The Intelligence Community After 9/11

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Intelligence has come a long way since the time around 1,000 B.C. as Egyptian hieroglyphs have revealed and will only continue to grow far into the future. The Intelligence community (IC) will run into challenges far into the future but over the next several years it will be budgetary restructuring/cuts, cyber security implementation, and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction because a transitional phase within the United States will impact intelligence operations. The intelligence community is likely to transition back to its pre-9/11 requirements thus hindering or withdrawing post 9/11 implementations and requirements.
The intelligence community has been the number one priority since 9/11 and has received the most in budgetary support but is likely to face a cut back due to the end of operations in Iraq and the dwindling operations in Afghanistan. According to the Washington Post, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper is worried that a rerun of federal budget cuts will hinder overall intelligence operations as it did in the 1990s. This is in reference to sequestration and for the intelligence community it is more common to send employees on Furloughs to save money versus letting them go due to budget cuts (Davidson April 9, 2013). In 2010 the IC received $86.63 billion and over the last three years they have seen a decrease in support by $13.47 billion and does not take into account sequestration. This same decline occurred in the ‘90s just as indicated by DNI James Clapper and was cut from about $45 billion to about $37 billion and then took a significant spike during the time of 9/11 (Erwin, & Belasco). Also, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn testified to the House Armed Services Committee...

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...pril 27, 2014).
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Pellerin, Cheryl . "United States Department of Defense." Defense.gov News Article: Officials: Cuts, Unstable Budget Threaten Intelligence Mission. http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=119404 (accessed April 27, 2014).
"The Global Challenge of WMD Terrorism." The Whitehouse. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/65477.pdf (accessed April 27, 2014).
Wilshusen, Gregory. "Cyber Security: A Better Defined and Implemented National Strategy Is Needed to Address Persistent Challenges." United States Government Accountability Office. http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/652817.pdf (accessed April 27, 2014.

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