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(S//SI) Iran Day - Aiming for High-Hanging Iranian 'Fruit'
FROM:
Near East South Asia Issue Management Team
Run Date: 01/11/2006
(U) Washington's relations with Iran have been tense for over a quarter century. What's the
situation now in this strategically important country and what does it mean for the Intelligence
Community?
(S//SI) Representatives from across NSAW and the Extended Enterprise sought answers to
these questions at a recent all-day Iran Day conference, sharing knowledge, approaches,
successes and challenges associated with the Iran target. On 13 December, Middle East North
Africa (MENA) Global Capabilities Manager Mary Jo Coyner and Strategic Intelligence Issues
Chief Dr. David Shore kicked off the day with opening remarks to a packed conference room.
Both highlighted the fact that Iran is considered a target of enduring concern and a threat to the
US on a number of fronts.
(TS//SI) Throughout the day, Iran-related topics and discussions included:
Leadership and Foreign Policy
Economic, Energy and International Security Issues
Iranian support to terrorism - Hizballah/Iran relationship, support to Iraqi insurgents
Counterintelligence/Denial and Deception
Strategic Warning - Iran Missile Programs
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
(TS//SI) The analysts touched on such issues as: Iran's view of itself as the leader of Shia'
Islam; Iran as a closed society; the challenges in determining Iranian leadership's intentions,
with a firebrand like President Ahmadi-Nejad at the helm; its role as a potential proliferator of
WMD; its intent with respect to nuclear capabilities, etc. These issues represent formidable
challenges not only to NSA's SIGINTers, but to the entire Intelligence Community (IC) as well.
Given the many challenges presented by the target, the Director National Intelligence (DNI)
identified Iran as one of four missions (the others being Counterterrorism, WMD, and North
Korea) warranting a specific Mission Manager to lead the IC charge in prosecuting these targets.
(S//SI) By sheer coincidence, Iran Day occurred the very day that Leslie Ireland , the recently
named (see ODNI message ) Iran Mission Manager, chose to visit NSA! Ms. Ireland welcomed
the opportunity to share her vision with this group of Iran experts. She identified the following
as initial goals for herself and the IC relative to Iran:
1. To appropriately prioritize those issues most critical to US national security. She
believes that the US intelligence system must determine which topics are truly of the
highest priority and focus attention on them, realizing that in doing so some difficult
decisions will have to be made.
2. To best posture the IC to deliver intelligence that is well-sourced and objective in
order to regain confidence in the US intelligence system.
3. To identify a strategy for retaining linguistic and analytic experts on Iran.
Ms. Ireland made a further key point that the IC should not be satisfied with the
production of volumes of information from "low-hanging fruit." She hopes to transition
the IC collection structure from one driven by "what we can access currently" to a structure that
obtains data of higher value to policy makers, even if this impacts on intelligence production for
a time during the transition.
(U//FOUO) All in all, Iran Day proved to be a tremendous success, with much information
exchanged, new insights gained and, hopefully, new professional relationships forged and older
ones strengthened. Given the success of this event, the MENA Product Line, Near East South
Asia (NESA) SIGINT National Intelligence Officer (SINIO) and NESA Issue Management Team
hope to host an IC-wide Iran Day-2 in Spring 2006 with broader representation and
presentations.
(U) Stay tuned and look for more "Country Days" on the horizon.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108