National Intelligence Council

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The National Intelligence Council (NIC) is the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the United States Intelligence Community (IC). It was formed in 1979. According to its official website:

It leads the IC's effort to produce National Intelligence Estimates and other documents;
It supports (and reports to) the Director of National Intelligence;
It serves as a focal point for policymaker's questions;
It contributes to the effort to allocate IC resources in response to policy changes; and
It communicates with experts in academia and the private sector to broaden the IC's perspective;

The NIC's goal is to provide policymakers with the best information: unvarnished, unbiased and without regard to whether the analytic judgments conform to current U.S. policy.

One of the NICs most important analytical projects is a Global Briefing. Produced every five years, the Global Briefing assesses critical drivers and scenarios for future global outcomes over a 15 year time horizon. The Global Briefing provides a basis for long-rang strategic policy assessment for the White House and the intelligence community. The NICs most recent Global Briefing, Mapping the Global Future: 2020 was released in 2005.

On February 2, 2007, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Intelligence Council released the Iraq National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) - "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead" Unclassified Key Judgments.

[edit] Organization

As of 2005, the Chairman of the NIC is Thomas Fingar, who had previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) at the US Department of State. The Vice Chairman of the NIC is David Gordon, previously Director of the Office of Transnational Issues (OTI) at the Central Intelligence Agency. There is also a Vice Chairman for Evaluation, a Director of Strategic Plans and Outreach, a Director of Analysis and Production Staff, a Special Advisor, and National Intelligence Officers (NIOs) and Deputy National Intelligence Officer for each of the following areas and subject matters: