priorities for the SIGINT system. (TS//SI) In some cases, the problem is access to the target communications. The Collection Strategies and Requirements SERIES: (U) SID Support to CENTCOM 1. Meet the Central Command 2. Challenges - What Can You Do For the Nation? 3. CENTCOM's 'Long War'
Page 2 from Challenges – What Can You Do For the Nation?
Center, the Commercial Solutions Center, Foreign Affairs Directorate, and Analysis and Production Directorate, all work together, and with other Agencies, to create amazing access solutions. In other cases, the problem is putting sufficient analysts to work against competing top target priorities. Through it all, NSA's commitment to mission success is very evident to CENTCOM through long hours, policy changes, prioritization of targets, and allocation of resources. (C) In the next installment: CENTCOM's plan for the "Long War" in the region. "(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)." DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108