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NCTC--Intelligence. The NCTC should lead strategic analysis,
pooling all-source intelligence, foreign and domestic, about transna-
tional terrorist organizations with global reach. It should develop net
assessments (comparing enemy capabilities and intentions against
U.S. defenses and countermeasures). It should also provide warning.
It should do this work by drawing on the efforts of the CIA, FBI,
Homeland Security, and other departments and agencies. It should
task collection requirements both inside and outside the United
States.
· The intelligence function (J-2) should build on the existing TTIC
structure and remain distinct, as a national intelligence center, within
the NCTC. As the government's principal knowledge bank on
Islamist terrorism, with the main responsibility for strategic analysis and
net assessment, it should absorb a significant portion of the analytical
talent now residing in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and the DIA's
Joint Intelligence Task Force--Combatting Terrorism (JITF-CT).
NCTC--Operations. The NCTC should perform joint planning.
The plans would assign operational responsibilities to lead agencies,
such as State, the CIA, the FBI, Defense and its combatant commands,
Homeland Security, and other agencies.The NCTC should not direct
the actual execution of these operations, leaving that job to the agen-
cies. The NCTC would then track implementation; it would look
across the foreign-domestic divide and across agency boundaries,
updating plans to follow through on cases.
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· The joint operational planning function (J-3) will be new to the TTIC
structure.The NCTC can draw on analogous work now being done
in the CIA and every other involved department of the government,
as well as reaching out to knowledgeable officials in state and local
agencies throughout the United States.
· The NCTC should not be a policymaking body. Its operations and
planning should follow the policy direction of the president and the
National Security Council.
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THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT
Consider this hypothetical case.The NSA discovers that a suspected ter-
rorist is traveling to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. The NCTC should
draw on joint intelligence resources, including its own NSA counter-
terrorism experts, to analyze the identities and possible destinations of
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