Everyone and everything has to be someplace. The leadership of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) uses that phrase to summarize its mission. If you’re not sure what geospatial-intelligence or the NGA is, don’t feel left out. Despite efforts in recent years to upgrade its profile and eliminate the shroud of secrecy surrounding its work, the NGA remains a mysterious, little-known federal agency.

Both a DoD combat support agency and a member of the intelligence community, the NGA provides “timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security.” In other words, the NGA combines layers of data gleaned from mapping, charting, and geodesy with intelligence information and analysis to create useful data about an area from a national security perspective. That information then might be used to show special operations forces where a potential enemy is hiding or create a 3-D map to help guide a pilot through a successful mission. The U.S. forces that captured Saddam Hussein in his underground lair this past December could have carried NGA products, says Brig. Gen. Dale Waters, USAF, director for Military Support and Operations for the NGA. He can’t be more definitive; the need for security wins the tug-of-war between secrecy and increased visibility for the NGA. “I do know that teams operating in Iraq routinely pull our products and have them in hand,” says Waters.

An uneasy marriage

NGA includes a combination of mapping and imagery analysis functions that previously were part of four separate organizations—the former Defense Mapping Agency, the CIA’s Central Imagery Office, the Defense Dissemination Program Office, and the National Photographic Interpretation Center—which were combined in the mid-1990s to increase support to U.S. troops. Imagery units from the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the CIA also joined what now is known as NGA.

The early years of this marriage between mapping technicians and imagery analysts did not always go smoothly. “It was not an easy fit,” says Waters. “Both groups used the same tools but had little else in common.” Even the agency’s original name, National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), reflected the uneasy compromise struck between the groups, with both wanting their mission focus in the agency name.

A new identity

A few years after its creation, NIMA carried the dubious distinction of being one of the most studied government agencies. A comprehensive report issued in December 2000 concluded, “The promise of converging mapping with imagery exploitation into a unified geospatial information service is yet to be realized,” while noting that NIMA had inherited “two disparate cultures, an expanding mission, and inadequate resources.”

With that in mind, one might wonder what would prompt a retired three-star general to take on the challenge of becoming the agency’s first civilian leader as it moved into the new century. Thirty-two years in the Air Force wasn’t enough for Lt. Gen. James Clapper Jr., USAF-Ret., who has strong family ties to public service and the intelligence community (see “A Family Affair,” page 57). But even Clapper did not foresee the ultimate challenge that lay ahead when he agreed in 2001 to lead the still-evolving NIMA.

Clapper assumed command Sept. 13, 2001. Unable to take a plane to his swearing in because all flights remained grounded after the terrorist attack, he drove all night to reach Washington, D.C. “It was a daunting time to walk in the door,” says Clapper. “It caused me to quickly learn a lot about this agency and what it does.”

After two years, Clapper recommended the name change from NIMA to NGA to demonstrate his conviction that the agency successfully had merged mapping and imagery, internally called “fusing the legacy elements.”

“The director spent a lot of time traveling within and outside the agency to promote the new name,” says Waters, who attributes the name’s rapid acceptance to Clapper’s “firm and consistent message.” The agency’s new name, NGA, took effect Nov. 24, 2003.

Galvanizing moments

The influence of Sept. 11 and continued military operations in the Middle East on the effective merger of mapping and imagery analysis is not lost on NGA leadership. “Any time you have people in harm’s way, that speeds change,” says Waters, who also says NGA employees now see how valuable their products can be in the hands of U.S. troops. Clapper made a corporate decision to throw maximum weight at assisting military servicemembers when he became agency director.

Recent real-world use of NGA products bolsters the agency’s understanding of its critical role on today’s battlefields. Although NGA officials can speak only in general terms about their products, Waters points to agency success in correcting press reports that implied Baghdad, Iraq, was burning as a result of coalition bombing March 2003. “We were able to show these were set fires,” says Waters. Before the bombing, Hussein’s forces lit the oil trenches around Baghdad to obscure the view from incoming aircraft.

NGA analyzed dams and other infrastructure in Iraq, developing predictions of possible flood patterns. Accurate imagery in the hands of decision makers “allowed [U.S. troops] to make decisions about where to go, when to go, and how to go,” says Waters.

On the front lines

Traditionally, mapmakers and imagery analysts safely remain far from the battle front, but the challenge of fighting wars in the 21st century is changing that. Just 12 years ago, in the first Gulf War, troops ordered paper maps to carry into battle. In 2003, before a single U.S. servicemember set foot in the sand for Operation Iraqi Freedom, NGA distributed portable hard drives with NGA data and products to every major command-and-control element.

NGA sent more than hard drives into the field—up to 90 of its personnel at a time deployed to Iraq. These NGA support teams, small groups of one to five analysts, bring technical capabilities that allow them to “reach back” to the 14,000 NGA personnel in the United States for additional support. “When forces move forward, NGA teams move forward with them,” says Waters.

These teams, which include a combination of active duty servicemembers, civilian government workers, and private contractors, represent “a new paradigm of sending all these forces together into a hostile environment,” says Waters, who recently pinned the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart on an NGA team member wounded in the 2003 bombing of Baghdad’s al-Rashid Hotel

When deployed, NGA team members sit side-by-side with soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines to provide custom geospatial intelligence products, such as planning graphics, escape and evasion routes, and 3-D fly-through depictions of sensitive areas. Some NGA teams in Iraq use one of the agency’s latest innovations, the mobile integrated geospatial intelligence system, a self-sustaining suite of equipment, life support, and transportation mounted on two humvees.

Waters describes the response to NGA’s direct battlefield support as “beyond good.” As military commanders, now more familiar with NGA’s capabilities, move from assignments in Iraq to other locations, such as the Southern or Pacific commands, “they want more [NGA support], and we’re struggling a bit to resource and organize so we can provide all that the warfighters want,” says Waters.

On the homefront

The increasing recognition of the important real-world role that NGA can play has not been lost on the front lines of the domestic war on terror in the United States. You won’t find NGA teams like those in Iraq working with first responders in the United States, but they maintain a presence through advanced imagery analysis and liaisons with the Department of Homeland Security and many of its subordinate elements, including the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Secret Service. “We support a lot of events from a security and planning point of view,” says Waters.

For example, during planning for memorial services in New York City on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, NGA technology exposed a potential security issue when the agency created a virtual 3-D view of the subway tunnels directly below the proposed memorial site. Waters also points to NGA support of the Secret Service and public venues during high-exposure events for security purposes. “We can put specialized products in the hands of those who need them,” he says, stressing that all such requests are subject to an intelligence oversight review by policy and legal offices.

The agency also has an active partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey to coordinate geospatial data acquisition issues. Commercial imagery is unclassified and easy to use for combat information needs as well as border disputes, environmental issues, and public diplomacy.

Unlocking information

Before assuming his position at NGA in the fall of 2003, Waters was flying combat missions in Iraq as commander of the 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. “As an operator flying strike aircraft, I’ve used the products produced by NGA,” says Waters, who thinks this is a key reason he was selected to manage military operations for NGA. As a pilot, Waters describes flying low-level missions at 500 knots while trying to look at a flat map and determine what lies below as an art form that will benefit from emerging technologies to provide pilots with detailed images before launching a mission.

“You can imagine the value of putting people in a situation ahead of time, from situational awareness to all realms of safety issues,” says Waters. He characterizes the current status of NGA as “a journey, not a destination.”

Thinking about the days before mapping and imagery joined together, Waters recalls an era when protecting the means of collecting the information was more important than anything else. “As an aircrew member, I was not privy to the ‘good stuff.’ There was a lot of resentment and a lot of closed doors.”

That era is gone. The cloaks have come off some systems and capabilities. “That doesn’t mean you can walk down the street and put your hands on classified intelligence material,” says Waters. “But we have made huge strides in putting the right stuff into the hands of the warfighter.”