CIA

The CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency, which is one of the main intelligence agencies that operate in USA. They are involved with international spy networks. They are similar to the FBI, except that the FBI are primarily involved in national (US) interests. In practice, however, they overlap significantly. The CIA have on a number of occasions assassinated or attempted to assassinate foreign targets, including an attempted assassination of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. They supposedly no longer do this. Other things the CIA has done are rigging the Italian elections in the late-1940s to prevent the Communist Party from winning, , helping reactionary dictator Augusto Pinochet start a coup d'etat against the elected democratic socialist Salvador Allende, and backing a monarchist coup in the Republic of Iran, resulting in the creation of a brutal monarchist dictatorship, which was overthrown in the 1970s by a coalition of liberals, democratic socialists, Marxists, and Islamic fundamentalists. The Islamic fundamentalists won the ensuing power-struggle, and the authoritarian Islamic Republic of Iran was formed. This is only a few of the atrocities the CIA has committed.

The CIA generally has a bad reputation now, due to the various assassinations and attempted assassinations, and are widely blamed for any problems caused by any American intelligence agencies, whether they did them or not.

History and role in the US Intelligence Community

The USA has a larger than usual number of agencies with a mandate to be involved in Intelligence. Many other nation, like the United Kingdom, operate just three intelligence agencies, (1) a domestic intelligence agency, responsible for counter-intelligence, within its borders (MI-5 for the UK); (2) an agency that operates spies, overseas (MI-6 for the UK); and (3) an agency to intercept and decrypt messages sent by foreign countries, and aid other government agencies to prevent their messages being intercepted and/or decrypted (GCHQ for the UK).

In the United States the FBI has, traditionally, had the primary responsibility for domestic security -- capturing foreign spies operating within the USA, and capturing terrorists. However other agencies, like the Treasury Department's Secret Service, has overlapped this responsibility, when the suspected foreign agents are diplomats.

During World War 2 the FBI played a limited role in foreign intelligence. President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the creation of the Office of Special Services, a wartime agency modeled after the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive. When the OSS's wartime mandate ended President Harry Truman initiated the creation of a permanent agency, the CIA.

When it was created the Director of Central Intelligence was intended to not only preside over the CIA, he or she was intended to be the USA's most senior Intelligence officer, and the directors of the USA's other intelligence agencies were supposed to follow his or her direction.

In practice the DCI had no actual authority over the other agencies. The agencies within the US Intelligence community have a long tradition of keeping secrets from rival agencies. For instance the CIA was aware that some of the individuals who conducted al Qaeda's attacks on 9-11 were living clandestinely, in the USA, but they chose not to share this information with the FBI, the agency with the primary responsibility to prevent attacks like the 9-11 attack.

Another conflict was that, in theory, it was the Treasury Department's responsibility to track questionable funds transfers, that could be used to fund terrorist operations. But the CIA also tried to track these transactions. The CIA and DoD targetted many individuals who operated hawalas, but the 9-11 commission's report concluded that all the funds sent to the 9-11 hijackers were sent via traditional bank transfers.

After 9-11 a new Cabinet level department was created, the Department of National Security. He or she oversaw yet another intelligence agency, the Office of National Intelligence, and, in theory, the Director of National Security became the USA's most senior intelligence official.

In addition to the CIA, FBI, Treasury Department, and ONI, the National Security Agency is the USA's primary code and signal agency. The Drug Enforcement Agency also operates foreign agents. The USA also operates the National Reconaiscence Office. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and State Department all operated departments with intelligence responsibilities.