DIA Chief: "No Surprises"

It is "to insure that the Department of Defense and policy makers here in Washington are not surprised by events going on around the globe," says Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, the Director of the Agency.

DIA still has to stay on top of numerous complicated issues, like "the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, what were doing to support troops in Iraq, and the war on terrorism in terms of fighting al Qaida," says Burgess.

Developing a true picture of a threat is important. He says today the intelligence community has to be careful to deliver an accurate picture.

Among the challenges facing DIA in it's quest to do that are balancing collection activities without running afoul of civil liberties.

"We need to be informing as we have discussion in this country because in a democratic society its important to have good dialogue on items that affect our civil liberty whether it be the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law, whether it be how we're going to do in terms of discussing in terms of following the threat and how that may affect out civil liberties," says General Ronald Burgess.

At the same time the aggressive nature of terrorism today, as indicated by the hundreds of terror attacks around the world this year requires, DIA wants to take a proactive approach tracking threats. But Burgess points out, "I've only got so many tools in my tool box to do my job."

Often the legal restrictions can cause significant heartburn to intelligence community professionals who are watching the threats, but can't act.

Intelligence gathering is DIA's life's blood and having analysts who can make sense of the intel and stand by their analysis is a top priority.

Burgess says, "we put our analysts through a very rigorous set of training to ensure that when we come out with a reasoned assessment that it will withstand what I call the hostile audit."

Their plan is to "speak truth to power."