Title: India: Defense Intelligence Agency to Start in February 2002 Document Number: FBIS-NES-2002-0130 Document Type: Daily Report Document Title: FBIS Transcribed Text Document Region: Near East/South Asia Document Date: 30 Jan 2002 Division: South Asia Subdivision: India Sourceline: SAP20020130000063 New Delhi The Asian Age in English 30 Jan 02 pp 1, 2 AFS Number: SAP20020130000063 Citysource: New Delhi The Asian Age Language: English N/A Subslug: Report by Asit Jolly [FBIS Transcribed Text] Chandigarh, Jan 29: India's Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] has finally been formulated as part of an overhaul of the country's inadequate information gathering apparatus to meet new challenges posed by the 21st century. Defense sources said the government would formally announce the setting up of the DIA later this week under the command of Lt. Gen. Kamal Davar, at present director-general (mechanized forces) at Army Headquarters. The new organization has been created in accordance with the recommendations of the group of ministers (headed by Union home minister L.K. Advani) last year following the undetected Pakistani intrusions into Kargil in May 1999. The DIA's structure is also believed to include suggestions made by the US military following high-level deliberations earlier this month with US Vice-Admiral Thomas R. Wilson, who heads the American DIA. US and Indian military intelligence and counter-terrorism officials and undercover technicians met in New Delhi on January 21 and 22 to exchange information and share expertise in border management as part of growing bilateral defense and security relations. Adm. Wilson, heading an eight-member team, also visited Kashmir to assess the security situation there following the deployment of over one million Indian and Pakistani soldiers along their 3,312 km border. Other than sharing military intelligence, Adm. Wilson also offered India advice on establishing its tri-service DIA as part of overhauling its defense apparatus. He also discussed ways of formalizing intelligence-sharing on Islamic terrorism with the director-general of Military Intelligence, Lt. Gen. O.S. Lochab. The DIA is one of several changes in India's defense and security apparatus based on proposals made by four task forces established after the Kargil debacle. They reviewed the country's intelligence, internal security, defense and border management and their recommendations were distilled to become the GoM report based on which the changes are being implemented. The intelligence task force, headed by Jammu and Kashmir governor G.C. Saxena, who is also the former head of Research and Analysis Wing [RAW], focused on upgrading the country's technical, imaging, signals, electronic, counter-intelligence and economic intelligence gathering capabilities. They also suggested a "system-wide" revamp of humint (conventional human intelligence gathering) and assessment procedures. Official sources said the DIA headed by Gen. Davar will coordinate the directorates of military (Army), naval and Air Force intelligence which have, for decades, been locked in inter-service rivalries and, rarely, if at all, share information vital to operational preparedness. Under the prevailing system, the director-general of Military Intelligence [DGMI] receives intelligence inputs - which are limited and often of little real value - from various agencies including the Intelligence Bureau, and its overseas counterpart RAW. RAW is the principal provider of information to military and paramilitary forces on any extraordinary troop movements in the region, drawing up projections for six-month periods with a 30-day warning of impending hostilities. These inputs are supplemented to some extent by local reports filed by the IB and the intelligence wings or the general branches of the BSF and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. At present RAW is reportedly providing weekly updates on the possibility of military conflict or skirmishes breaking out with Pakistan based on enemy troop movement and deployment patterns. Within the Army, brigade intelligence teams and intelligence and field security units report directly to the director-general of Military Intelligence - the largest military information gathering establishment. The DGMI also forwards its inputs to the relevant Army commands and forward formations. But unfortunately, the Military Intelligence [MI] directorate is staffed largely by disgruntled officers with limited prospects of promotion who invariably gather information of limited or questionable value. They also routinely attribute their inefficiency to a shortage of resources. Another major reason for the MI directorate's shockingly poor performance is that Army Headquarters has often employed its services as a propaganda wing to "manage" the media in order to conceal its own operational failures. This was most apparent during the Kargil conflict when the principal task of the MI directorate was to "organize" favorable coverage for the Army through pliable newspapers in order to cover up operational and intelligence failures. Alongside the DGMI, the Directorate of Air Intelligence and the Directorate of Naval Intelligence are also engaged in acquiring information concerning their own spheres of operation. But inter-service intelligence sharing has been highly selective on a "need-to-know" basis. Meanwhile, the country's apex intelligence coordinating establishment, the Joint Intelligence Committee, re-christened as the National Security Council Secretariat in 1999, is responsible for drawing up assessments based on inputs provided from various sources. But ever since its inception in the 1970s, the JIC, a sad victim of turf battles between RAW, Intelligence Bureau [IB] and MI, too has been rendered virtually ineffective. While the overall intelligence restructuring proposed by the GoM also envisages major changes giving the IB better "eyes" and "teeth" and a substantially leaner though more focused role for RAW, the DIA is being armed with more powers than any past military intelligence setup. Lt. Gen. Davar will act as the principal military intelligence adviser to both the defense minister and the newly established integrated defense staff raised last October to nurture "jointmanship" between the three single services and to reduce internecine skirmishes. Defense sources said the DIA will also be given the responsibility of executing cross-border operations and collecting tactical intelligence in neighboring nations by running its own agents. Notably, the DGMI's present writ to conduct intelligence missions is limited to a distance of only five km across the international border and the Line of Control [LoC]. The DIA, sources said, is also being given control of both the Signals Intelligence Directorate and the Defense Image Processing and Analysis Center [DIPAC]. DIPAC conducts functions broadly similar to those of RAW's Aerial Reconnaissance Center but through satellite imaging. The Sig Int Directorate decrypts foreign military communications and additionally monitors messages to and from terrorist groups operating in and around India. The DIA will also be involved in "intelligence support groups" run by IB and RAW in a revamped intelligence setup to provide comprehensive information to various Army Corps HQ, particularly those located in terrorist-prone areas. DIA field personnel will interact with RAW and IB operatives regularly as part of the new effort to formulate a hitherto absent "intelligence community." While officials feel the establishment of the DIA is a welcome step, they said that much of its success will depend upon the concomitant restructuring of IB and RAW. One officer felt a lot depends on the government's will and ability to provide requisite resources to complete the entire task of revamping India's intelligence setup. [Description of Source: New Delhi The Asian Age in English -- Independent daily with good coverage of military and security issues]