Dear Intelligence Professional:

Our nation and its Intelligence Community stand at transitional moments in history.  President-elect Obama and his team will have different priorities and likely a different world view from the previous Administration.  Among many important policy issues, our nation’s involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror may change significantly. 

For its part, the Intelligence Community will face a more challenging budget environment, even as the costs of the efforts in Iraq an Afghanistan move from supplemental appropriations to “base” budget appropriations.  A new Congress, the 111th, will bring its own thinking to our nation’s interests and the shape of the Intelligence Community.  The Community itself will be taking into account changes since passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and moves to integrate more closely the work of the Director of National Intelligence with the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.  New technologies have been brought to the Community, even as the Community has sought to rebuild “traditional” intelligence tradecraft used to obtain Human Intelligence.   

The AFCEA Spring Intelligence Symposium will provide the opportunity to take stock of these changes and the road ahead.  The Symposium will start with presentations from agency leaders, present and former.   This will be followed by three focused sessions.  The first will showcase key staff members from the Hill and their views on the state of U.S. Intelligence and the implications of tighter budgets.  The second session will look at prospective changes in the arena of military intelligence.  The final session will explore the changing nature of the public/private partnership.  

We hope you will join us in the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center (DIAC), Bolling AFB, Washington, DC, on April 22-23, 2009, for this important event.

MG Roderick Isler, USA (Ret.) Consultant

Dr. William Nolte Research Professor Director, Center for Intelligence Research and Education School of Public Policy University of Maryland