The Defense Intelligence Agency is a Department of Defense combat support agency and an important member of the United States Intelligence Community. With more than 16,500 military and civilian employees worldwide, DIA is a major producer and manager of foreign military intelligence. It provides military intelligence to warfighters, defense policymakers and force planners, in the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, in support of U.S. military planning and operations and weapon systems acquisition.
The Director of DIA is a three-star military officer who serves as principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense and to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters of military intelligence. The Director also chairs the Military Intelligence Board, which coordinates activities of the defense intelligence community.
DIA is headquartered at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., with major operational activities at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center (DIAC), Washington, D.C., the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), Frederick, Maryland, and the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), Huntsville, Alabama.
Its workforce is as diverse as its missions. It possess a workforce skilled in the areas of military history and doctrine, economics, physics, chemistry, world history, political science, bio-sciences, and computer sciences to name a few.
The mission of the DIA is to satisfy the military and military-related intelligence requirements of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the DNI, and provide the military intelligence contribution to national foreign intelligence and counterintelligence. It plans, manages, and executes intelligence operations during peacetime, crisis, and war. It serves as the DoD lead for coordinating intelligence support to meet COCOM requirements; lead efforts to align analysis, collection, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) activities with all operations; and link and synchronize Military, Defense, and National Intelligence capabilities.[1]