Clapper Pushes Integration While Asserting Realistic View of IC Budget Situation #geoint2011

During his years at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and later at the Pentagon, Jim Clapper,  currently the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), admitted his organizations were lucky to be awash with money earmarked for the intelligence-gathering technology and replete with the personnel to carry out the mission.  Times have changed but the mission still grows and demands on geospatial intelligence are still exploding.

"What I'm pushing…it's integration," said Clapper. "GEOINT provides foundational the base over which all other intelligence can be overlaid...It makes for a better product for decision makers whether they are sitting in a fox hole or in the White House."

Clapper laid out his strategy that includes integration in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Horizontal in that information must flow across the intelligence communities (IC); and vertical in the sense that integration must be about engaging with state, local, private, and tribal sectors, and it must also apply to those in the allied forces.

But the IC faces the reality of bulging national debt which itself threatens national security. "We are all going to have to give at the office," said Clapper. Clapper said that, coincidentally, today his budget was submitted to the Office of Management and Budget. It includes double digits cuts in the billions over the next 10 yrs. "We are going to have to reduce our contractor profile...We're all going to have to share in the pain," he said.

In a frank discussion with President Obama, Clapper told Obama that this is a litmus test for the Office of the DNI indicating that these budget cuts might signal that the office was in jeopardy of surviving. But it appears that Clapper wants to fulfill the mission of the Office of the DNI.

An area where there is huge potential in getting savings is integrating IT. "If there is an area where we can bring about efficiencies and savings, that's it," he said. He mentioned that while cloud computing is certainly one solution, "an enabler" it's not a panacea. Clapper is focusing on eliminating redundancies within IT and said he will deliver his implementation plan this December. Paraphrasing New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford Clapper said, "We are running out of money so now we must begin to think."

"Yes, we have a challenge but we'll get through this one too. I'm very proud of what geospatial intelligence has done or is doing," said Clapper.

But sounding a note of caution he said that "Contractors will contribute in the future but at the same time we have been luxuriously funded over the last 10 years. When I was at NGA in those dark days after 9/11, we rapidly expanded the workforce by brining on contractors; perhaps we didn't do that as efficiently as we could have."