Press Release

STRATCOM’s Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Formally Opens for Business

Director DIA and Commander USSTRATCOM cut ribbon

Washington D.C. - September 13, 2006

As invited guests watched a symbolic ribbon being digitally cut on a plasma screen, U. S. Army Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance declared the JFCC-ISR officially “open for business” today on Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D. C.

The JFCC-ISR mission is to develop strategies and plans; integrate national, DoD and international partner capabilities and execute DoD ISR operations to satisfy combatant command and national operational and intelligence requirements. It is one of four joint functional component commands under the U.S. Strategic Command.

Following the high-tech ribbon cutting, Lt. Gen. Maples was joined by Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence) Dr. Stephen A. Cambone; U.S. Marine Corps General James E. Cartwright, Commander, U.S. STRATCOM; and Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby (U.S. Navy, retired), former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to physically cut the ribbon to the JFCC-ISR operation center.

In a mere 14 months the state-of-the-art operation center went from design to occupation. The center boasts robust communications with both operations and intelligence communities. JFCC-ISR increases DoD’s capabilities to manage its many functions that are either new or that were previously divided among other commands and agencies. Mission teams throughout the military services and intelligence community have been or are being established and co-located for comprehensive ISR support and situational awareness to the combatant commands.

General Cartwright turned to the Director, Defense Intelligence Agency in late 2004 to operate the JFCC-ISR following a STRATCOM assessment of its roles and missions.

The JFCC-ISR attained initial operating capability on May 31st, 2005. Since then, it has operated an operations center and worked to become an integral component of the recently established Defense Joint Intelligence Operations Center.

As part of the DJIOC, the JFCC-ISR is responsible for coordinating global intelligence actions to address worldwide operations and national intelligence requirements. It will serve as the epicenter for planning, execution and assessment of the military’s global Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) operations; a key enabler to achieving global situational awareness.

The JFCC-ISR will also advise STRATCOM in its role as joint advocate within the Intelligence Community for ISR assets and for future capabilities. It will work to better integrate Department of Defense and Intelligence Community ISR planning to better support Combatant Command mission accomplishment.

DIA is the nation’s premier all-source military intelligence organization.

It provides the nation’s most authoritative assessments of foreign military intentions and capabilities. The agency’s four core competencies -- human intelligence, all-source analysis, counterintelligence and technical intelligence -- enable military operations while also informing policy-makers at the defense and national levels.

DIA’s mission is unique and no other agency matches its military expertise across such a broad range of intelligence disciplines.