Pentagon's Intelligence Authority Widens

Fact Sheet Details Secretive Agency's Growth From Focus on Policy to Counterterrorism

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 19, 2005; Page A10

The Pentagon's newest counterterrorism agency, charged with protecting military facilities and personnel wherever they are, is carrying out intelligence collection, analysis and operations within the United States and abroad, according to a Pentagon fact sheet on the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, provided to The Washington Post.

CIFA is a three-year-old agency whose size and budget remain secret. It has grown from an agency that coordinated policy and oversaw the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies to an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority.