CIA Operations Directorate

The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service, is one of the smallest components of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the Directorate of Plans from 1951 to 1973; as the Directorate of Operations from 1973 to 2005; and as the National Clandestine Service (NCS) from 2005 to 2015.

The DO "serves as the clandestine arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the national authority for the coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the Intelligence Community of the United States". Under current policy (beginning early as 2012)^[ref], the Deputy Director for Operations' identity is not officially disclosed, although it is reported by some mainstream media sources to currently be Greg Vogel.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, a report by the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the report released by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, identified serious shortcomings in the Intelligence Community's HUMINT capabilities, ranging from the lack of qualified linguists to the lack of Community-wide information sharing. These efforts resulted in the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in 2004, which created the position of the Director of National Intelligence and tasked the CIA's Director with developing a "strategy for improving the human intelligence and other capabilities of the Agency."

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