IC Ineffectiveness

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is like a symphony orchestra: each entity offers its own sound to the greater score, and led by the conductor at the front, the President. Intelligence, like music, is an art and a science. Each organization has its own specialty: the Central Intelligence Agency specializes in Human Intelligence, the NSA specializes in Signals Intelligence, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office specialize in Imagery Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency is responsible for the intelligence gathered by military entities; there is a myriad of other agencies in the alphabet soup of the IC at every level of government: federal, state, and local, which each have their own responsibilities and specialties. As the Commander in Chief and head of the executive branch, the President leads the IC in carrying out their missions and operations. Unlike music, the IC does not let their sound be heard: only those with the “need to know” are ever allowed to experience the inner workings of the IC. …show more content…
Is the IC ineffective? No, not always. the Osama Bin Laden raid, perhaps the most highly prolific military operation this century thus far, was deemed a huge success, and could not have been pulled off as smoothly as it did if it were not for the collaboration of the IC, and showed the government, the nation, and the world the maximum effectiveness of the IC: they kept a high profile target and highly sensitive plans under wraps for a long period of time, and conducted intelligence operations for even longer to ensure that the operation could go as well as it did. Is the IC effective as it could be? Again, no, not always, but it is unrealistic to expect an organization to run on maximum effectiveness for a prolonged